On this page you’ll find a high-level assessment (at the CMMI Key Process level) of some of the well known agile development methods like Scrum, XP (eXtreme Programming) and RUP (Rational Unified Process). For ease of comparison the SmartMethod is also included.

This assessment can of course only be in very general terms and your specific implementation may well score very differently. Only a proper CMMI assessment will tell you the specific practices which need attention either in your methodology and/ or in the application thereof by you and your team. However, this table does give a good idea of where the pain points typically are.

To score each of the methodologies, the following ranking system is used, with the associated point-score shown in brackets:

►       “--”  not defined / not part of the method (0);

►       “~”  not defined, but typically practiced to some degree by individuals (1);

►       “+-”  partly defined, but not meeting all CMMI practices (2);

►       “✓”  fully defined by the method (3).

Comments on this table are provided at the end of this page.

General Comments

►       The CMMI level 2 table splits the RQM KPA into two parts: management (i.e. prioritization), and traceability (i.e. linking of requirements and tracing requirements to work products and visa versa). Traceability is by far the hardest to achieve. The process should define the specific practices of traceability but to implement that you need a requirements management tool which supports bi-directional traceability, like ScopeTracker (Doors and CaliberRM can not trace within files, and can only trace files which are manually hyperlinked to requirements).

►       Note that for Scrum and XP there are many published works, but there isn’t just one definitive standard body of work, like for the RUP or PRINCE2. Thus this assessment is “our best stab average, biased towards giving the benefit of the doubt”. The maturity of these methods is as good as the published work you know / apply.

►       Scrum, XP, and RUP only concern themselves with the project processes and do not address the Operational Process Focus (organizational processes) spanning across project delivery. Thus they don't deliver CMMi level 3.

►       Since none of the Scrum, XP or RUP processes deliver CMMI level 2 maturity, it is unlikely that they will yield a stepped-up time cost improvement. You’ll see some improvement for sure, but consistency across many projects will still be very much dependent on individuals rather than on the process. Thus your organization is still very much dependent on key individuals, and if they leave …

Scrum

►       Scrum is excellent on Requirements gathering (RD, level 3) prioritizing (RQM) and project monitoring and control (they actually use Earned Value, something the PMBOK identifies as best practice project management. In our experience, most PMs / PMPs do not use this technique, however most Scrum and XP practitioners do!)

►       Scrum, unlike XP, does try and address the upfront planning and estimation.

XP - eXtreme Programming:

►       XP is notorious in that it refuses to estimate upfront. If you follow the method, at best you achieve an incomplete break down of deliverables, which is refined as you go. For practical reasons many practitioners have added their own work breakdown and planning techniques to plug the “project planning” process gap. Hence XP fails the project planning (PP) process, and in simple terms does not create the tracks to stay on.

►       XP, like Scrum, is excellent on Requirements gathering (RD, level 3) prioritizing (RQM) and project monitoring and control (they also use Earned Value)

►       XP’s design method is the “GML” (General Modeling Language) comprising of just a line and a box element, with no syntactical meaning to the diagramming technique. Thus XP provides little to no guidance for creating designs that can validate the requirements and interfaces, nor do they document alternatives, and hence the intent of the CMMi level 3 design process (TS) is lacking.

RUP

►       The method/process is built around the IBM Rational development management tools like RequisitePro (requirements management), Functional Tester, Performance Tester, Rose (design tool). If you have all these tools and apply them as intended by the vendor, you would satisfy all aspects of Requirements management and fully operate at level 2 with parts of level 3 addressed as well (see also THE level 2 hurdle). However it comes at a heavy financial cost.

SmartMethod

►       The SmartMethod is implements all CMMI level 2 and 3 key process areas. The method informs you in detail which practices by process area to adopt, as explained in the Practices sections. Thereby for SmartMethod users, the CMMI is not abstract, but to the point and practical on what needs to happen to achieve the benefits.

►       This is not a project management method, but it does spell out to project managers the specific project planning (PP), monitoring and control (PMC), sub-contractor agreement (SAM), integrated supplier management (ISM) and risk (RSKM) processes to adopt, in order to behave at level 3.

You’re thoughts on this assessment? Let’s improve it, give us feedback.

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