Page 23 - The Art of Designing Embedded Systems

10 THE ART OF DESIGNING EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

-2. Contemptuous-Arrogance. Disregard for good software
engineering institutionalized. Complete schism between software
development activities and software process improvement activities.
Complete lack of a training program.
-3. Undermining-Sabotage. Total neglect of own charter,
conscious discrediting of organization’s software process improve-
ment efforts. Rewarding failure and poor performance.
If you’ve been in this business for a while, this extension to the
CMM may be a little too accurate to be funny. . . .

The idea behind the CMM is to find a defined way to predictably
make good software. The words “predictable” and “consistently” are the
keynotes of the CMM. Even the most dysfunctional teams have occasional
successes-generally surprising everyone. The key is to change the way we
build embedded systems so we are consistently successful, and so we can
reliably predict the code’s characteristics (deadlines, bug rates, cost, etc.).
Figure 2-1 shows the result of using the tenants of the CMM in
achieving schedule and cost goals. In fact, level 5 organizations don’t al-
ways deliver on time. The probability of being on time, though, is high and
the typical error bands low.

Ddivcry Date

FIGURE 2-1 Improving the process improves the odds of meeting goals
and narrows the error bands.