Levels are used in CMMI-DEV to describe an evolutionary path recommended for an organization that wants to improve the processes it uses to develop products or services. Levels can also be the outcome of the rating activity in appraisals.[1] Appraisals can apply to entire organizations or to smaller groups such as a group of projects or a division.

CMMI supports two improvement paths using levels. One path enables organizations to incrementally improve processes corresponding to an individual process area (or group of process areas) selected by the organization. The other path enables organizations to improve a set of related processes by incrementally addressing successive sets of process areas.

These two improvement paths are associated with the two types of levels: capability levels and maturity levels. These levels correspond to two approaches to process improvement called “representations.” The two representations are called “continuous” and “staged.” Using the continuous representation enables you to achieve “capability levels.” Using the staged representation enables you to achieve “maturity levels.”

To reach a particular level, an organization must satisfy all of the goals of the process area or set of process areas that are targeted for improvement, regardless of whether it is a capability or a maturity level.

Both representations provide ways to improve your processes to achieve business objectives, and both provide the same essential content and use the same model components.