The basic concept underlying "maturity" is that:

• Immature organisations achieve their outcomes largely as a result of the heroic efforts of individuals, using approaches that they create more or less spontaneously

• Mature organisations achieve results by doing things systematically

Pioneering groundwork in process management at the end of the 1980's

Watts Humphrey at the Software Engineering Institute - a research and development centre operated by Carnegie Mellon and funded by the US Deprtment of Defense - pioneered the application of process management principles to software development towards the end of the 1980's.

"An important first step in addressing software problems is to treat the entire software task as a process that can be controlled, measured, and improved" (Humphrey 1989)

The SEI based its Capability Maturity Model for Software (SW-CMM) on the process management work of W Edwards Deming, Joseph M Juran and Phllip B Crosby.

Capability Maturity Model now in widespread use

Many of the world's leading technology companies, from USA to India , use SW-CMM as a framework to assess, improve and demonstrate their effectiveness at developing and maintaining software.

This approach has subsequently been extended to other related processes in technology management, acquisition and adoption.