CMMI stands for "Capability Maturity Model Integration". It's the integration of several other CMMs (Capability Maturity Models). By integrating these other CMMs, it also becomes an integration of the processes and practices within the model. The CMMI is a framework for business process improvement. In other words, it is a model for building process improvement systems. In the same way that models are used to guide thinking and analysis on how to build other things (algorithms, buildings, molecules), CMMI is used to build process improvement systems.
CMMI is meant to help organizations improve on their capability to consistently and predictably deliver the products, services, and sourced goods their customers want, when they want them and at a price they're willing to pay. From a purely inwardly-facing perspective, CMMI helps companies get from estimates to actuals in the black, keep customers happy, and purchase the right things the best way.
Without some insight into and control over their internal business processes, how else can a company know how well they're doing before it's too late to do anything about it? And if/when they wait until the end of a project to see how close/far they were to their promises/expectations, without some idea of what their processes are and how they work, how else could a company ever make whatever changes or improvements they'd want/need to make in order to do better next time?
CMMI is just a model, it's not reality. Like any other model, CMMI reflects one version of reality, and like most models, it's rather idealistic and unrealistic -- at least in some ways. When understood as *just* a model, people implementing CMMI have a much higher chance of implementing something of lasting value. As a model, what CMMI lacks is context. Specifically, the context of the organization in which it will be implemented for process improvement. Together with the organization's context, CMMI can be applied to create a process improvement solution appropriate to the context of each unique organization.
Putting it all together: CMMI is a model for process improvement from which (astute) organizations will abstract and create process improvement solutions that fit their unique environment.
CMMI is meant to help organizations improve on their capability to consistently and predictably deliver the products, services, and sourced goods their customers want, when they want them and at a price they're willing to pay. From a purely inwardly-facing perspective, CMMI helps companies get from estimates to actuals in the black, keep customers happy, and purchase the right things the best way.
Without some insight into and control over their internal business processes, how else can a company know how well they're doing before it's too late to do anything about it? And if/when they wait until the end of a project to see how close/far they were to their promises/expectations, without some idea of what their processes are and how they work, how else could a company ever make whatever changes or improvements they'd want/need to make in order to do better next time?
CMMI is just a model, it's not reality. Like any other model, CMMI reflects one version of reality, and like most models, it's rather idealistic and unrealistic -- at least in some ways. When understood as *just* a model, people implementing CMMI have a much higher chance of implementing something of lasting value. As a model, what CMMI lacks is context. Specifically, the context of the organization in which it will be implemented for process improvement. Together with the organization's context, CMMI can be applied to create a process improvement solution appropriate to the context of each unique organization.
Putting it all together: CMMI is a model for process improvement from which (astute) organizations will abstract and create process improvement solutions that fit their unique environment.
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