This particular article addresses those questions that many of us have who are not experts in process maturity evaluation but nevertheless have a professional need to be aware of its impact.
The article begins by defining the difference between CMM and CMMI in layman terms and then proceeds to address the fundamental question as to why CMMI is important. It accomplishes this task in a rather interesting way by discussing misunderstandings of the process and the abuses that can befall it. It concludes with a discussion of the value that each level of maturity can bring to an organization, and ultimately to the benefit of the customer. The real advantage of this article is that it permits the reader to take away additional resources, not the least of which is access to a free download of the complete CMMI from SEI's website, accompanied with easy to apply instructions.