CMMI models describe best practices that organizations have found to be productive and useful to achieving their business objectives. Regardless of your organization, you must use professional judgment when interpreting CMMI best practices for your situation, needs, and business objectives.

This use of judgment is reinforced when you see words such as “adequate,” “appropriate,” or “as needed” in a goal or practice. These words are used for activities that may not be equally relevant in all situations. Interpret these goals and practices in ways that work for your organization.

Although process areas depict the characteristics of an organization committed to process improvement, you must interpret the process areas using an in-depth knowledge of CMMI, your organization, the business environment, and the specific circumstances involved.

As you begin using a CMMI model to improve your organization’s processes, map your real world processes to CMMI process areas. This mapping enables you to initially judge and later track your organization’s level of conformance to the CMMI model you are using and to identify opportunities for improvement.

To interpret practices, it is important to consider the overall context in which these practices are used and to determine how well the practices satisfy the goals of a process area in that context. CMMI models do not prescribe nor imply processes that are right for any organization or work group. Instead, CMMI describes minimal criteria necessary to plan and implement processes selected by the organization for improvement based on business objectives.

CMMI practices purposely use nonspecific phrases such as “relevant stakeholders,” “as appropriate,” and “as necessary” to accommodate the needs of different organizations and work groups. The specific needs of a work group can also differ at various points in the work lifecycle.