Agility and the Higher CMMI Level Practices - Integrating CMMI and Agile Development - page 28

• Why the approach taken in many higher CMMI mature organizations
with respect to Quantitative Project Management (QPM) has failed to
provide the promised payback, and how you can avoid this pitfall
• A different way to view subprocesses that can help you achieve your
business objectives fast
3.2 Background on the Higher CMMI Level Practices
There continues to be significant controversy over the value of moving an
organization to CMMI level 4 and 5 even though over the past few years
increasing evidence has accrued as to its value 3 [11]. First, the motivation
isn't there for many organizations to the same degree as it is for CMMI level
3 because in the past, the Department of Defense (DoD) has only required a
level 3 for many of its contracts. Second, many organizations tend to shy
away from level 4 due to the fear that statistical management of sub-
processes, which is an expected practice in the level 4 QPM process area, will
become an academic exercise without real payback in project performance.
At the 2008 Systems and Software Technology Conference (SSTC), I spoke on
the subject of using Lean 4 and Agile techniques together with CMMI level 4
and 5 practices to help organizations achieve business objectives fast 5 [12].
That work was based on a specific case study of a situation that occurred at
LACM a few years before they had reached the high level of success dis-
cussed in the previous chapter. The case study in this chapter, which is based
on that previous work plus what happened at LACM afterward, caused me
to start taking a different view of the higher CMMI level practices.
This chapter is divided into two sections. In Section I, I share key points
from the previously published case study at LACM. In Section II, I move
beyond that work to share updated information on how LACM is gaining
the value of the higher CMMI level practices by using them less formally
along with an Agile approach.
3. Jeff Sutherland, co-founder of Scrum, has also discussed the value of using Scrum and CMMI level 5
practices together. See the reference.
4. Lean refers to a collection of techniques related to Agile that improve cycle time by focusing on process
flow and speed.
5. Material referenced here can also be found in the referenced CrossTalk article.