Originally created for the U.S. Department of Defense to assess the quality and capability of their software contractors, CMMI models have expanded beyond software engineering to help any organization in any industry build, improve, and measure their capabilities and improve performance.​

• Originally CMMI addresses three areas of interest:​
• Product and service development – CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV),​
• Service establishment, management, – CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC), and​
• Product and service acquisition – CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ).​

In version 2.0 these three areas (that previously had a separate model each) were merged into a single model.​

CMMI was developed by a group from industry, government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at CMU. CMMI models provide guidance for developing or improving processes that meet the business goals of an organization. A CMMI model may also be used as a framework for appraising the process maturity of the organization.[3] By January 2013, the entire CMMI product suite was transferred from the SEI to the CMMI Institute, a newly created organization at Carnegie Mellon.[4]

MATURITY LEVELS​