Measuring maturity goes beyond process

The Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model provides a guideline for the processes that need to be in place for a software development team and its organization to develop quality software on time and on budget. We've historically determined an organization's process maturity by conducting a maturity assessment that evaluates whether the KPAs are documented and practiced. We examine evaluating process maturity on the basis of results, or the improvement in cost structure in the four quality-cost categories: prevention, appraisal, internal failures, and external failures. The cost structure related to each maturity level should be the oracle by which maturity and results are evaluated in addition to the corresponding KPAs.