Customer Reviews

CMMI®: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement (2nd Edition)

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Last year my company was rated a CMM level 2 organization, and we decided to begin the transition to CMMi Level 3. Even though we are working with a consultant, the amount of new material was daunting... 'What is the difference between CMM and CMMi?', 'What is the staged vs. continuous representation?', 'what are all of the se SW/SE and iPPD pieces of the CMMi? Are they Optional?'. There are a TON of questions, and answers can be hard to find, especially when the 'official' docs are about as exciting to read as the little pamphlets that come with perscription medicines.

This book answers those questions and more, explaining in pretty practical language what the CMMi is, what the structure of the whole model is about, and finally tunneling down into the details of each process area. I wish I had that knowledge when we were making some of our initial decisions.

I'm not exactly a fan of the CMM/CMMi methodologies, but I have experienced first hand the result of the improvement efforts we have introduced. Ultimately though, I don't think it matters much WHAT methodology you are following; a group of people interested in improving themselves will do well with any methodology, CMMi, RUP, Agile, or otherwise. If you are committed to the CMMi approach, this book needs to be in your toolchest. If you are evaluating different process improvement efforts, this book will help you understand the CMMi approach. It doesn't provide any comparison or contrast to other methodologies; for that you would need other reference material.

- 447 pages are a 1:1 copy of the freely available CMMI 1.1
process area description.
- 33 pages consist of a case study of a CMMI implementation.
- 70 pages are references, glossary and index.
- the remainging 100 pages are a re-hash of general
CMMI information plus -more importantly- additional
information on the interpretation of generic goals and
on process areas relationships revealing that around
15 process areas are "fundamental" and the rest is
"progressive". my interpretation of "fundamental" is
"you need them really".

overall it would have been more precise if the title would
read "CMMI 1.1 annotated reference".

UPDATE 2004-04-24:
re-reading parts of the book i have to further downgrade it:

1. in the preface section it gives the misleading advice that
the CMMI can be used for service industries and that it covers
the whole product life cycle. this is not true: the CMMI is a
standard for development only.

2. the book further claims that the CMMI is the best model
for process improvement. there is no evidence i am aware of
that supports this claim.

3. the book recommends to use the staged representation
of the CMMI in case of uncertainty. this is a highly doubtful
advice considering the fact the the PA sequence of the stage
representation has major disadvantages.

best regards,

gerold

For all of you who have spiral binders or those huge 3-ring binders of the CMMI model, this is the book for you. It is condensed, addresses both staged and continuous representations and has from what I can tell all the information from the 725 page version available from the SEI website. It is organized a little differently but, it is pretty user friendly. It has tab like features that identify the process areas and the process areas are in alphabetical order - very easy to use. I know carry this around with me like I used to carry around the CMM hardcover version.

This book does two things well - (1) provides an overview of the CMMI and its benefits, and (2) covers the process areas in detail, with advice on how to institutionalize them. This is not a 'how to implement' book, and is best suited for anyone who wants to learn about the CMMI or who is working in a CMMI organization and wants an authoratative reference on a specific process area.

Reasons to buy this book instead of obtaining the 'official documentation' from SEI (see ASIN B0000Y4PCA)include:

- Better organized. Finding specific information among the documents you can obtain from SEI can sometimes be a daunting task. Yes, it's complete, but there are multiple documents, and this book has distilled and organized all of the pertinent information between two covers.

- Case studies in this book add life to the material, and the overall writing style of all of the material in this book is more readable. The SEI document set includes some well-written material to be sure, but there is also dense text that is a chore to wade through from a readability standpoint.

For understanding the CMMI this book is one of the best, in my opinion. It gives the evolution of the CMMI from the earlier CMM models, discusses key benefits, and goes into details. However, if you already understand the CMMI, and are seeking information for implementation I recommend "Interpreting the CMMI: A Process Improvement Approach" (ISBN 0849316545). That book outlines how to implement the CMMI and provides a wealth of supporting material.

I would have to say that the presentation of the material within this manual is one of the best I have seen. The first 5 chapters of the book provide an excellent introduction to the model, descriptions of the process areas and their relationships to one another, guidance for institutionalization and finally instruction on how to tie all this together. Chapter 6 provides some information on other models and their similarities and differences as compared to the CMMI. The case study in chapter 7 is a very useful overview of how the CMMI can be implemented in a real world scenario.
The rest of the book, some 450 pages, covers the integral details of the individual process areas, as well as the specific and generic goals and practices to fully implement the model. It can be information overload at first for the neophyte process engineer. However, once one is acclimated to the processes this manual will serve as a ready technical bible for guidance through the Process Improvement morass using CMMI.
Be advised though that nowhere in the CMMI, nor in this manual, is there any specific implementation instructions on how to actually execute an activity. For that one should look to the IEEE or ITIL libraries for templates and examples. Alternatively, if you are serious about CMMI and your goal is to achieve successful SCAMPI assessments; finding/hiring an experienced process engineer or consulting company to lead you or your team through this exercise is highly recommended.

Much like the King James Bible and the Anarchist's Cookbook this book is dangerous in the wrong hands. When used properly the Model is a highly effective tool for measuring organizational maturity and for developing an organizational maturity roadmap. In the wrong hands it can actually hurt an organization. Typically this harm is manifested either by process wonks who zealously accept the Model at face value rather than interpreting it for their organization or by senior management and sales reps who don't understand the model and see maturity levels only as a means for business winning. I think this is a great Model, just remember, if you are going to use it, make sure your organizational needs drive your interpretation of model and not the other way around. And for all that is good and Holy, please read the entire book (specifically the section on Process Components)!

This book is alot easier to follow than the Capability Maturity Model Integration v1.1 (CMMI). It' easier to find subject matter. The pages have tabs relating to Process Areas - so no flipping thru pages and pages of information to figure out where you need to go. Yes, it has the basic information, but really, an organization should develop an original approach to CMMI and not duplicate it off existing documents.

I am new to CMMI and found this a great reference manual.

Some have called this book "The CMMI Bible." Really it's more of an atlas. It provides an easy to use map into the official documentation of CMMI from SEI. That said, you probably should still take the training from SEI on the CMMI if you want to understand what you are reading in this book.

This book suffers, as do the official documents, in failing to provide suggested metrics for the various process areas or specific practices that could be used in the Measurement and Analysis process area.

I keep this book in my office and reference it regularly.

This new text by Mary Beth Chrissis et al at the SEI sets a new standard in the SEI Series in Software Engineering. It is superbly organized, leading the reader through questions like "why should we do this, and what model should we chose?", to a complete discussion of the CMMI suite of models, and ending in a well written case study. The text also includes the complete V1.1 of the CMMI models. We were an "early adopter" of the CMMI, and now use this text as our basic reference.

Highly recommended for novices, seasoned practioners, and process professionals alike.

Having read many reviews of the book, I was concerned as to whether it would meet my needs. It was just what I needed. Our organization is doing a gap analysis for an assessment in the near future. Although the book re-iterates the SEI web page texts, it also has very useful tips in the margins and throughout the book. I was able to quickly go through our gap analysis using the book as my guide (hey! maybe that's why "Guidelines" is in the title).