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Comment by stuartmalcolm | Hacker News Reader

The thing to bear in mind is that not every organisation needs 'NASA-level' quality. IMHO The Capability Maturity Model is a must-read for everyone interested in professional software development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model_Inte...

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CMM is pure snake oil. You can't swing a cat in some cities without hitting a level 5 certified organization - but is your outsourced SAP implementation or helpdesk really space shuttle quality? Does it need to be?

A previous employer opened an offshoring centre, stuffed it with fresh grads, and 6 months later it was CMM level 5 having never shipped a single line of production code...

What do I look for in this model if I'm merely employed as a software developer?

Other than the fact you can quantify how developed your employers' processes are.

Well, it wouldn't be very fun to be in an organization at CMM-3 as I recall, that's a stage where the organization is serious about it but doesn't really understand why they're following these processes, more of a cargo cult than the real thing. Level 4 is what you really want to strive for.

And maybe CMM-2 is where an org pretends to follow a process, but when crunch time hits throws it out the window, so you get the worst of both worlds (or maybe that's typical of CMM-3, can't remember).

If you are going to stay as a junior or even mid level developer - not much. But if there's even a slight chance you might move on to software architect, management or sales then in my experience it is essential. That doesn't mean you have to like it or promote it. Just having an understanding of what it is and how it might help makes a difference.

The model is really just an abstract compilation of best practices and probably isn't helpful for just line-level developer. Personal Software Process (PSP), with it's pluses and minuses, is a more concrete implementation aimed at a single developer. You could in theory do it within the framework of your company's development process. Overall it's not that dissimilar from Joel's checklist[1] with an emphasis on metrics.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

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