- 3.1 An Overview of CMMI
- 3.2 CMMI Objectives
- 3.3 The Three Source Models
- 3.4 CMMI Project Organization
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
3.4 CMMI Project Organization
During the development phase that led to the initial CMMI materials, the project was organized in terms of a Steering Group, a Product Development Team, and a Stakeholder Group. In all, it involved the efforts of more than 200 people over a period of more than six years. The three groups comprised representatives from industry, government, and the SEI. Representatives of the disciplines whose models were to be integrated into CMMI were included in all three groups.
The Steering Group produced a list of requirements for CMMI, which was then reviewed by the Stakeholder Group and subsequently used by the Product Development Team to guide its creation of the CMMI products. The Product Development Team was a cross-disciplinary group created for the initial development work; it was charged with ensuring that the viewpoints and interests of each discipline were adequately considered in the integration process. The Stakeholder Group reviewed the initial draft CMMI materials, with its work being followed by a public review of a second round of draft materials, prior to the release of version 1.0 in late 2000. Taking advantage of early feedback from version 1.0 users, and responding to more than 1500 change requests, version 1.1 of the Product Suite was released in 2002.
The cross-disciplinary team that produced the initial CMMI models included members with backgrounds in software engineering, systems engineering, and integrated product and process development. Most engineering organizations maintain these skills, but the manner in which they are aligned and interact varies across organizations. Thus the CMMI Team not only had to resolve differences between the three source models, but also had to bridge the cultural, linguistic, and professional differences separating engineering specialties and organizations. The bridges that had to be built in constructing the CMMI models serve as precursors of those that users of the models will need to construct to successfully support integrated process improvement and process appraisal.
During the CMMI development effort, the CMMI Team actively sought to keep balanced membership across the three disciplines. This move was supported by the strong interest espoused by the software and systems engineering communities. Thanks to the wide acceptance of the CMM Software, strong advocacy was provided by the SEI and organizations that had used the model, understood its value, and wanted to see that value preserved in the integrated CMMI models. Likewise, in the systems engineering world, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) advocated inclusion of systems engineering practices. Even the integrated product and process development community was represented on the CMMI Team, albeit with members voicing a somewhat wider range of views on how integrated product and process development should be handled than did the more established discipline representatives. In the end, this team of experienced and active people, each of whom brought his or her specific expertise and preferences to the table, came together to create the CMMI product suite.
Once the development phase of the initial CMMI product suite was complete, a new organizational structure was established (see Figure 3-2). That is, the CMMI Team evolved into the CMMI Product Team that exists today. This team has access to expert groups for software, systems engineering, integrated product and process development, supplier sourcing, appraisals, and the core CMMI components. A configuration control board was established to guide CMMI evolution, and the SEI was named as the Steward of the CMMI Product Suite. In its role as Steward, SEI is responsible for maintenance and support of CMMI. As time goes on, new cross-functional teams of experts will be required to handle revisions of existing products and the subsequent work of adding disciplines to the CMMI framework such as the Services Constellation Team and the Acquisition Constellation Team.
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Figure 3-2 Current CMMI project organization