Any time I come across that makes me respect CMU more, I'm uncomfortably reminded of their continued association with the SEI and CMMI. Yes it came out of CMU, yes it's a cash cow, yes things like healthcare.gov show how CMMI compliance are crucial to creating quality software. Okay yeah the last thing not so much.

Seriously, it's marketing snake oil and its creating wasteful barriers to entry for companies thinking of creating innovative user-friendly government software. And it can't die fast enough. I know its probably not high on this dean's priority list, but if I were a CMU student I'd be embarrassed that my university was associated a pseudo-serious institution that makes claims vastly exceeding what the scientific method can conclude given the data they present. The gap between their projected air of authority and their obliviousness to the limits of their methodology should make any engineer-oriented person uneasy. Yes there are probably some smart people in the SEI with interesting war stories and such but the whole certification thing has got to go.

Most of you in start-ups probably never heard of CMMI. This is generally a good thing.