SEI CMM Initiatives

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a Research and Development organization funded by the US Department of Defense with a charter to advance the practice of Software Engineering.

SEI developed a useful bench-marking process called the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). The CMM consists of a set of criteria to evaluate an organization's software development and maintenance efforts and considers, among other factors, the level to which processes are standardized and followed across an organization. The progression from an immature, unrepeatable software process (SEI-CMM™ Level 1) to a mature, well-managed software process (SEI-CMM™ Level 5) is described in terms of maturity levels in the model.

Level	Characteristics
5. Optimizing	Continuous Process Capability Improvement
4. Managed	Quantitative measurement of process
3. Defined	Software process defined and institutionalized
2. Repeatable	Project Management process institutionalized. Gaps in technical practices
1. Initial	Key Project Management and Tracking inconsistent

The SEI Software Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was adopted by e-Zest as a framework for continuous software-development-process improvement. The use of CMM enables an organization to steadily improve its organization-wide software processes to reap continuous and lasting gains in software-process capability. CMM helps a firm to identify the characteristics of effective software processes, which the firm, in turn, can tailor and apply to its own software processes in accordance with maturity level recommendations.

How can e-Zest's SEI CMM Level 5 Initiative help your partnership with e-Zest?

• An optimized and mature software development process
• Predictable deliverables from an overall quality perspective
• Technology Change Management
• Process Change Management
• Defect Prevention