A growing trend in business and government alike is one that has organizations purchasing, outsourcing, and acquiring products and services to deliver or assemble and deliver to their customers. Instead of focusing on the development of products and services, organizations are focusing on acquiring the best products and services developed by other organizations.Because of this new emphasis in organizations, there is a lack of experience to draw on in the organization or even to hire that makes it difficult to be successful in this acquisition environment. The factors to consider are different.
The CMMI® Product Team and its sponsors acknowledge this trend and have created the CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ) model to help these organizations by codifying best practices. These best practices apply to processes critical to the successful acquisition of products and services and cover the important processes involved in an acquisition environment.
What Is CMMI?
CMMI (Capability Maturity Model® Integration) is the name given to the collection of models that comprise best practices designed to help organizations improve the performance of their processes and the training and appraisals that support these models. A CMMI model documents activities important to different aspects of the processes needed to deliver products and services to a customer. The CMMI model contained in this book, CMMI-ACQ, is a model designed specifically for organizations that acquire products and services, including large complex systems.
The first CMMI model was developed by a product team from industry, government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) for the application of process improvement in the development of products and services.
What Is CMMI for Acquisition?
The CMMI-ACQ model was developed in a slightly different way. The first step was taken by General Motors, in collaboration with the SEI and with approval of the CMMI Sponsors and Steering Group. An author team in its Information Technology department developed the initial draft of the Acquisition model as the special report, Adapting CMMI for Acquisition Organizations: A Preliminary Report. This report was released by the SEI on its website. The CMMI Product Team sought input about this report from organizations that acquire products and services as a major part of the business processes. Organizations were also recruited to pilot this report to see how well it helped those who used it.
In the meantime, the CMMI Product Team formed a model development team that would use the report as a basis to form a CMMI model. Gathering input from those who piloted and reviewed the preliminary report, the CMMI-ACQ development team began work on just that. This team consisted of members from government, industry, and the SEI to ensure a wide variety of perspectives, just as other CMMI model development teams had in the past. This team subsequently created CMMI for Acquisition, Version 1.2 (CMMI-ACQ, V1.2). This model was released in November 2007 as a new member of the CMMI Product Suite and is included in this book with elements we’ve added.
We, as book authors, added tips and hints to all of the model’s process areas to help you apply the practices in your organization. We’ve also added a case study from General Motors that describes how CMMI-ACQ has worked in that organization. Further, we’ve included important information about and for the government’s use of CMMI-ACQ and the government’s special needs.
Purpose
The purpose of this book is to present acquisition best practices by including the full CMMI-ACQ, V1.2 model as well as other information to help you apply these practices in your organization. This other information takes the form of tips, hints, and cross references that supplement the model practices and additional chapters that focus on the needs of industry and government.
The CMMI-ACQ, V1.2 model is a collection of best practices generated from the CMMI V1.2 Architecture and Framework. This collection’s best practices apply to professionals in both government and industry who acquire products and services for their customers and end users.
CMMI-ACQ shares model components with other CMMI models such as the CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) and the Software Acquisition Capability Maturity Model (SA-CMM). CMMI-ACQ also incorporates work by several acquisition organizations to adapt the CMMI-DEV model best practices for use in an acquisition organization.
The CMMI-ACQ model provides guidance for those who initiate and manage the acquisition of products and services that meet the needs of the customer and end user. Although suppliers may provide artifacts useful to the processes addressed in CMMI-ACQ, the focus of the model is on the processes of the acquiring organization. CMMI-ACQ integrates bodies of knowledge that are essential to these processes.
The supplier-executed portion of the activities integral to the acquisition of products and services may use the CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) model. In cases where the acquirer is also a product or service developer (e.g., taking responsibility for the first few layers of product development and integration), CMMI-DEV (in particular the Requirements Development, Technical Solution, and Product Integration process areas) are useful for improving the acquirer’s product or service development processes.
Contributors to CMMI for Acquisition
Many talented people were involved in the development of the CMMI v1.2 Product Suite, which includes both CMMI for Acquisition and CMMI for Development. Three primary groups involved in this development were the CMMI Steering Group, Product Team, and Configuration Control Board.
The Steering Group approved the architecture for adding additional areas of interest to the CMMI Product Suite by approving the concept of “constellations” built from the CMMI Model Framework (CMF) and CMMI Architecture. A constellation is a collection of components used to construct models, training materials, and appraisal materials in an area of interest (e.g., acquisition and development).
The Steering Group initiated the development of the Acquisition constellation, recognizing the importance of providing best practices to acquirers. The Steering Group provided guidance for the development of the CMMI-ACQ model and its accompanying training materials by guiding and approving plans of the Product Team, providing consultation on significant CMMI project issues, and ensuring involvement from a variety of interested communities.
The Product Team wrote, reviewed, revised, discussed, and agreed on the structure and technical content of the CMMI Product Suite, including the framework, models, training, and appraisal materials. Development activities were based on multiple inputs. These inputs included an A-Specification and guidance specific to each release provided by the Steering Group, source models, change requests received from the user community, and input received from pilots and other stakeholders.
The CMMI Configuration Control Board (CCB) is the official mechanism for controlling changes to CMMI models, the SCAMPI appraisal method, and Introduction to CMMI training. As such, this group ensures integrity over the life of the product suite by reviewing all proposed changes to the baseline and approving only those changes that satisfy identified issues and meet criteria for the upcoming release.
The Acquisition Advisory Board acted as the configuration control board for the Acquisition constellation, approving all changes to the initial draft of the CMMI-ACQ contained in the special report. Consisting of experts in the field of acquisition, this group ensured the integrity of the constellation using the same review process as the CMMI CCB.
Members of the groups involved in developing CMMI-ACQ, V1.2 are listed in Appendix C.
Audience
The audience for CMMI-ACQ is anyone interested in process improvement in an acquisition environment. Whether you are familiar with the concept of Capability Maturity Models or are seeking information to get started on your improvement efforts, CMMI-ACQ will be useful to you. This model is also intended for organizations that want to use a reference model for an appraisal of their acquisition-related processes.1
Organization of this Book
The organization of the book is similar to the CMMI-ACQ model available on the SEI website. However, we added a few features that are not found in that document:
- We added tips, hints, and cross-references in the margins throughout the process areas to help you better understand, apply, or find more information about the content of the process areas.
- We added two additional chapters in Part One. The first, Chapter 6, describes the special needs of government acquisition organizations and how CMMI-ACQ can support improving processes in that environment. The second, Chapter 7, demonstrates how CMMI-ACQ can successfully be applied in industry and the benefits that can result from its use.
- Process area sections have tabs that help you to quickly open the book to just the spot you need.
- An index is provided to help you find specific information quickly.
The book is organized into three main parts:
- Part One—About CMMI for Acquisition
- Part Two—Generic Goals and Generic Practices, and the Process Areas
- Part Three—The Appendices and Glossary
Part One, “About CMMI for Acquisition,” consists of seven chapters:
- Chapter 1, “Introduction,” offers a broad view of CMMI and the Acquisition constellation, concepts of process improvement, the history of models used for process improvement, and different process improvement approaches.
- Chapter 2, “Process Area Components,” describes all of the components of the CMMI...
