Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

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A long time ago we used to obsess over the SEI/CMM (Capability Maturity Model), where a software organization is inspected and rated on a level from 1 (chaos, cat herding) to 5 (managed, optimizing).

Managers would read papers about the CMM and declare that they wanted to be a Level 5 organization, causing insane amounts of busywork and document generation and overall grief to realize that their underlying business processes were hopelessly in the way of any positive change.

So then the goal went from "Level 5 or Bust!" to "Okay, let's try to get to 3" and then later "Um, can we make Level 2?" Then everyone just gave up. There were only a handful of shops that ever made 5 and stayed there, the Space Shuttle engineers being the most famous example[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff

But it doesn't seem like 3 starred restaurants create "busy work" or documents, and yet, they highly value craftsmanship, quality, creativity.

What's the equivalent of that?

You might want to dig in and truly understand what a "3 star" establishment is and the insane amount of hard work necessary to achieve it. The trick to earning any kind of Michelin Star, even one, is to keep the diner from ever seeing that work.

It may seem "amazing and enriching" from the outside, and sous-chefs that work in these establishments surely have a resume that will open doors around the world, but to think it's a fun or entertaining experience is an incorrect assessment.

Here's some reading to get you started:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/top-chefs-michelin...

Likewise, while I haven't worked in a CMMI-5 environment, I have worked in an organization where I was required to be trained in TSP/PSP which (arguably) provides an even lower defect rate than CMMI-5. The amount of process and paperwork required was absolutely ridiculous and eventually caused me to leave due to all the fun simply having been removed from the job.

It may produce high-quality output, but you won't enjoy doing it!

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