Are CMM Program Investments Beneficial? Analyzing Past Studies

  • Authors:

  • Daniel Galin;Motti Avrahami

  • Affiliations:

  • Ruppin Academic Center;Lipman Electronic Engineering

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Software
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Many software development professionals and managers aren't fully convinced that programs to raise their organizations' CMM level will provide a good return on investment. Unfortunately, because of the scattered nature of published research on this topic, the results haven't been conclusive. An investigation of CMM level transitions for seven common performance metrics (including ROI) analyzed a database of more than 400 projects from 19 information sources. Each database record was a normalized "after-before ratio," which signifies improvement for a given metric and is independent from the studied organization's measurement methods. This analysis found that CMM program investments improved performance consistently for all seven metrics, despite the wide range of organizations and software development practices. A statistical analysis supports these findings.