Earlier in my professional life, I worked in both “big” and “small” environments. I lived the journey of CMMI assessment and I cannot say that I enjoyed it.  It was a hard, boring, and exhausting journey. Not because CMMI is boring, but because the path that was chosen to achieve it was a very hard path. The common misconception about CMMI is that it is always bounded to waterfall methodology. And that is usually the reason behind feeling that CMMI is always exhausting.

At the starting point of the journey, we depended on “smart” people who can achieve results, without worrying much about the process. However, with growing business, growing company, this could not stand, and could not be sustainable. Depending on the smart guys was not enough, we needed a solid process that ties everything together, and orchestrates the performance of the organization, even at an additional cost. And that was the cross-roads!

Agile is “Smart”. In the earlier, dark stone ages of software development, waterfall was more common. That most probably was due to the fact that “Fixed-Cost” projects were more common. Estimates were never accurate, and only a percentage of 20% of projects were lucky enough to finish in-time and within-budget. People started to realize that waterfall is not the best model with the changing requirements, changing business, and continuously emerging technologies. A smarter approach was needed to cope with the frequent demanding changes. That is where Agile fits. Agile, with iterations, continuous integration, test driven development, and self-managed teams offers a great deal of flexibility to cope with software development challenges.

CMMI is “Big” and more mature. In a bigger context, more process-oriented thinking will be required. You need to manage your requirements. You need better controlled configuration management. You need to specific techniques for measurements and analysis. You also need to control the practices used to deliver the technical solution, even if those practices are the agile practices. This doesn’t come for free, it comes at additional cost. However the value that it adds is worth it.

The dilemma: Can you be big yet smart? Sounds very challenging. Only one thing to be careful about: Big cannot get smarter, but smart can grow bigger.

CAS: CMMI, Agile, and Scrum. In Thebe Technology, we adopted Agile and Scrum, we believe in them, we hold tight to them, and we move carefully and steadily toward CMMI. That is how a smart can get bigger.