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Tell Me What, or Tell Me How
One of the things you learn when you deal with the CMM or the CMMI is while they are great at telling you how mature your processes are, they really aren't so good at telling you how to do your job better, or even if you're doing the right thing. Gosh -- how much money has been spent by how many people who didn't understand that last sentence?
The CMM and CMMI are process maturity models. That means, they tell you how reproducible your process is. The theory is that if your development system is stable, you can accurately predict errors and control costs.
Much of this work has come from both decomposing the manufacturing process (software and integrated products like TVs and microwaves) and combining it with Demming's ideas of statistical process control. What does that mean in English? If you believe that making programs for the computer is like making, say, gears for a transmission, then you are going to love this.
I think there is a lot of value in both the CMM and CMMI, but I believe it is commonly misapplied. Most companies seek certifications as a marketing tool instead of for real process improvement, and nobody seems to understand that process tailoring is a key part of process institutionalization. Or as someone who helped write the CMM told me, "if you're doing some kind of paperwork and it doesn't make sense that you should do it, you need to speak up! The CMM is not about pointless paperwork!"
But instead of understanding processes, it seems like we're condemned to grow even more of them. OPMl, the latest from the Project Management Institute, claims to be an accumulation of the best of 27 other project systems! I am assuming that practitioners of those other 27 would not have such kind things to say about OPM being the "best of the best".
The RUP in some ways is even worse. People typically claim that the RUP tells them everything and nothing at the same time. It's a huge web of instructions for all kinds of stuff, and it's hard to make any sense out of it at all for a newcomer. And don't even get me started on XP! (LOL)
There aren't any easy answers here. Organizations need to decide what the purpose of the process methodologies are: higher productivity, marketing, common practices, reproducibility, ease-of-use? Because no matter what the salesman says, these attributes are many times in conflict with each other. You can't have it all, and there is no such thing as a free lunch.
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