ISO 9001 vs CMM (Softare Industry)

Organizations concerned with ISO 9001 certification often question its overlap with the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Let’s compare the two and answer a few questions.



>ISO 9001 targets the manufacturing process, although it also includes manufacturing services and software development.

>CMM offers a model for judging the software processes of an organization and for identifying key practices required to increase the maturity of these processes. It establishes a successful means for modeling, defining, and measuring the maturity of the processes used by software professionals.

>ISO 9001 and the whole ISO process approaches software from a manufacturing standpoint.

>CMM approaches it from a development standpoint.

The CMM model was designed with five levels of maturity. ISO does not have them.

>CMM standards are more stringent than ISO standards.

>ISO does not say you have to have certain standards, but CMM says you must meet the prescribed standards.

>CMM was designed to ensure bug-free development.

>ISO is designed to put quality into the manufacturing process.

Their purposes are different. However, some versions of CMM and ISO have been merged together.