Definitions for "Capability Maturity Model"
Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model is a framework that defines the key elements of an effective software process. It describes an evolutionary improvement path from an ad hoc, immature process to a mature, disciplined process.
A model developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University that describes how organizations develop software. The model identifies five levels or steps organizations go through as they become more sophisticated in their use of process.. Level 1 organizations aren't effective in using processes. Level 5 organizations are mature in their use of process and routinely manage and improve processes. Most organizations fall between Level 2 and 3. We argue that the same general concepts that apply to software organizations apply to any organization that attempts to organize around business processes. ( www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm)
A process with five well-defined levels of sequential development: Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed and Optimizing developed by the software Engineering Institute in 1986 to help improve the application of an organization's supporting software technologies. These five maturity levels provide an ordinal scale for measuring the maturity, and therefore the capacity of, an organization's use of its software technologies. The levels also help prioritize an organization's software improvement efforts.