CMMI® Assessments: Motivating Positive Change

Chapter 2. A Brief History of Process Improvement Methodologies and Assessment Methods

The Beginnings of Modern Software Assessment Methodology

Modern software assessments evolved out of audits. Quality audits for years have served to ensure that elements of the manufacturing process conformed to documented standards. By the late 1970s, though, there was a growing sense that examining the existence of individual processes was not enough, especially in the case of software systems. Phil Crosby, in a number of publications based on his experience at IT&T including Quality is Free [Crosby 79], argued that old-fashioned quality audits, even in hardware settings, neither adequately measured the reliability of an organization’s development capabilities ...