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4.3.2.1 Maturity
About
There are two ways to think about maturity: the maturity of the products or systems and the maturity of the communities which develop the systems or products. Usually, the two kinds of maturity go hand in hand. A mature product or system is the result of a mature community process and, visa versa, a mature community process produces mature products.
- Note: Community, in this case, can refer to a Community of Interest (CoI) or a corporation.
Products or Systems
Product or System maturity is an assessment (sometimes quantifiable) of how well a product or system meets its requirements for reliability under normal operations.
Maturity of the components selected for inclusion in a system can play a significant role in the overall success of a system. Components that are mature are more likely to be stable and reliable; qualities that directly translate to stable and reliable integrations, which are thereby robust and resilient when inevitable changes to the system are made. This holds true as long as the components are not coming close to End-of-life (EoL). See Manageability Costs .
Rafa E. Al-Qutaish and Alain Abran have proposed a maturity model based on Six Sigma (6Sigma).1)
- The quality of a product can be assessed either directly by looking into the product itself, or indirectly through assessing the process used to develop that product. In the software engineering field, there are currently numerous capability and maturity models for assessing a set of specific software processes, but very few product maturity models for those interested in assessing the quality of software products. This paper presents a maturity model designed to directly assess the quality of a software product, i.e. the Software Product Quality Maturity Model (SPQMM). This model is based on the six-sigma view of product quality and handles – in submodels – the three views of quality specified in ISO 9126, that is, the Software Product Internal Quality Maturity Model (SPIQMM), the Software Product External Quality Maturity Model (SPEQMM), and the Software Product Quality-in-Use Maturity Model (SPQiUMM).
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Where:
WQLis the quality level of the whole software product, including the quality levels of all three stages of the software productIQLis the internal quality levelEQLis the external quality leveliUQLis the in-use quality level of the software product
Table 1: Sigma values based on the quality level and the software integrity level5 4 3 2 1 0 Very High High Intermediate Low Trivial None Zero Sigma Shift 1.5 Sigma Shift 2.0 Sigma Shift 2.5 Sigma Shift 3.0 Sigma Shift 3.5 Sigma Shift Assigned Sigma Ranges QL ≥ 99.99997% QL ≥ 99.976% QL ≥ 99.865% QL ≥ 99.379% QL ≥ 97.724% QL ≥ 03.319% σ ≥ 5 QL < 99.99997% QL < 99.976% QL < 99.865% QL < 99.379% QL < 97.724% QL < 93.319% and and and and and and 5 > σ ≥ 4 QL ≥ 99.996% QL ≥ 99.379% QL ≥ 99.724% QL ≥ 99.319% QL ≥ 97.134% QL ≥ 69.146% QL < 99.996% QL < 99.379% QL < 97.724% QL < 93.319% QL < 84.134% QL < 69.146% and and and and and and 4 > σ ≥ 3 QL ≥ 99.865% QL ≥ 93.319% QL ≥ 84.134% QL ≥ 69.146% QL ≥ 50% QL ≥ 30.853% QL < 99.965% QL < 93.319% QL < 84.134% QL < 69.146% QL < 50% QL < 30.853% and and and and and and 3> σ ≥ 2 QL ≥ 97.724% QL ≥ 69.146% QL ≥ 50% QL ≥ 30.853% QL ≥ 15.865% QL ≥ 6.680% QL < 97.724% QL < 69.146% QL < 50% QL < 30.853% QL < 15.865% QL < 6.680% σ < 2 -
Where:
Communities
There are several ways to establish or assess Community2) maturity:
See also: Talk Openly Develop Openly (TODO).
DIDO Specifics
