How long does a CMMI appraisal take?

Everyone asks about the appraisal. Almost nobody's calendar is consumed by the appraisal.

For a first-time organization targeting ML3, the realistic end-to-end range is 6–12 months from kickoff to published rating. The appraisal fieldwork itself — evidence examination and interviews — is typically 1–3 weeks. Everything else is preparation, and preparation is where programs succeed or stall.

Where the months go

• Gap assessment & planning (4–8 weeks). Mapping current state against practice areas, defining scope, building the plan.
• Implementation (3–8 months). Documenting processes, standing up the process group, collecting measurements, running projects under the defined processes. This is the long pole — and it's nearly all internal effort.
• Dress rehearsal / Class B (2–4 weeks). The checkpoint that finds fixable gaps.
• Fieldwork + reporting (2–5 weeks). The appraisal event and the rating decision.

How to compress it honestly

There are no honest shortcuts past implementation — evidence has to come from real projects. But you can compress the calendar by: defining scope tightly on day one (scope creep is the silent schedule-killer), staffing the process group full-time instead of as a side job, and running the Class B early enough to fix findings without panic. Organizations with defined processes already in place routinely go from engagement to rating in 3–5 months.