Is CMMI more Agile than you think?
I'll admit it, I don't know a lot about CMMI. I just know enough to be dangerous. And based on that very limited knowledge, I always considered CMMI to be a very heavyweight process, with loads of paperwork and documentation required, before even the slightest bit of development could begin.
Well, Joel Semeniuk has me looking at this in a slightly new light now. Read his posts Why I Like CMMI and Documentation <> Process. He does a good job of addressing why CMMI is not necessarily a heavy process:
One of the biggest criticisms around CMMI is that it is considered as a heavy weight process. Actually, it’s not really a process that you can follow like a map and isn’t comparable to something like RUP. In fact, you can use RUP to achieve certain levels of CMMI. You can use MSF 4.0 to achieve CMMI levels as well. CMMI is not a process declaration – it’s more like rules that suggest what the process should address.
I've always thought CMMI set out specific documents you need to fill out, and the order you need to fill them out, all while also telling you to sit up straight in your chair and keep your elbows off the table. Based on these two posts by Joel, it doesn't have to be that way. It can be that way, if you want it to, but you can also make things much more agile. Joel talks about instead of making all these fancy formal documents, how he just makes lists, and they seem to work just as well. Basically, you don't necessarily have to have all those lengthy documents that most developers hate, in order to be CMMI compliant. Another quote from Joel:
To meet levels of CMMI a company only needs to demonstrate that goals are being met not that certain documents are being filled out.
I could be completely misreading things, but it seems like CMMI can be used in a more "agile" way than most people think. If nothing else, Joel's posts will give you something to think about. And this has me wanting to investigate the CMMI process model which will be included with Team System.
What do you think?
(Thanks for Rob Caron for pointing out Joel's blog and these two posts)