Electronic Industries Alliance
Electronic Industries Alliance/Interim Standard
The full composition of a company. A company may consist of many organizations in many locations with different customers. (See also "organization.")
States of being that must be present before an effort can begin successfully.
A target staging, created using the continuous representation, which is defined so that the results of using the target staging can be compared to maturity levels of the staged representation. (See also "capability level profile," "maturity level," "target profile," and "target staging.")
Such staging permits benchmarking of progress among organizations, enterprises, and projects, regardless of the CMMI representation used. The organization may implement components of CMMI models beyond those reported as part of equivalent staging. Equivalent staging is only a measure to relate how the organization is compared to other organizations in terms of maturity levels.

This phrase means more than a combination of its component terms; it includes documentation and usage. For example, "Establish and maintain an organizational policy for planning and performing the organizational process focus process" means that not only must a policy be formulated, but it also must be documented and it must be used throughout the organization.
(See "objective evidence.")
States of being that must be present before an effort can end successfully.
CMMI components that explain what may be done to satisfy a required CMMI component. Model users can implement the expected components explicitly or implement equivalent alternative practices to these components. Specific and generic practices are expected model components.