Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process level improvement training and appraisal program. Administered by the CMMI Institute, a subsidiary of ISACA, it was developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). It is required by many U.S. Government contracts, especially in software development. CMU claims CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, division, or an entire organization.
CMMI defines the following five maturity levels (1 to 5) for processes: Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, and Optimizing. CMMI Version 3.0 was published in 2023; Version 2.0 was published in 2018; Version 1.3 was published in 2010, and is the reference model for the rest of the information in this article. CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by CMU.