Topic:

Scrum and CMMI are often at odds with each other. What does each approach bring to the table?  Scrum promotes the idea of focusing on the most important product issues first and supports frequent communication. CMMI brings a structure that promotes consistency and discipline to avoid waste and rework. So, why should we try to combine both approaches? Is this combination a good idea?

This presentation comes from our involvement with 15+ organizations that have used Scrum with CMMI to obtain the best of both worlds.  We have summarized this involvement into three categories.  The first category is an initial Scrum and CMMI implementation, the second category is using CMMI to bring a failed Scrum implementation back to life, and the third category is one of the only CMMI Level 5 Scrum implementations in the world. These three categories represent what is becoming known as Agile CMMI.

This presentation identifies the most common bad practices and misconceptions we have encountered in using CMMI.  The biggest problem is too heavy of a process definition.  Lessons learned are shared that show how these bad practices and misconceptions have been addressed using Scrum.

This presentation also discusses impediments to good Scrum implementations.  Introducing Scrum into an organization is fraught with impediments.  Additional impediments occur when striving for hyperproductive Scrum. We explain how using the CMMI’s enterprise focus has addressed many of these impediments.

We will discuss Agile CMMI attributes that improve quality and reduce cost.  Agile CMMI leads to excellent, hyperproductive Scrum that has been shown to increase annual revenue up to 400 percent.  Agile CMMI promotes consistent performance, organizational learning and knowledge sharing, and defect reduction.  Agile CMMI helps avoid too much bureaucracy, while still promoting organizational improvement and reducing waste.  Plus, it’s fast and fun.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Sutherland is the creator of Scrum, and was a signer of the Agile Manifesto, which marked the start of the Agile movement. He began his career as a fighter pilot in the US Air Force, and went on to join the faculty at the University of Colorado Medical School. Dr. Sutherland has served as VP of Engineering or CTO at eleven software companies, managing the last seven entirely using Scrum, and achieved industry-leading, hyper-productive results. Dr. Sutherland is the Chairman of the Scrum Training Institute, and Senior Advisor to OpenView Venture Partners where he is Agile coach for portfolio companies.  

For a more complete bio go to http://scrumtraininginstitute.com/about/jeff-sutherland.