CMMI(R): Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement (2nd Edition) (SEI Series in Software Engineering)

CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) describes best practices for the development and maintenance of products and services across their entire lifecycle. By integrating essential bodies of knowledge, CMMI provides a single, comprehensive framework for organizations to assess their development and maintenance processes, implement improvements, and measure progress.

This book is a definitive reference for the most current release of CMMI (version 1.2). In the new edition, the authors have added tips, hints, and cross-references in the margins (in color) throughout the process areas to help you better understand, apply, and find more information about the content of the process areas. The book also now includes brief, insightful perspectives on CMMI written by people influential in the model’s creation, development, and transition. A new case study from Raytheon illustrates a real-world application of the model to a services organization. Whether you are new to CMMI or familiar with an earlier version, if you need to know about, evaluate, or put the latest version of CMMI into practice, this book is an essential resource.

The book is divided into three parts.

Part I offers the broad view of CMMI, beginning with basic concepts of process improvement. It describes the process areas, their components, and their relationships to each other. It explains the model’s two representations as well as paths to the adoption and use of CMMI for process improvement and benchmarking.

Part II, the bulk of the book, details the generic goals and practices and the twenty-two process areas now comprising CMMI. The process areas are organized alphabetically by acronym for easy look-up. Each chapter includes goals, best practices, and examples for a particular process area. The two CMMI representations are described so that you will easily see their similarities and differences and thereby be better able to choose the right approach for your organization.

Part III contains several useful resources, including CMMI-related references, acronym definitions, a glossary of terms, and an index.

Reasons to buy this book instead of obtaining the 'official documentation' from SEI (see ASIN B0000Y4PCA)include:

- Better organized. Finding specific information among the documents you can obtain from SEI can sometimes be a daunting task. Yes, it's complete, but there are multiple documents, and this book has distilled and organized all of the pertinent information between two covers.

- Case studies in this book add life to the material, and the overall writing style of all of the material in this book is more readable. The SEI document set includes some well-written material to be sure, but there is also dense text that is a chore to wade through from a readability standpoint.

For understanding the CMMI this book is one of the best, in my opinion. It gives the evolution of the CMMI from the earlier CMM models, discusses key benefits, and goes into details. However, if you already understand the CMMI, and are seeking information for implementation I recommend "Interpreting the CMMI: A Process Improvement Approach" (ISBN 0849316545). That book outlines how to implement the CMMI and provides a wealth of supporting material.


The Definitive CMMI Blueprint   March 15, 2006
R. Orenbaun
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I would have to say that the presentation of the material within this manual is one of the best I have seen. The first 5 chapters of the book provide an excellent introduction to the model, descriptions of the process areas and their relationships to one another, guidance for institutionalization and finally instruction on how to tie all this together. Chapter 6 provides some information on other models and their similarities and differences as compared to the CMMI. The case study in chapter 7 is a very useful overview of how the CMMI can be implemented in a real world scenario.
The rest of the book, some 450 pages, covers the integral details of the individual process areas, as well as the specific and generic goals and practices to fully implement the model. It can be information overload at first for the neophyte process engineer. However, once one is acclimated to the processes this manual will serve as a ready technical bible for guidance through the Process Improvement morass using CMMI.
Be advised though that nowhere in the CMMI, nor in this manual, is there any specific implementation instructions on how to actually execute an activity. For that one should look to the IEEE or ITIL libraries for templates and examples. Alternatively, if you are serious about CMMI and your goal is to achieve successful SCAMPI assessments; finding/hiring an experienced process engineer or consulting company to lead you or your team through this exercise is highly recommended.


The best CMMI reference yet!   May 15, 2003
Jeffrey L. Dutton (Huntsville, AL)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

This new text by Mary Beth Chrissis et al at the SEI sets a new standard in the SEI Series in Software Engineering. It is superbly organized, leading the reader through questions like "why should we do this, and what model should we chose?", to a complete discussion of the CMMI suite of models, and ending in a well written case study. The text also includes the complete V1.1 of the CMMI models. We were an "early adopter" of the CMMI, and now use this text as our basic reference.

Highly recommended for novices, seasoned practioners, and process professionals alike.


CMMI Second Edition   January 15, 2007
Blue Jeeper
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Much easier to use than the first edition. Should be more helpful to a beginner to the CMMI process.