Abstract: Capability Maturity Model IntegrationSM (CMMI) has rapidly become a preferred means of improving organizational processes in industry and government. Building on a decade of work with process improvement models, including the Capability Maturity Model® (CMM®) for Software and the Systems Engineering Capability Model, a team of over two hundred engineering and process improvement experts worked for three years to create this broader, more agile instrument for guiding, integrating, and appraising improvement activities. CMMI provides a single, integrated framework for improving processes throughout an organization, enhancing the quality and efficiency of the organization as a whole.The CMMI Product Suite is rich in detail and guidance, but correspondingly large and somewhat complex. The sheer volume of information it presents can seem overwhelming. CMMI Distilled reduced that complexity with a fresh and approachable introduction to the key elements of CMMI and integrated process improvement.This new edition of CMMI Distilled, updated for CMMI version 1.1, includes more material in layman's language to meet a wider variety of reader's needs, but has not lost any of the technical content that made the first edition so successful. Written for those new to model-based process improvement, it also offers insights that can help even battle-scarred process improvement veterans and experienced systems, software and quality engineers perform better. CMMI® Distilled, Second Edition is especially appropriate for executives and managers who need to understand why process improvement is valuable, why CMMI is a tool of choice, and how to maximize the return on their efforts and investments.The three authors have been involved with CMMI since its inception, and they bring a wealth of their own experience and knowledge to this book. They highlight the pitfalls and short cuts that are all too often learned by costly experience. Above all, they provide a context for understanding why CMMI is the fastest growing process improvement framework in the world. 0321186133B06272003

Abstract: Recently, the Rational Unified Process (RUP) has been published as the second part of Rational’s Unified Method project. The RUP is advertised as an “iterative and incremental, use case-driven, architecture-centric” process model and aims to support system designers, builders and managers working with the Unified Modeling Language (UML) by a procedural guideline. In this chapter, a brief review and a critical analysis of the RUP is attempted. Its general aim and its contribution towards more harmonisation in the software process field are acknowledged. However, its ability to reduce the complexity of software development and to clarify its interlaced structure and terminology is doubted. Major problems may result from concepts not clearly specified like workflow or architecture. In particular, RUP core concepts like phase, iteration, workflow and milestone are debated. It is argued that RUP phases and milestones do not support the requirements of modern object-oriented (and, in particular, component-based) software projects. Iteration cycles should be based on software building blocks rather than on phases and activities. As one possible alternative to the RUP, a component-based (and truly architecturecentric) process model is sketched, and a multi-variant approach to software process modelling is recommended. INTRODUCTION: THE “UNIFIED PROCESS,” ITS HISTORY AND AIMS In the mid-'90s Rational company has started a project trying to merge some existing methodologies for object-oriented analysis and design into a common “Unified Method.” For this purpose their chief methodologist G. Booch, joined by J. Rumbaugh and (later) by I. Jacobson, tried to combine their methods which became popular at that time. Realizing that this goal was not to be achieved, within one single step the authors reduced their ambitions and started with a common metamodel and notation, an approach which resulted