Monday, December 22, 2008

CMMI or Agile

I currently work in a CMMI Level 3 environment, have worked in Agile environments, and continuously experiment and apply agile techniques that work.  I was happy to see that SEI has published an initial document last month, "CMMI or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both!", that addresses the diverging software engineering viewpoints that has festered in the past 5-years.  This article draws a line in the sand and makes the first step towards legitimizing  the pros/cons and benefits of both approaches.  This is a must read article for any serious CMMI or Agile manager, practitioner, architects, developers, software engineer, coder, programmer, or anyone that is affected by CMMI and Agile techniques.

There are elements of CMMI which I think are necessary for software projects and there are approaches in Agile that solve real world software engineering problems.  This initial SEI published article calls on both the CMMI zealots and Agile practitioners (agilistas) to unite and resolve their differences in order to maintain a healthy software engineering discipline.

I exist in the middle of this software engineering culture clash.  Now, is the time for unity, change, and forward progress in both the CMMI and Agile camps to create something better for the future of software engineering.  It is time to roll up the sleeves and have a meeting of the minds.  We are all on the same team, it is just a matter of accepting this fact and improving everything we do.