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Agile . since Jun 23 . Index . DOCs TOP TOC
Many ideas behind CMM are taken directly from statistical product quality work pioneered by experts like W. Edward Deming and Joseph Juran, particularly the principal idea that organizations improve quality by gaining increasingly greater (statistical) control of their processes.6 This idea is used worldwide within the quality movement. It is not only one of the guiding ideas behind CMM; it is also one of the guiding ideas behind other quality initiatives, such as ISO 9000.7 The idea of capability levels actually comes from the quality world; indeed, both the terms and definitions for the levels (initial, repeatable, defined, managed, and optimized) are taken directly from other quality work.
Agile . since Jun 23 . Index . DOCs TOP TOC
In the complex world of software development outsourcing, CMM has become a kind of high-level certification. In the same way that becoming a certified Oracle database administrator or certified Microsoft software engineer have become valuable on a résumé, becoming a CMM Level 3 organization has become a widely accepted certification in software marketing. Becoming a Level 4 or 5 organization is supposed to make you a top software engineering firm.
An interesting note is that in talking to some of my CIO friends, they are somewhat bemused by the emphasis on becoming a CMM Level 3 organization, but they are more than ready to use it as a selling point with management on outsourcing large tasks. On the other hand, many of these same managers are somewhat leery of organizations that represent themselves as Level 4 or 5. Most of these CIOs are afraid, I assume, that Level 4 or 5 will be too costly to do business with because they are too formal and too controlled.