CMMI^® (Capability Maturity Model^® Integration) is a process improvement maturity model for the development of products and services. It consists of best practices that address development and maintenance activities that cover the product lifecycle from conception through delivery and maintenance.

This latest iteration of the model as represented herein integrates bodies of knowledge that are essential for development and maintenance, but that have been addressed separately in the past, such as software engineering, systems engineering, hardware and design engineering, the engineering “-ilities,” and acquisition. The prior designations of CMMI for systems engineering and software engineering (CMMI-SE/SW) are superseded by the title “CMMI for Development” to truly reflect the comprehensive integration of these bodies of knowledge and the application of the model within the organization. CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) provides a comprehensive integrated solution for development and maintenance activities applied to products and services.

CMMI for Development, Version 1.2 is a continuation and update of CMMI version 1.1 and has been facilitated by the concept of CMMI “constellations” wherein a set of core components can be augmented by additional material to provide application-specific models with highly common content. CMMI-DEV is the first of such constellations and represents the development area of interest.