Software Engineering Institute

This document has been updated to a new version. If you want to see the newer document, refer to Appraisal Requirements for CMMI, Version 1.1 (ARC, V1.1) (CMU/SEI-2001-TR-034). The Assessment Requirements for CMMI (ARC) V1.0 defines the requirements considered essential to assessment methods intended for use with CMMI models. In addition, a set of assessment classes is defined based on assessment usage scenarios. These classes are intended primarily for developers of assessment methods to use with CMMI capability models in the context of the CMMI Product Suite. Additional audiences for the document include lead assessors, and other individuals who are involved in or may be interested in process assessment or improvement.  

The approach employed to provide guidance to assessment method developers is to define a class of assessment method usage scenarios (which are based on years of experience in the process improvement community) called assessment classes. Requirements are then allocated to each class as appropriate based on the attributes associated with that class. Thus, a particular assessment method may declare itself to be an ARC class A, B, or C assessment method. This designation implies the sets of ARC requirements which the method developer has considered when designing the method. Assessment methods which satisfy all of the ARC requirements are called class A methods; in addition to being used to render ratings for benchmarking purposes, class A assessment methods can be used to conduct 15504-conformant assessments.