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I learned a long time ago that despite all of the publicity in the press, software wars are side issues. If you are the ones behind CMM, the real competition is not agile development, but apathy. Many, if not most, organizations are stuck at Level 1. While those involved in the 21st century software wars are at war with each other, they are ignoring the great mass of people for whom almost any software development approach would be preferable to what they have.
The CMM and agile development folks need to talk more, and they need to take each other more seriously. The CMM side needs to see agile development as a new paradigm, not just another form of hacking. Unfortunately, many of the principal developers of CMM haven't been actively involved in development for a long time. They simply don't know what is really going on or how the software development and tools have changed.
On the other hand, the agile development side needs to see CMM not just as a failed attempt to overcontrol the creative process but as a way to help organizations do a better, more predictable job on very large, outsourced projects.
At the core, CMM and agile development both want to do the same things, which is to help people do a better job. They simply come at the problem with very different cultural bias.
In the process of developing this report, I took the opportunity to read the various articles in "The Great Methodology Debate" from Cutter IT Journal. What struck me the most was that almost all of the authors in that debate misrepresented the other side. Of course, in a debate, one is expected to make the strongest case possible, but debates normally don't make good science or good technology.
It seems to me that we can either use the current software wars as an excuse to keep going in the direction we've already decided on, or we can see it as an opportunity to advance the state of the art. Our industry needs to clarify what it means and the terms it uses. In fact, we need to be taking to heart some of the ideas that business researchers like Clayton Christensen have been saying about disruptive technologies and plot a course that aims not at getting our organizations to the current best practice but to some higher level, something I've labeled "next practice."
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In today's management jargon, best practice is everything. Best practice represents a safe harbor in a stormy sea of too much hype and too many problems. Best practice means that someone big and successful has used something that has been blessed by someone else. Best practice means that I don't have to defend my decision against outside consultants or inside critics.
Best practice is, therefore, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Unfortunately, because it is such a great term, best practice is overused and, in most contexts, has lost much of its original meaning. Moreover, best practice is hard to quantify. Which is really software best practice, CMM or agile development? Both sides have data and proof to support their definition of software development as a best practice.