I work in a shop that is certified at CMMI level 5. This certification is important because it gives us access to certain customers and contracts. I'm looking at how to blend Scrum with CMMI. I've found some info on mixing Scrum with CMMI-3, but quite a bit of it is "hand wavy" and wouldn't hold up to intense scrutiny. Specifically, the organizational KPAs seem challenging.
What experiences have you had (good and bad) mixing the two processes?
Here is an experience report on the results of introducing Scrum into a CMMI Level 5 environment to replace waterfall projects for large defense and healthcare contracts (pdf).
Abstract:
Projects combining agile methods with CMMI1 are more successful in producing higher quality software that more effectively meets customer needs at a faster pace. Systematic Software Engineering works at CMMI level 5 and uses Lean Software Development as a driver for optimizing software processes. Early pilot projects at Systematic showed productivity on Scrum teams almost twice that of traditional teams. Other projects demonstrated a story based test driven approach to software development reduced defects found during final test by 40%. We assert that Scrum and CMMI together bring a more powerful combination of adaptability and predictability than either one alone and suggest how other companies can combine them.
HTH,
I just happen to find a blog on this exact topic: Agile CMMI blog
A starting point for a discussion on marrying Agile methods and CMMI.
It links to several articles
It found the whole of interest so I decided to share it here.
This seems an interesting paper by the SEI folks at Carnegie Mellon (not just about Scrum though):
CMMI and Agile are compatible. At the project level, CMMI focuses at a high level of abstraction on what projects do, not on what development methodology is used, while Agile methods focus on how projects develop products. Therefore, CMMI and Agile methods can co-exist
As a follow-up to the SEI paper already mentioned here, Scott Ambler published an article on Dr Dobb's named "Agile CMMI: Complimentary or Oxymoronic?" where he's commenting the SEI paper. HTH.
Another interesting Jeff Sutherland's paper on that subject is "Scrum and CMMI Level 5: The Magic Potion for Code Warriors"
Is is said : "Results show that projects combining Agile Methods with CMMI 5 are more successful in producing higher quality software that more effectively meets customer needs at a faster pace."
If you can read french, here's a very good article on that subject : Synergies entre CMMI et les Méthodes Agiles
He're is my experience doing this, although only for CMMi L2: DDJ's link
Another recent article providing real life experience on this topic is "Mature Scrum at Systematic", co-writtent by Carsten Ruseng Jakobsen, Jeff Sutherland
Hey. On EuroStar 2009 conference Gittie Ottosen spoke about how they do agile at their company. What's impressive is that this company Systematic is creating software for air-crafts, military etc. They do it in compliance with CMMI 5, ISO 9001 and AQAP 150&2110. So I guess agile can be applied to systems with high regulations. Maybe try to look up that presentation, and try to get more info from him.