An evaluation of CMMI process areas for small- to medium-sized software development organisations

In this paper we describe the results of CMMI software process appraisal work with six small-to-medium sized software development companies. Our analysis of six CMMI Process Areas appraised within each of these organisations is presented. Commonly practiced or not practiced elements of the model are identified, leading to the notion of perceived value associated with each specific CMMI practice. A finer grained framework which encompasses the notion of perceived value within specific practices is presented. We argue that such a framework provides incentive to small-to-medium sized enterprises starting process improvement programmes.