Friday, November 02, 2007
Enterprise Architecture: CMM is an Antipattern
In order to get to high levels of CMM, an enterprise needs to focus on the creation of comprehensive documentation where at best will be read by folks in the enterprise only once and probably not at all...
If we can acknowledge that the essence and reality of CMM are distinct, then we can also acknowledge that CMM may not be right for most enterprises. The essence of CMM is to be able to repeat your successes and to avoid repeating your failures, across the organization and down through time. This means that the guy you hire for Team A next year learns from the successes and failures of the Team B guy who died last year. This takes not just great documentation but also the merciless kind of introspection that's hard on self-esteem. Agile Methods encourage this but the process weenies destroy lightweight processes. Given the culture in most enterprises, self-reflection is unlikely.
| | View blog reactionsIf we can acknowledge that the essence and reality of CMM are distinct, then we can also acknowledge that CMM may not be right for most enterprises. The essence of CMM is to be able to repeat your successes and to avoid repeating your failures, across the organization and down through time. This means that the guy you hire for Team A next year learns from the successes and failures of the Team B guy who died last year. This takes not just great documentation but also the merciless kind of introspection that's hard on self-esteem. Agile Methods encourage this but the process weenies destroy lightweight processes. Given the culture in most enterprises, self-reflection is unlikely.
