More Good Agile CMMI news...

Check out this news from Brad Swanson's blog.

As you read, please keep the following in mind:

The company was already very mature at using agile methods. It's likely that their maturity in their own processes enabled their capability to affect process improvement (which, afterall, is what CMMI is really about). So, it's not that agile ALONE facilitated their CMMI ML4 rating, it's that they were good at what they did, had a culture of discipline to keep at it and that alone probably got them all the way through ML3. What ML4 provided was the ability to manage their projects and their processes statistically. Now *that* takes some doing!

Brad is right that many companies achieve high maturity levels (i.e., 4 & 5) using smoke and mirrors. And, the SEI is attempting to crack down on that (personally, I'm not sure their approach will entirely work).

Although... to get ML4 in two years is very very unusual. Readers should be warned that the SEI *is* likely to investigate that appraisal.

On the other hand, if it can be shown that mature agile methods allowed the company to get to ML4 in two years, you can bet it will open a flood of interest in agile from the "traditionalists".

Way to go!