I think the keys to CMM are perfectly valid. However I don't think there's a direct correlation between CMM level and the success of the company. You can say that by looking at the companies with a high CMM level that there is a relation, but I could argue as to whether that it is the cause or the effect.
What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
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Re: What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
#12The goals they have are good ones. If you're stuck with more than 10 programmers of varying levels of ability, and you're taking marching orders from a client who has no idea what the tradeoffs are, they're arguably the best way to get things done. When you're a group of fewer than 5 programmers and you're all smarter than the average bear, they're useless. In essence, they're a ritualization of the communication and…
The road to hell is paved with good intentions (and bad specs).
Re: What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
#13I'd say successful companies applied CMM after they became successful, not before that.
Re: What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
#14The goals they have are good ones. If you're stuck with more than 10 programmers of varying levels of ability, and you're taking marching orders from a client who has no idea what the tradeoffs are, they're arguably the best way to get things done. When you're a group of fewer than 5 programmers and you're all smarter than the average bear, they're useless. In essence, they're a ritualization of the communication and…
The road to hell is paved with good intentions (and bad specs).
Oh yes - I don't think CMM &c are silver bullets.
But in the end, to build software you have to communicate. Once the group working on the software is larger than 5 or 6, unless everyone on the team is phenomenally good, you need to formalize this communication somehow. All of these formal development methodologies are ways of accomplishing that -- none of them are necessarily good, but at least they solve that problem so you can get to other problems.
Of course, this leads to other problems, such as the ISO 9001 compliant company that has all of its dysfunctional processes documented in explicit detail that must be followed. (I worked there once. It was like Office Space meets Brazil.)
Re: What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
#15Such processes should be fought tooth and nail:
Re: What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
#16These models were "invented" for non-technical types like MBA monkeys to help them feel like they are in control of software engineering process. If you look at these models closely, you realize they resemble various principles employed by mechanical/civil engineering.
So what we have here is the attempt by non-technical managers, to bring some "feel" of control over something inherently complex (software development), modeled by their semi-successful methods of management employed in traditional industries (read companies like GE).
What those guys fail to realize is that software engineering is fundamentally more complex and, therefore, unpredictable than manufacturing industry they're used to (from their business school books).
Pathetic.