8.1 Overview of Results

This exercise has demonstrated the achievement of a detailed mapping from CMMI Continuous Representation to the Process Reference Model of ISO 15504-2. All significant elements of the model have been successfully addressed, and the exceptions were in areas that were expected. The mapping has led to significant insights into the structure and consistency of the CMMI, and has some impact on the overall goal of this project. Some problems and anomalies have been identified; these have been reported to the CMMI Product Development Team in the form of Change Requests. The mapping was extended to also address the Staged Representation of the CMMI. Some additional problems in relation to the inclusion of expressions of attributes of process capability were noted. From the Staged Representation mapping it has been possible to identify standard Process Profiles that correspond to the levels of maturity expressed in the Model.

These mapping exercises provide a foundation for the development of a translation mechanism to enable the expression of CMMI assessment results into standard ISO 15504 Process Profiles. The Translation Mechanism will need to be validated through field studies. Initial studies will use results of assessments conducted previously as a basis for generating ISO 15504 Process Profiles. As opportunities arise, these will be extended to translation during the period of the assessment.

The principal impact of use of the translation mechanism will be to increase the cost and duration of assessments in which translation is required. This can be mitigated through use of a sub-team with specific ISO 15504 knowledge and understanding to conduct the translation. Since there is already consensus on the observations, there should be no additional data to consider and the involvement of the entire team should not be necessary.

8.2 Future Work

The primary initial concern is to progress the work towards the production of a formal statement of conformance of CMMI to ISO 15504-2. In order to achieve this, the translation mechanism proposed must be validated through actual use. In order to achieve this, an appropriate tool set that will make use of the translation mechanism feasible is needed. A high-level specification for this tool has been defined, and a prototype version is being developed. Without tool support, it is not considered that performance of translation will be feasible. Once the translation mechanism is demonstrated to be accurate and feasible, the formal statement of conformance can be issued.

If the benefits from this study are to be effectively deployed, further work will be required. The most obvious issue is the forthcoming revision of ISO 15504. When this is published (late in 2002) the existing mappings to ISO/IEC TR 15504-2 will become irrelevant; under the new version, the Process Reference Model for Software Engineering will be drawn from the Amendment to ISO 12207. The mapping will therefore have to be repeated against ISO 12207. The existing results will be of substantial value. Given the timeframe for the proposed release of Version 1.1 of CMMI, the best option will be to map the new model against the revised standard.

The opportunity also exists to extend the scope of mapping to address systems-specific issues, through use of ISO 15288 (when published) as reference model for this domain. We have already indicated that some of the scope issues in the current mapping are addressed in ISO 15288.