Friday, May 02, 2008
Why CMMi guarantees mediocrity...
One should reject any methodology that doesn't allow control over basic aspects of your life...
If we stop mixing words, we would come to understand that CMMi is more about repeatability and less about making things better, IT as a profession would improve. Sure, making things repeatable sometimes makes things better but one doesn't always result in another.
IT folks who are in enterprises are better off working in a factory where they tell you when you can poop, how long it will take, when to eat, how long it will take, etc. If you say I must work 9-5 then I can not control my time. Deciding when I work is very important to many. The assumption is that 9-5 are the "normal" work hours and everyone should be willing to work these hours. This is simply not true. It's like asking a straight person to become gay or vice versa.
Agilists understand that responding to change is more important than following a plan yet CMMi doesn't account for being nimble. CMMi is a worst practice and addresses the wrong problem within large enterprises and Indian outsourcing firms. Ultimately it will lead to mediocrity. When combined with analogies regarding manufacturing, the flexibility of having work hours that vary will start to disappear.
Requiring people to work 9-5 or other pontifications is like telling folks when they can poop. Imagine if the police department was told to embrace the manufacturing analogy. They would declare their hours of availability, yet when you called them, they often wouldn't answer. At some level, emergency rooms have implemented CMMi worst practices in that they will be open, but you will wait 5 hours before they actually see you...
| | View blog reactionsIf we stop mixing words, we would come to understand that CMMi is more about repeatability and less about making things better, IT as a profession would improve. Sure, making things repeatable sometimes makes things better but one doesn't always result in another.
IT folks who are in enterprises are better off working in a factory where they tell you when you can poop, how long it will take, when to eat, how long it will take, etc. If you say I must work 9-5 then I can not control my time. Deciding when I work is very important to many. The assumption is that 9-5 are the "normal" work hours and everyone should be willing to work these hours. This is simply not true. It's like asking a straight person to become gay or vice versa.
Agilists understand that responding to change is more important than following a plan yet CMMi doesn't account for being nimble. CMMi is a worst practice and addresses the wrong problem within large enterprises and Indian outsourcing firms. Ultimately it will lead to mediocrity. When combined with analogies regarding manufacturing, the flexibility of having work hours that vary will start to disappear.
Requiring people to work 9-5 or other pontifications is like telling folks when they can poop. Imagine if the police department was told to embrace the manufacturing analogy. They would declare their hours of availability, yet when you called them, they often wouldn't answer. At some level, emergency rooms have implemented CMMi worst practices in that they will be open, but you will wait 5 hours before they actually see you...
