Rob Caron explains to customers that we didn't manage to cover all 25 process areas in the CMMI model. In fact, five process areas (1 at model level 2, and 4 at model level 3) are missing. So why didn't we add guidance for the missing five?

The first two are easy, SAM (supplier agreement management) and ISM (integrated supplier management) are really about supply chain management. The Visual Studio group isn't in the business of managing suppliers. We don't have any tooling for supplier management and hence, we just don't have the expertise to supply appropriate guidance nor would we ever have any tooling to aid with automation.

The other three are OPF (organizational process focus), OT (organizational training) and OEI (Organizational Environment for Integration). These are all about the organization and are rightly the tasks of management. They are almost impossible to tool. As a result we made a decision leave out guidance on these topics. We had limited resources and had to decide where to spend them.

The result is that we have coverage of 16 of 21 process areas in model levels 2 and 3. We have partial coverage of model levels 4 and 5. The coverage of the 16 process areas at model levels 2 and 3 is very extensive and intensive. The result is that we strongly comply with the requirements for SCAMPI appraisal evidence in these 16 process areas while we chose to avoid the other 5. Customer will need to decide whether the other 5 areas apply to them - the supplier process areas may not. Technorati Tags: MSF, David+Anderson, CMMI