Exploring an approach to capability maturity assessment: Towards an evidence-based framework

Accurately assessing capability maturity is an important practice for reducing costs, time to production, and adverse events for any system development activity [1]. This was as true for the vacuum-tube avionics of the early 20^th century as it is for today's enterprise digital systems. Within the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) program, an accurate assessment of capability maturity is crucial to successfully transfer concepts and software technology from one organization to another throughout concept development and acquisition phases. This paper describes the current status of an ongoing effort to develop a new maturity assessment framework for automation technology concepts and their related capabilities. The purpose of the new framework is to collect, organize, and report information about the maturity of technology concepts and capabilities. The information that is organized through this analysis identifies specific areas where additional design and validation efforts would be most fruitful. Specifically, the framework seeks to indicate what has been done, under what conditions, with what results. By doing this, the framework identifies what specific components need further development. The new framework also aims to allow the comparison of results across capabilities or time frames, as well as being applicable to a variety of programs within the FAA or other government agencies.