Capability maturity model proves valuable in weapons system development, fielding.

• Author: Rassa, Bob
• Position: NDIA News - National Defense Industrial Association - Brief Article

In the late 1980s, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), of Carnegie Mellon University, developed and fielded the Software Capability Maturity Model[R] for software process improvement, sponsored by the Defense Department. Over the last decade, this model has been successfully implemented by companies and government organizations worldwide, and tremendous improvements in software cost, schedule and delivered errors have been achieved and documented.

These successes have spawned a number of similar maturity models for other engineering and non-engineering disciplines, such as systems engineering, integrated product and process development, people, and software acquisition. The models have been developed by a number of organizations.

As each new discipline-focused model was implemented, additional benefits were noted due to improvements in that discipline's processes. However, each new model was developed and deployed in a stand-alone "stovepipe" environment.

Further improvements in software engineering are still desirable, since it was widely recognized that up to 80 percent of weapon-system functionality could be achieved with software.

It has further been recognized that software issues were generally at the root of problems experienced in most major Defense Department development programs.

With the understanding that one persistent problem in software development efforts was a lack of sound systems-engineering principles employed throughout the software development process, the then-director of systems engineering at the office of the secretary of defense, Mark Schaeffer (now deputy director of operations at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) began to focus on the importance of integrating systems engineering and software engineering.

After obtaining technical validation of the concept from Roger Bate, of SET, Schaeffer identified the need for a concentrated effort to develop a new Capability Maturity Model that integrated systems engineering, software engineering, and integrated product and process development.

In late 1997, he went to the Systems Engineering Committee (SEC) of the National Defense Industrial Association for an industry co-sponsor, since he felt this had to be a collaborative development between Industry and government, with SET participation.

The resultant product is Capability Maturity Model[R] Integration, or CMMI. The CMMI sponsors are now the deputy undersecretary of defense for science and...