Yes. You should receive a certificate so that you have a record of your training. Appraisal team training is designed to prepare you for an appraisal. This training is not a formal, standardized SEI course. Therefore, the SEI logo does not appear on these certificates.

No. The result of an appraisal reflects a single point in time and the conditions that influenced the performance of the organization at that time. After the appraisal is finished, the SEI cannot make changes to the results that have been submitted. It is reasonable to expect that a change in an organizations name or a move to a new office building would not affect the process in use, but there is no reasonable process by which the SEI can judge the impact on conditions that influence the performance of the organization.

A name change that involves a merger with a different organization or the introduction of a new management team could affect the process in use; moving to a different location or making changes in staffing could also affect this process. There are a number of additional possibilities for changes that may or may not impact existing processes. As a result, the SEI is not able to adjudicate the significance of such changes.

The appraised organization can offer a reasonable explanation to the public and it is not necessary for the SEI to endorse this judgment. Because the SEI is not in a position to know enough about the context of these types of changes, it will not comment on the significance of such changes. However, lead appraisers are free to comment if they feel they understand the situation sufficiently, but they must assume the responsibility for this choice.

The Appraisal Disclosure Statement (ADS) is a good reference document for understanding the details of an appraisal. This document may be obtained from the appraisal sponsor.

No. Only one appraisal team leader gets credit for an appraisal even if there is some sharing of responsibilities with another SCAMPI Lead Appraiser or SCAMPI B&C Team Leader who happens to be a team member.

 No. An appraisal does not necessarily result in a maturity level rating.

The SCAMPI A method can be enacted as either a staged or continuous implementation. When using a staged implementation, a maturity level can be awarded, but is not required. When using a continuous implementation, the model may produce capability levels for appraised process areas. A maturity level can be established through the continuous method by following the rules for equivalent staging. Your SCAMPI Lead Appraiser is trained in this activity.

No. A certificate is not provided for achieving maturity levels because the SEI does not validate the appraisal results of organizations. However, SEI Partner organizations are not prevented from presenting a certificate with appraisal results after they have completed a SCAMPI A appraisal.

The SEI encourages standardized reporting of appraisal results to provide a reasonable basis for drawing inferences from reported appraisal results. For example, the SCAMPI method has a mandatory reporting requirement (the Appraisal Disclosure Statement). However, the use of the SEI logo on reporting forms is not permitted because it could be misunderstood as SEI verification of the accuracy of the information reported.

No. Beyond the confidentiality issue, the only first-hand knowledge the SEI has of an appraisal—except when an SEI staff member participates—is that the appraisal has been performed by a person who was certified by the SEI (i.e., a SCAMPI Lead Appraiser).

A certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser has permission to use SEI materials. Although prerequisite qualifications, random audits, and other mechanisms are in place to monitor a lead appraiser's performance, the SEI does not closely monitor every lead appraiser's performance.

The SEI's Appraisal Team performs quality reviews of appraisal records to assure their completeness and correctness. There is a method compliance test performed on appraisal reports to assure that all phases of the appraisal were performed and appropriate information was provided to make the appraisal's circumstances understandable.

No. Because the SEI has no visibility nor influence into the content or conduct of non-SEI appraisal methods, the SEI does not give credit for the conduct of such appraisal methods.

No. Depending on where a project is in its lifecycle, it may not have begun to use the new standard process, or it may even be impossible for the project to use the new standard process. For example, if a project completes the design phase before the new standard process was introduced, there will be no experience (or artifacts) reflecting use of these new standard processes. Similarly, once a new process is established, a project is not expected to redo prior work using the new process; however, new work done after the establishment of the new process would normally be expected to follow it.

The sample of projects selected for examination during an appraisal should be representative of that organization. Therefore, one or more projects may not have made full use of the new standard processes. Rather than investigate these, and report on both new and older projects in the appraisal results, it may make more sense to define the scope of the organization that is the focus of the appraisal (the "organizational unit") and to exclude older projects, particularly if they represent an older line of business. These decisions must be documented in the Appraisal Input and Appraisal Disclosure Statement.

In any case, it would be reasonable to expect over time that most projects will eventually use the new standard processes. The appraisal team should account for risks it sees as inherent in the appraisal situation.

Send email to scampi-quality@sei.cmu.edu to report problems regarding a SCAMPI appraisal. All SCAMPI A appraisals require that the appraisal sponsor, appraisal team leader, and appraisal team members provide feedback to the SEI.

You can request improvements to CMMI models, SCAMPI method, and training any time by submitting a change request.

The SEI and its Partners offer CMMI-related consulting, training, and appraisal services. You can find an SEI Partner organization that offers CMMI services near you. You can search for Partners by name, services provided, or by location.

The SEI does not recommend a particular SEI Partner organization or its employees. Your decision should be based on discussions with the SEI Partners that you contact. If you have a question about whether an organization you are working with is a certified member of the SEI Partner Network, check the directory. If they do not appear, contact SEI Customer Relations for more information.

The phrase CMMI Certification is a commonly used term that is not used accurately. The SEI does not certify the results of appraisals nor is there an official accreditation body for CMMI.

Certification of appraisal results involves periodic follow-up after appraisals and accepting legal responsibility for the performance of appraised organizations, and prescribing a shelf life for appraisal results. These characteristics are required for a program that provides certification of appraisal results.

CMMI supports only one of these requirements: appraisal results expire after a period of three years. The SEI urges customers to request a copy of an Appraisal Disclosure Statement (ADS) when evaluating suppliers. The ADS documents the achieved maturity level or capability level profile and documents which parts of the organization were appraised.

Organizations can report their CMMI-based achievements to the SEI to be published on the publicly available  Published Appraisal Results web page.

Yes. If an appraisal sponsor requests it, the SEI will post appraisal information in the PARS database, which is available on the SEI website. The appraisal sponsor owns appraisal results, including the appraisal results. Therefore, appraisal sponsors may publicize this information at their discretion. Otherwise, the SEI treats the appraisal information as the appraisal sponsor’s private property and it is kept confidential.

The lifecycle covered in a SCAMPI A appraisal is defined by the scope of the CMMI model process areas selected for the appraisal. The lifecycle selected does not need to be covered by each representative project; it can be covered collectively by the identified representative projects.

SCAMPI is based on the fundamental premise that to generalize about the extent to which best practices are implemented at the organizational level, a representative number of instantiations of the practice must be examined. For practices that relate to a project activity (as opposed to an organizational activity such as engineering process groups), a representative sample of projects is identified as part of the appraisal planning and preparation phase.

Work with your lead appraiser to ensure you select the projects that make the most sense for your appraisal.

SCAMPI stands for the Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement.

See CMMI Appraisal Classes for a full discussion of the different SCAMPI classes.

“Assessments” have been traditionally thought to measure your own performance for improvement. “Appraisals” are performed independently of a defined purpose. The SCAMPI method uses the term "appraisal" regardless of the purpose for which the method is being employed. For an appraisal to be called an SEI appraisal, it must be led by someone trained by the SEI in an SEI-sanctioned method and certified to use SEI materials.

Some organizations, when making decisions about engaging with suppliers, consider maturity level ratings as a factor. Some of these organizations accept the results of appraisals conducted by the supplier; however others require evaluations by third-parties.

The minimum team size is four (the SCAMPI Lead Appraiser counts toward the team size); the recommended upper limit is nine.

The SEI audits all appraisal artifacts that are submitted after an appraisal. Occasionally, on-site audits of appraisals are done. They may be initiated by one or more of the following:

• request of the appraisal sponsor
• credible reports of misconduct
• failure to fulfill SCAMPI Lead Appraiser or SCAMPI B&C Team Leader responsibilities
• random selection

The SEI also verifies the results of all appraisals prior to allowing the appraised organization to release the results outside of the appraised organization. These results are verified within 30 days of when the results were submitted.

See the CMMI Appraisals page for more information about CMMI appraisals, including the appraisal classes, preparing for appraisals, and publications related to CMMI appraisals.

See a list of these organizations in the public database of Published SCAMPI Appraisal Results (PARS). Once an appraisal has passed quality checkpoints, an authorization form is sent to the lead appraiser. If the organization wishes its appraisal results to be published in PARS, the appraisal sponsor authorizes it by signing and returning the authorization form. Once this form is received the appraisal detail is displayed.

Appraisal information reported to the SEI is treated as proprietary and confidential. An appraisal's results are owned by the appraisal sponsor (usually a person within the organization that was appraised). The sponsor may publicize this information at his or her discretion.

If the organization prefers to formalize the confidentiality of the appraisal being reported to the SEI, the Lead Appraiser can use the Non-Disclosure Letter and the SEI Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Only SEI authorized observers can observe a SCAMPI A appraisal. SCAMPI B&C Team Leaders who have fulfilled the requirements to become observers may apply by sending their request to btl-observer@sei.cmu.edu where it is evaluated for approval.