Agile Development

Abstract: The Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Models (CMM) has been a major force for software process and acquisition improvement in the federal government's civil and defense communities for the past decade. Major investments have been made by the government, their contractors, and many other organizations to make software development more consistent and reliable. CMM provided an alternative to the cowboy programmer archetype. Amid this backdrop of progress, a new trend in software development has emerged - agile development. Agile development aims to build software faster and more flexibly than traditional approaches. This movement's manifesto says that it values 'individuals and interactions over processes and tools' [1]. For organizations that have invested in a CMM, do agile methods represent the rebirth of the cowboy - a weed to be stamped out? Alternatively, are agile methods a reasonable way to build software in a world in which needs are changing at an ever-increasing pace - a wildflower to be nurtured? This article looks at whether there is home for agile methods in the defense community and other organizations that have embraced the CMM?