snapped shot

now in ap-approved text mode

 
What happened to the pictures? Exhibit A, Exhibit B
Will they ever come back? Yes and no

CMMI Stinks

Brian C. Ledbetter · Thursday, April 24. 2008 09:35
Looks like I'm stuck with CMMI training this morning. Whee, fun.

Any readers out there dealt with this monstrosity before? From where I'm sitting (we're starting our CMMI-2 accreditation process), it all looks like an overly complicated mess that does nothing but guarantee the employment of more useless middle-managers. Documentation for every last step, without any actual attention to "results," that I can see.

This whole mess doesn't exactly inspire great bouts of confidence in our ability to produce a usable product, in any event.

Quoth Howard Dean, "Yearrrrrrrgh!"

I'd love to hear what you think. Is this stuff actually useful? Or does it explain exactly why the smallest projects end up costing millions of dollars?
permalink · Daily Fodder · Comments (6) · Trackbacks (0) · digg this
 

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments [RSS]
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Here is what a handful of random people think about this article. But first, the fine print:
The opinions expressed here, even where approved for display, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website, the management, or any other entity or organization, with the exception of the Vast Zionist Conspiracy. Those opinions we represent in style, yo. Please keep the language in these comments clean, as this is intended to be a family-friendly, work-friendly website. Comments not compliant with this policy will be edited for content where necessary. Abusive or otherwise illegal comments will be reported to the proper authorities, up to and including the aforementioned Vast Zionist Conspiracy. The Management cannot and will not be held responsible for commenters making a spectacle of themselves, even if The Management are the said commenters in question. In other words, don't take yourself so seriously, folks. We're all here to discuss the news, and more importantly, to have fun. Now go get yourself into some OCD treatment program—you obviously need it if you actually read all of this mess.

Henry Schneider on 2008-04-24 11:30 #1
*Hi Brian,
It sounds like you do not see the benefit of using a process improvement model. And whatever your CMMI instructor is explaining to you is not resonating. Rather than guarantee employment of what you call "useless middle managers", the model at Maturity Level 2 is there to enable them to become better managers.

Maturity Level 2 is all about triage and stabilizing projects that are in serious trouble and possibly on life support. The primary reason for project failure is extremely poor management of project requirements. If your requirements are not documented and you suffer from requirements creep, it is no wonder that project estimates are hosed and projects consistently overrun their budgets.

Now the Intro to CMMI class will give you a high level introduction to the different Process Areas of the model, but not in sufficient detail to appropriately implement them. You have to rely on someone who is knowledgeable about the model to appropriately guide your implementation efforts so there is value added to the organization, NOT put a lot of useless and cumbersome processes in place that kill your ability to deliver a product.

I am an SEI-authorized High Maturity Lead Appraiser and an SEI-authorized Intro to CMMI instructor. Please visit my company's web site at htttp:\\www.ppqc.net and read my blog at PPQC.blogspot.com for more practical information about the CMMI.
Reply  
Rooster on 2008-04-24 14:02 #2
*Hey Henry, go somewhere and die you boring idiot.
(Be honest, I'm not the first one to tell you to do that, am I?)
Reply  
BelchSpeak on 2008-04-24 16:47 #3
*Nothing good comes from the loser propellor-heads from Carnegie Melon's SEI. The whole fat pack of them bastards need to go on a long diet.

They have screwed up DHS's US-CERT and won't be happy until they bog down American businesses as well.
Reply  
Henry Schneider on 2008-04-25 17:41 #4
*It is a given that ALL models are flawed. However, using something is better than nothing and some models are better than others.

Having said all that, both of you have missed a wonderful opportunity to contribute opposing views in a constructive manner. Instead you have chosen to be rude and abusive, which actually strengthens and validates my original statement. You have the option to use a model or not. How about stating what your objections are? Then we could have a meaningful dialog. Otherwise, there is no point in carrying this on any further.
Reply  
Reasonable on 2008-04-26 05:49 #5
*Henry,

Obviously, the readers from this blog lack a few brain cells. I would let them stay on their compost pile...
Reply  
Cletus on 2008-04-28 12:56 #6
*HENRY: NOBODY CARES

GET A GIRLFRIEND OR SOMETHING
Reply  

Add Comment

E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

HTML-Tags will be converted to Entities.
Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
BBCode format allowed
Gravatar/MyBlogLog/Favatar/Pavatar author images supported.