Software Engineering Institute

The CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) Interpretive Guidance project was formed to help commercial software, information technology (IT), and information systems (IS) organizations adopt CMMI. Project members collected data to learn more about how CMMI is being accepted by these organizations. This report describes the data-collection activities and includes summaries of the data collected through August 2003. 

The project received both positive and negative comments that lead to some interesting and surprising observations. Overall, the positive comments greatly outnumbered the negative. Input provided by commercial software, IT, and IS organizations was similar to input from organizations from other disciplines. 

Organizations reported that CMMI is adequate for guiding their process improvement activities and that CMMI training courses and appraisal methods are suitable for their needs, although there are specific opportunities for improvement. Having two representations caused concern and confusion for some but was a benefit for others, so the project will investigate these comments further to see what can be done to address these concerns. The cost of CMMI is an issue that affected adoption decisions for some but not for others. Finally, return-on-investment information is usually helpful to organizations when making the business case to adopt CMMI.