How to prepare for a CMMI appraisal

1. Get executive sponsorship in writing. Budget, staff time, and visible leadership backing. Appraisals die without it — this is the #1 predictor the Lead Appraisers cite.
2. Run a Class C gap assessment. Know your starting point against the practice areas before you spend a dollar on implementation. Appraisal classes explained →
3. Stand up a process group. Named owners for defining, deploying, and maintaining processes. Part-time volunteers don't survive contact with delivery pressure.
4. Document the critical few processes first. Project planning, monitoring, requirements management, configuration management — the ML2 backbone — before anything exotic.
5. Start measuring. Effort, defects, schedule variance. You need measurement history by appraisal time; you can't backfill it.
6. Run projects under the processes. Evidence comes from real projects, not binders. You need at least one full cycle of lived process use.
7. Do a Class B dress rehearsal. 4–8 weeks before the Benchmark. Fix what it finds.
8. Organize evidence. Map every artifact to its practice area before the appraisal team arrives. Disorganized evidence burns fieldwork days.

Traps that sink first-timers

• Binder processes nobody follows. Appraisers interview practitioners — if the team describes a different process than the documents, you fail the practice.
• No measurement history. Starting metrics a month before the appraisal is transparent and fatal for ML4/ML5.
• Scope creep. An undefined organizational unit expands evidence requirements everywhere. Define scope tightly, early.
• Consultant dependency. If only the consultant understands the processes, the appraisal interviews will reveal it.
• Skipping the Class B. See why the checkpoint matters.

Keep reading

• Readiness quiz — score yourself in 2 minutes
• Realistic timeline — how long each phase takes
• RFP template — brief partners properly