Mark C. Paulk

Capability maturity model, version 1.1

The capability maturity model (CMM), developed to present sets of recommended practices in a number of key process areas that have been shown to enhance software-development and maintenance capability, is discussed. The CMM was designed to help developers select process-improvement strategies by determining their current process maturity and identifying the issues most critical to improving their software quality and process. The initial release of the CMM, version 1.0, was reviewed and used by the software community during 1991 and 1992. A workshop on CMM 1.0, held in April 1992, was attended by about 200 software professionals. The current version of the CMM is the result of the feedback from that workshop and ongoing feedback from the software community. The technical report that describes version 1.1. is summarised.<<ETX>>

Software quality and the Capability Maturity Model

A bout the time Fred Brooks was warning us there was not likely to be a single, “silver bullet” solution to the essential difficulties of developing software [3], Watts Humphrey and others at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) were busy putting together the set of ideas that was to become the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Software. The CMM adopted the opposite of the quick-fix silver bullet philosophy. It was intended to be a coherent, ordered set of incremental improvements, all having experienced success in the field, packaged into a roadmap that showed how effective practices could be built on one another in a logical progression (see “The Capability Maturity Model for Software” sidebar). Far from a quick fix, it was

Extreme programming from a CMM perspective

Extreme Programming has been advocated recently as an appropriate programming method for the high-speed, volatile world of Internet and Web software development. The author reviews XP from the pers...

How ISO 9001 compares with the CMM

Organizations concerned with ISO 9001 certification often question its overlap with the Software Engineering Institutes Capability Maturity Model (CMM). The author looks at 20 clauses in ISO 9001 and maps them to practices in the CMM. The analysis provides answers to some common questions about the two documents. >

A Comparison of ISO 9001 and the Capability Maturity Model for Software

The Capability Maturity Model for Software developed by the Software Engineering Institute and the ISO 9000 series of standards developed by the International Standards Organization share a common concern with quality and process management. The two are driven by similar concerns and are intuitively correlated. The purpose of this paper is to compare the CMM and ISO 9001. The results of the analysis indicate that, although an ISO 9001 compliant organization would not necessarily satisfy all of the level 2 key process areas, it would satisfy most of the level 2 goals and many of the level 3 goals.

The Impact of Design and Code Reviews on Software Quality: An Empirical Study Based on PSP Data

This research investigates the effect of review rate on defect removal effectiveness and the quality of software products, while controlling for a number of potential confounding factors. Two data sets of 371 and 246 programs, respectively, from a personal software process (PSP) approach were analyzed using both regression and mixed models. Review activities in the PSP process are those steps performed by the developer in a traditional inspection process. The results show that the PSP review rate is a significant factor affecting defect removal effectiveness, even after accounting for developer ability and other significant process variables. The recommended review rate of 200 LOC/hour or less was found to be an effective rate for individual reviews, identifying nearly two-thirds of the defects in design reviews and more than half of the defects in code reviews.

Creating a software process improvement program

Abstract The reasons that underlie the emergence of a software process movement in the mid-1980s are discussed. A brief overview of the Capability Maturity Model for Software developed at the Software Engineering Institute is provided. The article then describes how this model can be used to guide software process improvement programs. Some components of such programs are describe.

The ARC Network: A Case StudY

Designed around the VAX and developed for ballistic missile defense systems, this network offers error-free message passing and can absorb overhead unacceptable to general-purpose networks.

An approach to improving software inspections performance

Software inspections allow finding and removing defects close to their point of injection and are considered a cheap and effective way to detect and remove defects. A lot of research work has focused on understanding the sources of variability and improving software inspections performance. In this paper we studied the impact of inspection review rate in process performance. The study was carried out in an industrial context effort of bridging the gap from CMMI level 3 to level 5. We supported a decision for process change and improvement based on statistical significant information. Study results led us to conclude that review rate is an important factor affecting code inspections performance and that the applicability of statistical methods was useful in modeling and predicting process performance.

Quantitative Analysis of Best Practices Models in the Software Domain

Organizations are adopting multiple best practices models to improve overall performance. Their objective is to capture the cumulative added value of each model into one single environment. These multimodel environments raise several challenges, selection and composition of models are not straightforward tasks. This paper proposes an approach to help address these challenges by comparing models at a quantitative level. We propose a characterization of size of a model as a measure of scope coverage and detail of descriptions when compared to a reference model and model complexity in terms of architectural structural connectedness. An example of applying the proposed approach is described in an Industrial context where a multimodel process solution was evolved from CMMI-Dev level 3 to level 5.