Abstract
Projects, within Paramax, which have achieved high maturity ratings, as measured against the SEI Capability Maturity Model (CMM), have based their process improvement efforts on formal process definitions for software engineering activities. A process definition methodology (ADPM) has been developed based on these project level experiences. This methodology supports the creation of software engineering process definitions at the organizational level while allowing for unique project instantiations within the organization. It specifically addresses the special case of capturing existing informal processes that one would typically find in ongoing software maintenance contracts.<>