What Is ITIL CMMI?
Does It Really Exist?

Is there such a thing as ITIL CMMI? The short answer is NO.

The real answer is that ITIL and CMMI have evolved to become two separate methods of managing and maintaining an IT organization.

As we have seen on other pages within this site, ITIL (acronym for Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is "the" standard for IT service management (including Service Support and Service Delivery).

CMMI (acronym for Capability Maturity Model Integration) has been developed by the Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute. Process improvement and supplier sourcing are its main functions.

Which Standard To Use?

To identify and strengthen an organization's software (systems development functions), CMMI uses process improvement models.

It's especially useful for process improvements that span projects, divisions and entire companies that were traditionally separate organizational functions.

The question then becomes, "Which of these standards should you use?" The short answer is both.

• Use ITIL for maintenance and operations environments.
• Use CMMI for applications development environments.

If you're new to either of these ITIL CMMI methodologies and you don't really have the internal expertise, then it's best to outsource the training, setup, hand holding and management.

This way you're certain to gain the performance enhancements these processes are designed to achieve. Outsourcing this will also prevent your staff from being overwhelmed by this change in the way you run your IT business.

There are two representations of CMMI:

1. Continuous. This is designed to allow the user to focus on the important processes affecting the organization's business objectives (or risks).
2. Staged. This provides a standard sequence of improvements and helps form the basis for comparing project and organizational maturity.

The CMMI best practices are documented in the various models. Each model has multiple process areas where there are specific goals and practices defined. Regardless of which model is selected, the CMMI best practices should be adopted according to the business objectives of the organization.

With CMMI there is no certification process as there is with ITIL; however, there's an appraisal process which organizations use to measure their progress to earn a maturity level rating or capability level achievement profile.

The usual reasons for an organization to have an appraisal conducted are because it wants to:

1. Compare its progress to the CMMI best practices so as to identify areas for improvement.
2. Inform external organizations how well they are performing compared to the CMMI best practices.
3. Meet contractual requirements (say as those established in a service level agreement).

The Next Step?

We've only scratched the surface of this ITIL CMMI subject. If you need more, especially if you're looking into IT project outsourcing an application, we recommend you visit this Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute website.

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