Using an Integrated Capability Maturity Model – The FAA Experience

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) developed an integrated Capability Maturity Model (CMM), known as the FAA-iCMM, that integrates the Systems Engineering CMM, the Software Acquisition CMM and the CMM for Software. The FAA-iCMM was released in 1997 and is the first major integrated CMM in existence. Since 1997, it has been successfully guiding the systematic improvement of FAA-wide processes used to manage, acquire, and engineer systems, products, and services. This paper describes FAA’s pioneering experience pursuing integrated process improvement using the FAA-iCMM. Lessons learned are presented regarding model representation, goal setting, the improvement infrastructure, training, transitioning, and appraisal. Plans to evolve the model and relationships with the government-industry-SEI CMM Integration (CMMI) effort are also discussed. The paper will be of interest to any organization that seeks enterprise-wide process improvement and that might consider using an integrated capability maturity model to guide that effort.