Establishing and improving project management using assessment models for process capability and organizational maturity tutorial

Abstract

This extended abstract explores the relationship between Project Management and the internationally recognized models/standard for assessment and improvements CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) and SPICE (ISO/IEC 15504).It provides initially an overview and some historical background on concepts and terminology related to the so called process approach (from ISO 9001) and the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) cycle as applied in improvement in many ISO standards.It then proceeds with an overview of the CMMI for models for for improvement and its relationship with the international standard ISO/IEC 15504 better known as SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination).The paper then explores how the Project Management activities are covered by these models and how they contribute to the improvement of all other processes by enabling their progression to higher levels of capability.