The Limited Importance of Process Maturity in Software Development

An article by Steve McConnell from IEEESoftware.com notes that, surprisingly, software development process maturity (ie., rigorous technical management procedures) doesn’t seem to matter as much as “soft” factors like: seniority of personnel, good communication, motivation, analyst experience, etc.

The unstated implication is that the academics and big corporations concentrate too much on process maturity (eg. ISO 9001 & CMMI), because that’s easy to quantify, rather than actually being important.