It is applied to projects and organizations to direct process improvement. CMMI provides guidance for quality processes, establishes goals and priorities for process improvement, and serves as a point of comparison for evaluating current processes. It also aids in the integration of historically distinct organizational functions.
The five CMMI levels of maturity are:
Initial. Processes are viewed as reactive, uncontrollable, and unpredictable.
Managed. Projects define processes, which are frequently reactive.
Defined. Processes are well-characterized and well-understood.
Quantitatively Managed.
Optimizing.