The organization provides a set of objective evidence of practices that fulfill the CMMI objectives at the beginning of the assessment, and the team verifies whether those practices have been implemented. For project-level practices, the team must confirm that each selected project is implementing these practices. For practices at the organizational level, the team must observe implementation at the organization level as well as implementation of the same activities at the project level.
The team must confirm:
The validity of direct artifacts (e.g., documents).
The validity of indirect artifacts (e.g., meeting minutes).
The validity of affirmations (e.g., assertions).
That direct artifacts (corroborated by indirect artifacts or affirmations) verify the implementation of each necessary CMMI practice. (This differs from CMM assessments, where a direct artifact is not required to substantiate every practice.)
Obtain face-to-face affirmations that:
Each model practice within the scope of the assessment can be demonstrated.
At least 50% of the organization’s practices implement the CMMI’s specific and generic goals.
Generate statements describing gaps in the organization’s implemented practices.
For practices implemented at the project level, direct and indirect evidence must be obtained for every project in the assessment. For practices implemented at the organization level, direct and indirect evidence is examined for the assessed organization but not necessarily for each project sampled.
One or more direct artifacts are needed to verify implementation of each model practice.
The work products listed in CMMI provide examples of artifacts that are used as indicators of the organization implementing a practice. (The CMM does not distinguish between direct and indirect artifacts, and these are only examples. Alternatives can be used for both direct and indirect artifacts.)
The team must have a clear understanding of the implemented practices to be able to compare them to the model. Where implemented practices differ from intended practices, the team’s worksheets are annotated to accurately reflect this. These annotations constitute statements describing a gap or weakness.
If organizations do not provide adequate documentation in advance, the assessment team has to discover the documentation on-site. After the documentation has been reviewed, the assessment team indicates an observation in their worksheets. For each practice in the model included in the assessment, and for each instance of expected use, the team will document a characterization (observation) of the extent to which the practice has been implemented. The team also determines whether project-level practices represent the general practices of the organization .
SCAMPI Rules for Characterizing the Implementation of Practices summarizes rules for characterizing the implementation of practices. Keep in mind that "Consensus of at least a subset of appraisal team members (e.g., mini-team members) is necessary for instantiation-level characterizations" .