"CMM is a great discipline, and it is a great designation to have," says Bart Perkins, a Computerworld columnist and managing partner at Louisville, Ky. based Leverage Partners Inc., which helps CIOs manage IT suppliers. "But the reality is that if an outsourcer is at Level 5 and the client is at Level 1 or 2, the client doesn't have the internal discipline to take advantage of the Level 5 provider's standardized routines."
Defining system or project requirements is a prime example. "With CMM, the entire requirements process is very rigidly defined. A Level 5 requirements document is very detailed and explicit and has metrics associated with it," Perkins explains. "But a company at a CMM Level 0 or 1 could have their requirements on the back of an envelope and no metrics. The Level 1 companies are lucky if they write out two pages."
The upshot, says Perkins, is that touting a CMM Level 5 rating to a Level 1 buyer "comes down to touting a feature that's of little value. It's like a car salesman in Alaska touting a car's great air conditioning. It may be great, but you can't take advantage of it."
Heh. I seem to recall that only a few years ago, the completely specified, over the wall to IT and back again later methodology of development waqs being denigrated. So it's a good thing if we can get software that doesn't meet our actual requirements, so long as it comes in cheaper? Organizations that don't flesh out a detailed requirements document with metrics aren't necessarily broken - it may be that they are being honest with themselves about how much they know ahead of time. What this tells me is that CMM 5 done overseas is just BFUD, only with less communication with actual users. That's good how, exactly?
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