Bringing Process Maturity to an R&D Culture - Integrating CMMI and Agile Development - page 193

Now, let's explore the ramifications of these decisions by asking a few more
questions:
• Is the product mission critical where failure could result in loss of life?
• What are the potential ramifications of a latent defect?
• Do you have verification requirements on the project that the customer
has levied?
• Do you have requirements to comply with standards such as DO-178B? 13
• What maturity is your organization at?
• Can your people apply criteria effectively as intended by the CMMI?
The right answer in your business depends on multiple factors. The CMMI
can help by reminding you to ask the right questions.
A decision to require a peer review of every line of code change, or go back
through multiple levels of testing whenever even a small change is made,
should not be based on what you think the CMMI requires. The CMMI only
requires that you consider the appropriate factors and decide what is right in
your business situation.
Through the use of criteria , you can empower those deep in your organiza-
tion to make just-in-time decisions , which can give your organization great
agility . However, if you take this path, keep the potential ramifications in
mind as conveyed by the following true story.
7.37 A True Story about the Abuse of Criteria
The use of criteria to aid decision making is recommended in many cases
throughout the CMMI model. If you decide to employ this mechanism to
help your organization increase its agility , keep the following story in mind.
The Verification Process area expects organizations to select work products for
verification and to perform peer reviews . It leaves the decision up to each organi-
zation to decide what work products to select and what to peer review.
Furthermore, it doesn't dictate when you need to make that decision .
For years, I have recommended that organizations create criteria to help a
project leader make more dynamic “real-time” decisions with respect to peer
13. DO 178B is a development standard required on many projects involving the FAA.