THE WHATIS.COM WORD-OF-THE-DAY October 7, 2003 Capability Maturity Model
________________ SPONSORED BY: CA Unicenter(R) infrastructure management software INFRASTRUCTURE SELF-MANAGEMENT Unicenter infrastructure management software from CA enables your infrastructure to manage itself, enabling IT managers to focus more on the business of business - and not the business of maintenance. Unicenter ensures that your IT is always in sync with your business, so you can be more responsive than ever to a constantly changing marketplace. http://WhatIs.com/r/0,,18899,00.htm?track=NL-34&ca ________________ TODAY'S WORD: Capability Maturity Model See our complete definition with hyperlinks at http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci930057,00.html?track=NL-34 The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a methodology used to develop and refine an organization's software development process. The model describes a five-level evolutionary path of increasingly organized and systematically more mature processes. CMM was developed and is promoted by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). SEI was founded in 1984 to address software engineering issues and, in a broad sense, to advance software engineering methodologies. More specifically, SEI was established to optimize the process of developing, acquiring, and maintaining heavily software-reliant systems for the DoD. Because the processes involved are equally applicable to the software industry as a whole, SEI advocates industry-wide adoption of the CMM. The CMM is similar to ISO 9001, one of the ISO 9000 series of standards specified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO 9000 standards specify an effective quality system for manufacturing and service industries; ISO 9001 deals specifically with software development and maintenance. The main difference between the two systems lies in their respective purposes: ISO 9001 specifies a minimal acceptable quality level for software processes, while the CMM establishes a framework for continuous process improvement and is more explicit than the ISO standard in defining the means to be employed to that end. CMM's Five Maturity Levels of Software Processes: - At the initial level, processes are disorganized, even chaotic. Success is likely to depend on individual efforts, and is not considered to be repeatable, because processes would not be sufficiently defined and documented to allow them to be replicated. - At the repeatable level, basic project management techniques are established, and successes could be repeated, because the requisite processes would have been made established, defined, and documented. - At the defined level, an organization has developed its own standard software process through greater attention to documentation, standardization, and integration. - At the managed level, an organization monitors and controls its own processes through data collection and analysis. - At the optimizing level, processes are constantly being improved through monitoring feedback from current processes and introducing innovative processes to better serve the organization's particular needs. ______________________ RELATED TERMS: ISO 9000 http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci512546,00.html?track=NL-34 International Organization for Standardization http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci214046,00.html?track=NL-34 ______________________ SELECTED LINKS: SEI provides more information on their page, "Capability Maturity Model (SW-CMM) for Software." http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.sum.html Here's a look at "How ISO 9001 compares with the CMM." http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/papers/9001-cmm.pdf ______________________ TODAY'S TECH NEWS: ANALYST: HP'S OVERTURES TO SUN 'A MARKETING THING' An industry analyst opines on Hewlett-Packard's courtship of Sun Solaris customers; HP is offering a migration plan valued at close to $25,000. http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci930982,00.html?track=NL-34 IBM DELIVERS TWO NEW HIGH-END ZSERIES, REBATE IBM's high-end mainframe gets a boost with two new models and a rebate offering that's good news for blades, too. http://search390.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid10_gci930970,00.html?track=NL-34 ACTIONAL SELLS ADAPTER BUSINESS TO IWAY Actional has sold its adapter business for an undisclosed sum to iWay Software, the two companies announced today. Actional says it will now focus all of its attention on Web services management. http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid26_gci931072,00.html?track=NL-34 >> Catch up on all the latest IT news at http://searchtechtarget.techtarget.com/?track=NL-34 _____________________ LEARN IT IN 10 EASY STEPS | Systems Management Here's how it works: We give you a little background about systems management, a glossary to look up related terms, some outside reading, and a self-assessment quiz. You spend as much (or as little) time as you like moving through the ten steps and exploring the content. http://whatis.techtarget.com/content/0,290959,sid9_gci921919,00.html?track=NL-34 ______________________ SECRET WORD-OF-THE-DAY | What is IT? 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In the next few years, industry insiders expect on-demand computing to become the most popular enterprise computing model. >> Click here for white paper http://www3.ca.com/Files/WhitePapers/next_generation_ondemand_wp.pdf >> Browse all our white papers http://whatis.techtarget.com/guideToWhitePaper/0,294410,sid9,00.html?track=NL-34 ______________________________ RECENT ADDITIONS AND UPDATES [1] UCCnet http://search400.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid3_gci930408,00.html?track=NL-34 [2] Excel http://search400.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid3_gci930155,00.html?track=NL-34 [3] virtual private LAN service http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci929892,00.html?track=NL-34 [4] penetration testing http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci929671,00.html?track=NL-34 [5] Capability Maturity Model http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci930057,00.html?track=NL-34 ____________________________________________________________________ ::::::::::::::::::: WHATIS.COM CONTACTS ::::::::::::::::::: MARGARET ROUSE, Site Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) IVY WIGMORE, Consulting Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) LOWELL THING, Consulting Editor and Founder ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ::::::::::::::::::::: ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER :::::::::::::::::::::: This newsletter is published by TechTarget, the most targeted IT media. http://www.techtarget.com?track=NL-34 Copyright 2003 TechTarget. 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