The five CMMI Levels help boost customer satisfaction and minimize cost as well

CMMI is a Capability Maturity Model Integration, which is a process model clearly defining what an organization has to do in order to promote certain behaviors to augment performance. With the distinct five maturity levels or three capability levels, today CMMI is one of the most vital models to create dynamic products or deliver proficient services. Since the 60's, the use of computers has considerably increased, making technology more economic and flexible. Businesses started to adopt computerized information systems and this has boosted the demand for software development.

The compilation of the five CMMI Maturity levels was initiated in 1991 and by January of 1993, it became a full-fledged model, encompassing all practices and procedures followed by major industries. Private and commercial organizations have adopted the CMMI model to refine processes. Moreover, they use the model to develop, deploy and maintain their different services and products. The CMMI model further ensures the development of quality products that save time and cost. Therefore, these companies could benchmark themselves against the competition when it comes to time, quality, cost and procedures.

The CMMI procedures being in efficiency and predictability that reduces costs and boosts customer satisfaction. In this way, businesses gain a competitive edge with a bigger customer base. The maturity levels have a set of predefined set of procedures. These are a measurement of the business as they involve achievement of specific goals which apply to every predefined set of process areas. Below are the five different sections describing the five CMMI maturity levels.

Level 1 - Initial

This is an immature state in which the software procedures are categorized as ad-hoc. Occasionally they are disordered even, so a few processes are defined and whose success would depend on the efforts of a certain individual. In this level, organizations usually produce services and products that are workable, but a lot of times they cross the schedule and budget of the projects.

Level 2 - Managed

This deals with managing of projects. This keeps a track of schedule, cost and functionality; as a result, relevant steps are taken to repeat past success. Project commitments are based on results of earlier projects and the current project's requirements. Moreover, the procedure is monitored by the management system, following realistic plans that are based on performance of projects in the past.

Level 3 - Defined

Focus on building a strong fundamental for software engineering processes, including requirements gathering, designing, developing, reviews and testing and more. Objects and information of earlier projects are available for re-use within the company because of the knowledge sharing process.

Level 4 - Quantitatively Managed

In this stage, companies have achieved al generic goals and precise goals of the process areas that were assigned in the earlier levels. Sub-processes are chosen which contribute heavily to the overall procedure performance. The chosen functions are controlled with the use of statistical and other quantitative techniques.

Level 5 - Optimizing

This is the final CMMI maturity level in which a company improves its procedures based on measurable understanding of the common variation reasons which are inherent in the procedure. This mainly focuses on improving performance via the most modern and incremental developments that boost the acquirers and suppliers' ability to met process-performance objectives.