Lightening the Software Production Process in a CMM Level 5 Framework

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a framework for judging the maturity of the software processes of an organization. This model is often misapplied in practice, being used as a bulwark for rigid approaches to software development. This usually leads to project failure when requirements are set in a rapidly changing environment, or when they are vaguely defined. Agile methodologies behave very well in this kind of environment. In this article we show that Agile methodologies can be applied in a CMM context, specifying how every goal of each Key Process Area of the model can be fulfilled when an Agile methodology such as Xp@Scrum is being used. We also show some metrics from pilote projects at a Motorola Software Centre backing our aiming, and showing the benefits introduced by Agile approaches to software development.