general

- 447 pages are a 1:1 copy of the freely available CMMI 1.1
process area description.
- 33 pages consist of a case study of a CMMI implementation.
- 70 pages are references, glossary and index.
- the remainging 100 pages are a re-hash of general
CMMI information plus -more importantly- additional
information on the interpretation of generic goals and
on process areas relationships revealing that around
15 process areas are "fundamental" and the rest is
"progressive". my interpretation of "fundamental" is
"you need them really".

overall it would have been more precise if the title would
read "CMMI 1.1 annotated reference".

UPDATE 2004-04-24:
re-reading parts of the book i have to further downgrade it:

1. in the preface section it gives the misleading advice that
the CMMI can be used for service industries and that it covers
the whole product life cycle. this is not true: the CMMI is a
standard for development only.

2. the book further claims that the CMMI is the best model
for process improvement. there is no evidence i am aware of
that supports this claim.

3. the book recommends to use the staged representation
of the CMMI in case of uncertainty. this is a highly doubtful
advice considering the fact the the PA sequence of the stage
representation has major disadvantages.

best regards,

gerold

This book does two things well - (1) provides an overview of the CMMI and its benefits, and (2) covers the process areas in detail, with advice on how to institutionalize them. This is not a 'how to implement' book, and is best suited for anyone who wants to learn about the CMMI or who is working in a CMMI organization and wants an authoratative reference on a specific process area.

Reasons to buy this book instead of obtaining the 'official documentation' from SEI (see ASIN B0000Y4PCA)include:

- Better organized. Finding specific information among the documents you can obtain from SEI can sometimes be a daunting task. Yes, it's complete, but there are multiple documents, and this book has distilled and organized all of the pertinent information between two covers.

- Case studies in this book add life to the material, and the overall writing style of all of the material in this book is more readable. The SEI document set includes some well-written material to be sure, but there is also dense text that is a chore to wade through from a readability standpoint.

For understanding the CMMI this book is one of the best, in my opinion. It gives the evolution of the CMMI from the earlier CMM models, discusses key benefits, and goes into details. However, if you already understand the CMMI, and are seeking information for implementation I recommend "Interpreting the CMMI: A Process Improvement Approach" (ISBN 0849316545). That book outlines how to implement the CMMI and provides a wealth of supporting material.

This book is alot easier to follow than the Capability Maturity Model Integration v1.1 (CMMI). It' easier to find subject matter. The pages have tabs relating to Process Areas - so no flipping thru pages and pages of information to figure out where you need to go. Yes, it has the basic information, but really, an organization should develop an original approach to CMMI and not duplicate it off existing documents.

I am new to CMMI and found this a great reference manual.