High Maturity Is Not a Procrustean Bed

In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a rogue smith and bandit who invited travellers to rest in his perfectly sized bed. When they accepted, he forcibly bound them to it, then stretched them or cut off various body parts until they perfectly fit the bed. Too many organizations have a single model of high maturity to which they try to fit all their projects. Development and acquisition organizations are finding that competitive success requires systems that are a mix of high security assurance components opaque and dynamic COTS products and cloud services, and highly useful but kaleidoscopic apps and widgets. Approaching such systems with a one-size-fits all corporate process and maturity model often results in a procrustean fit. As a process model generator, the Incremental Commitment Spiral Model has a set of criteria for determining which process or processes best fit a particular system of interest. This article summarizes the criteria and illustrates how they have been successfully applied in various situations.