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The Hype called CMM

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Despite all the hype surrounding CMM & CMMi; it is seen that the lower the CMM level a company is in the lesser the time spent on non value added activities. Some set of basic processes are needed – but CMM takes it a lil too far. Far too many unnecessary (& unnecessarily long) docs and lots of meetings. At the end large no of concocted metrics/reports and graphs. By stealing the focus from the actual technical/business problem at hand CMM frustrates the real IT person & the customer in the long run. I wonder if the so called CMM champions themselves understand in the power(lessness) of it.

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Middle management?

In reply to The Hype called CMM

Middle management trying to justify their existance again, huh?

calling CMM “hype”

In reply to The Hype called CMM

Hello Binoy,

I’d be very interested to see if you had something different to say after you’ve been on a team of, say, 80-100 coders on a multi-million dollar project. Such projects in level 1 or 2 organizations are sheer hell; life gets a lot better for everyone for each level above that.

“Real IT persons” by the way are people who process help desk tickets, do app support for end-users, etc. They’re not software developers. In typical corporate environments IT persons never cut code except to smash together a perl script for some admin task. If that’s the context you are talking about, then much of the documentation you are referring to would be overkill. I’ll grant you that.

Best.

–Casey

They’re following the letter of the CMM, not the spirit

In reply to The Hype called CMM

We try to make it clear to people that the CMM has a purpose, one that they agree with. That following the CMM slavishly as if it were a cookbook so that the purpose is sabotaged is not the way to do it. Almost every single activity in the CMM is optional. You’re supposed to use it as a guide to identify the areas in which your organization is weak, and strengthen them.

Someone said that at the lower CMM levels, IT shops spend more time on value-adding endeavors. That’s true. They certainly spend almost no time on reporting, measuring, improving, and most of the other verbs that constitute the dictionary definition of “manage.” What you don’t say is how little value those remaining tasks add when they’re not being managed well.

A good percentage of America’s software “developers” are sidetracked into repairing software defects that could have been easily prevented by requirements and code inspections, and into projects whose ultimate failure could have been easily foreseen by a rudimentary risk analysis. But until the day that the software crashes in production or the project is cancelled, the people who build such software believe they are adding value.

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