[SATLUG] Re: XP/Agile vs. CMMI (was Re: SLOC was Re: PHP Eats Rails...)

[Robert Pearson]

On 12/5/06, Bob Tracy <rct at gherkin.frus.com> wrote:
> Justizin wrote:
> > Also, a lot of old world literature on project planning and
> > "large-scale" design is largely considered to be antiquating as we
> > speak.  Most people do XP/agile for large government and e.g. fortune
> > 500 contracts.  That's not to say that none of the ideas are valid,
> > but it's not the same world.
>
> The above intrigues.  Before anyone acuses me of engaging in bear-baiting,
> please perish the thought.  Clearly, we've got expertise on this subject
> worthy of exploring in a bit more detail.
>
> Perhaps this should have been part of the WTF thread, but anyway...
>
> In my past is a project for a government customer where the developers
> used XP/agile programming techniques.  At the time, the company was
> making strides toward CMMI level 5 certification, but the developers
> seemed determined to abuse the toolset and techniques in such a way as
> to thwart any notion of design process, let alone intelligence behind
> the design.  End result was poorly defined interfaces between the various
> modules, poor-to-nonexistent documentation, and lots of 11th-hour heroics
> as everything got stiched together in time (barely) to make the delivery.
> There were *major* changes in the user interface between point releases
> (internal) of the product due to the amount of rework being done.  Why
> so much rework?  The overall system context hadn't been adequately
> considered during coding of the individual components, and when the whole
> thing got put together and tested as a system, the design deficiencies
> became all too apparent :-(.
>
> Based on what I observed, if people had actually bothered to design
> something before going off and coding (under the guise of prototyping),
> much of the arse-pain could have been avoided.  I'd be intensely
> interested in other success/failure stories involving XP/agile usage,
> because while I'm willing to acknowledge that such techniques can bear
> fruit, our experience was clearly anathema to the company's CMMI
> aspirations.

Google is a "BIG" Agile success story.
Near as I can tell, from the group that presented to us, Agile is all
Google uses. During the Google presentation there was a lot of hostile
comment from the attendees and several people got up and left. Some
people were using Agile and were coming to like it. They were not
using any where near as aggressive a time line as Google. We're
talking 2 week timelines for Google versus 3 months+ for the locals.

Caveat: Google has a definite profile or stereotype in mind for the
people they want for programing positions. They took one look at me
and thanked me for stopping by. Rank age discrimination.

SwRI (Southwest Research Institute) is a big CMMI shop the last time I looked.