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This article provides an overview of the Capability Maturity Model® for Software (Software CMM®) and the concepts of software process maturity. (Capability Maturity Model and CMM are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.) It contains a background discussion of why process is crucial to organizational and project success, a description of the development of the CMM, a detailed summary of the model, and a description of the model's use for process improvement and the evaluation of software suppliers; describes the use of the CMM in the context of the SEI's IDEAL SM (IDEAL is a service mark of Carnegie Mellon University) approach to process improvement; summarizes some of the strengths and weaknesses of the current model and its use; characterizes the state of the practice and the return on investment for software process improvement; and concludes with a discussion of likely future directions for CMM‐like models.