Introduction

When upholding quality, the industry's adherence to Total Quality Management (TQM) principles has often been overshadowed by various testing methods. TQM encompasses both process and product quality, aiming to enhance an organization's overall operations and products. As software becomes increasingly integral across industries, the concept of quality has become synonymous with various forms of scripted and unscripted testing, involving both manual and automated methods throughout the system development life cycle (SDLC). However, the importance of quality extends beyond software to every industry.

Consider a manufacturing company producing widgets to illustrate process and product quality. Process quality involves assessing the efficiency of manufacturing processes, such as production time, defect rates, and overall costs. This can include statistical sampling of raw materials, factory inspections for safety, and Gemba walks to ensure adherence to safety protocols, like using protective gear on assembly lines. Conversely, product quality focuses on the characteristics of the widget itself, such as durability, functionality, and appearance. This can involve proactive mistake-proofing techniques like Poka Yoke (analogous to code reviews and unit testing in software) and testing for known parameters using stress and load testing.

Process quality refers to the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes used to create a product, service, or result. In contrast, product quality refers to conformance to requirements and fitness for use of the characteristics and features of the end product or service itself.

Cost of Quality

Maintaining high quality is crucial in a market demanding rapid delivery of new features at reduced costs. However, accelerating time to market and cutting costs often jeopardizes quality. Addressing defects early in the design and development stages is more cost-effective than fixing them later in the product lifecycle. Project management principles place quality at the core of the iron triangle (scope, schedule, and cost). At the same time, adaptive approaches prioritize acceptance criteria within the 3C's (Card, Conversation, Confirmation) of a user story, ensuring quality from the outset. These "Quality by Design" (QbD) concepts are grounded in the Cost of Quality (CoQ) principle from Total Quality Management (TQM).

Consider the following scenario: investing time early in the development process (red line) to build quality might delay the time to market, but it results in a higher-quality product with fewer defects. However, overengineering processes can lead to diminishing returns in product quality. Even with automation beyond a certain point, maintaining automation scripts incurs additional costs, impacting the sustainability of quality.

By embedding QbD principles into project management and adaptive approaches, organizations can balance the demands of fast delivery, cost efficiency, and high quality, ultimately leading to better outcomes and customer satisfaction.

Figure 1: Dr. Rajagopalan’s synthesis of the Cost of Quality Over time

When examining the cost of quality through the lens of project management principles, there is a strong emphasis on the cost of building good quality and dealing with poor quality. The cost of good quality, known as the cost of conformance, includes activities such as Quality Assurance (building quality) and Quality Control (assessing quality). Conversely, the cost of bad quality, or the cost of non-conformance, encompasses expenses related to defect repair resulting from internal and external failures.

Product management must focus on process and product quality to achieve higher customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and enhance overall competitiveness. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a holistic approach that emphasizes the continuous improvement of all aspects of an organization's operations—from the design and development of products and services to delivery and customer service.

By integrating TQM principles, organizations can ensure that quality is built into every stage of the product lifecycle. This leads to fewer defects, lower costs, and a stronger competitive position. This comprehensive approach meets customer expectations and drives long-term success and sustainability.

Quality Frameworks

When it comes to upholding quality, various frameworks promote the concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM), each with distinct operating paradigms. Depending on their focus, these frameworks can vary significantly. For instance, CMMI, Six Sigma, and ISO standards are all valuable tools for improving an organization's performance, but they each offer unique approaches and focus areas.

• CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is a process improvement framework from Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI) that assesses an organization's ability to develop and maintain high-quality software. It consists of five maturity levels, each representing a higher level of process capability. CMMI provides a structured approach to process improvement and helps organizations identify areas for improvement.

• Six Sigma is a quality management methodology initially developed by Motorola that focuses on reducing defects and improving quality. It uses a data-driven approach to identify and eliminate the root causes of defects and has been used in many large-scale organizations, such as General Electric. Although Six Sigma is frequently used in manufacturing and related service industries to improve efficiency and reduce costs, the continuous use of software in these industries has also seen Six Sigma within the software development concept.

• ISO standards (International Organization for Standardization) are international standards that specify requirements for various aspects of an organization's operations. Within the umbrella of ISO standards, many standards uphold Total Quality (such as ISO 9001), and others focus on system development and related engineering processes (such as ISO 15288).

Overview of Quality Standards and Frameworks

As regulations tighten, organizations increasingly focus on traceability and auditability, critical components of empirical processes. They are keen to adopt standards and frameworks to stand out in the market. However, understanding the differences between these two is crucial for their effective implementation.

Standards, such as ISO 9001, set specific criteria for quality management systems, providing a consistent foundation for organizations to ensure their products and services meet customer and regulatory requirements. On the other hand, frameworks like CMMI or Six Sigma offer structured approaches and best practices for process improvement and quality enhancement.

Comprehending these standards and methodologies is invaluable for assessing and optimizing organic business operations and systems. Additionally, leveraging commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products and services can enhance the development of new products and services. COTS solutions often come pre-validated and compliant with industry standards, reducing the time and cost associated with development while ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements

CMMI: Capability Maturity Model Integration

History and Development: Originally developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in the late 1980s for the US Department of Defense. It has since evolved to cover a broader range of industries and processes.

Definition and Purpose: CMMI focuses on improving the maturity of an organization's software development processes. Hence, a process-level improvement, training, and appraisal program helps organizations enhance their processes and develop behaviors that decrease risks in software, product, and service development.

Core Components: The core components of the CMMI depend on the organization's maturity level. CMMI recognizes five maturity levels: Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, and Optimizing. According to the CMMI Levels of Capability and Performance (n.d.), the extent of process quality support differs in each level, indicating the organizational commitment to process quality maturity. Consequently, the process areas include specific quality practices and goals within each maturity level, such as project management, engineering, and process management.

Synthesizing experience gained from establishing the Program Management Office, Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan, Global Head of Agile Strategy, Transformation, and Learning Service, observes the following high-level description of each CMMI level (Rajagopalan, 2023). These maturity levels can also be mapped to the Project Management Office (PMO) structures recommended by the Project Management Institute (2017) for the first three levels (Directive, Controlling, and Supporting) but also to the practitioner's thoughts of expanding it further to Managed and Optimizing (Coras, 2017).

Table 1: CMMI Maturity Level Summary

Maturity Level	Description
Level 1 - Initial	This level represents unpredictable and reactive processes. Although work gets done, it is often late, over budget, and of poor quality.
Level 2 - Managed	This level represents slightly better processes where projects are reasonably planned and executed with appropriate controls in place to take corrective actions.
Level 3 - Defined	This level represents increased maturity, where more detailed guidance and governance exist for projects, programs, and portfolios. There is a focus on both preventive and corrective actions.
Level 4 - Quantitatively Managed	This level expands the organizational commitment to systematically collecting data and using data-driven analytical insights to manage internal and external stakeholders and align objectives strategically.
Level 5 - Optimizing	This level introduces the continuous improvement mindset in all phases of the project, program, portfolio, and operations, identifying changes arising from risks and issues and pivoting accordingly.

Certification Considerations: It's crucial to note that CMMI is a maturity assessment model, not a certification program. Consequently, neither individuals nor organizations can attain CMMI certification. Therefore, organizations seeking to procure products or services should not expect to find CMMI-certified offerings.

Application Areas: CMMI is used in industries such as software development, defense, finance, aerospace, healthcare, transportation, and education.

Six Sigma

History and Development: Inspired by Lean Management principles, Motorola developed the Six Sigma concept in 1986. It gained widespread recognition in the 1990s, largely due to its adoption by General Electric under the leadership of Jack Welch.

Definition and Purpose: Six Sigma uses a statistical data-driven approach to identifying and eliminating defects. Furthermore, it adopts the operational excellence mindset to continuously improve quality by focusing on process improvement and reducing variability.

Core Components: According to the Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) principles, five cyclical phases (or stages) incrementally use different techniques to build process quality using data-driven insights. The five stages differ based on whether the focus is on existing processes or new product/service development (Purdue University, n.d.).

The DMAIC framework—Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control—is a proven roadmap for transforming existing processes into streamlined, high-performing operations that deliver exceptional results.

DMADV—Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify—is the blueprint for creating innovative products and services that exceed customer expectations and drive market success.

Depending on the application area of focus, numerous statistical process techniques can be applied in every quality control governance. Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan (2019) synthesized the seven critical quality control techniques with an acrostic, “History Informs, Performance Follows Capabilities, Skills, and Competencies” in his book called “Organized Common Sense.” Picking up the first character of each word in this acrostic, these quality control techniques are:

Table 2: Quality Control Techniques

Quality Control Technique	Description
H - Histogram	This diagram looks like a bar chart but describes the frequency of distribution of any observed variable. These observed frequencies can indicate risk (about to happen) or issue (things already happening).
I - Ishikawa Diagram	This diagram is also called a fishbone diagram, cause-and-effect diagram, or root-cause analysis diagram. It evaluates the various causes (hazards or harms) that contribute to a problem so that they can be independently studied further for the controls. These controls could be corrective or preventive actions (CAPA) based on whether they are issues or risks.
P - Pareto Chart	This principle is called the 80-20 rule, indicating that 80% of the problems come from 20% of the causes. This helps prioritize issues based on the significance of the impact connected with risk management. Hence, this diagram is similar to the histogram but sorts out any observed variable's frequency distribution in descending order. This approach helps identify which elements contribute the most.
F - Flowchart	This diagram is a powerful tool for visualizing complex processes and systems, providing a logical roadmap for problem-solving, decision-making, and optimizing workflows. This versatile technique underpins various Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams, including sequence diagrams, class diagrams, and interaction diagrams
C - Checksheets	Checksheets represent the consistent collection of data for subsequent analysis. Therefore, these data typically fall under five categories: Classification sheet (e.g., collection of critical, high, medium, and low priority change requests for every type of product component), Location sheet (e.g., type of feature request by geographical or industry representation), Frequency sheet (e.g., number of requests in a specific category like New requests, Back to Customer, Queued for Development, Resolved, Closed, etc.)Measurement sheet (e.g., number of items in different statuses by the time taken(t) in days such as (t<30, 30<t<60, t>60)), andTask sheet (e.g., list of consistent tasks for a specific activity, such as deployment checklist (peer review completed, unit testing completed, acceptance testing completed, build completed, production smoke testing completed, etc.). This task sheet is frequently called the to-do list or checklist and shouldn’t be mixed up with checksheets that include other types.
S - Scatter Plot	Scatter diagrams are an indicator of a specific problem measured or metric (KPI) monitored. For instance, the number of first-day defects per release indicates the measure of escaped defects.
C - Control Chart	Control charts are essential tools for precisely measuring process variability, providing crucial insights into a system's stability and predictability. By establishing upper and lower control limits (UCL and LCL) based on three standard deviations from the observed median, control charts empower organizations to monitor performance, identify anomalies, and take proactive measures to maintain optimal efficiency. With seven distinct types tailored to continuous or discrete data and varying sample sizes, control charts offer a versatile solution for diverse industries seeking to optimize their processes.

Certification Considerations: Six Sigma and Lean are conceptual foundations demonstrating varying levels of knowledge and expertise. Therefore, individuals can certify themselves for various levels as follows:

• White Belt: Basic understanding of Six Sigma concepts.

• Yellow Belt: Participates as a project team member and understands basic concepts.

• Green Belt: Leads smaller projects or serves as a team member on larger projects.

• Black Belt: Leads complex projects, typically full-time.

• Master Black Belt: Trains and coaches Black Belts and Green Belts.

• Lean Six Sigma Master Belt: Trains and coaches Black Belts and Green Belts on Lean principles along with Six Sigma principles

Application Areas: Widely used in manufacturing, transportation, aviation, defense, healthcare, finance, and service industries.

ISO 9001: Quality Management Systems (QMS)

History and Development: ISO 9001 is an international standard for quality management systems (QMS) developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The first version was published in 1987, and the latest version, ISO 9001:2015, is the basis for this article.

Definition and Purpose: The ISO 9001:2015 standard is a comprehensive framework designed to ensure consistent quality in products and services throughout their entire lifecycle. Guided by the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, this standard emphasizes the alignment of quality requirements with both business objectives and a robust quality management system (QMS). By focusing on key areas such as quality policy, documentation, process control, risk management, resource management, and continuous improvement, ISO 9001:2015 empowers organizations to deliver exceptional quality that meets and exceeds customer expectations. (Inflectra, 2024).

Essential Clauses: The ISO 9001:2015 is based on seven critical quality principles. These include customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision-making, and relationship management. Integrating these principles with the PDCA lifecycle, ISO 9001:2015 comes up with ten clauses (Inflectra, 2024).

Table 3 : ISO 9001:2015 Clause Summary

ISO 9001:2015 Clause	Description
1: Scope	This section summarizes the scope of specifications for the QMS of any organization.
2: References	This section describes the terminologies and fundamentals referenced throughout the standard.
3: Terms & Definitions	This section serves as the glossary of terms and definitions laying the foundation for the QMS context.
4: Context of the Organization	This section emphasizes that the organization is not closed and is open to internal and external stimuli
5: Leadership & Commitment	This section discusses developing a quality policy focusing not only on direction and alignment but also on customer focus; as a result, it discusses the responsibilities and authorities
6: Planning for the QMS	This section focuses on what risks exist in implementing the quality policy and ensuring compliance with the stated policy
7: Support & Resource Management	This section discusses the necessary oversight of human and non-human interfaces
8: Operational Planning & Control	organizations to tailor certain elements based on their specific context. In the area of purchasing, for example, not all requirements are mandatory depending on the type of product or service being delivered. This flexibility allows organizations to focus on the aspects of purchasing that are most critical to their operations and prioritize the cost of non-conformance (quality control) to ensure optimal outcomes.
9: Performance Evaluation	This section is about assessing work completed. This is done by quality audit, which involves an internal audit of work, monitoring and analysis of processes, and management review (capacity, resource allocation, etc.).
10: Improvement Actions	Continuous improvement is a cornerstone of ISO 9001:2015, emphasizing the importance of ongoing enhancements to achieve consistent quality. It's crucial to distinguish between continual improvement, which refers to repetitive actions with limited potential for significant enhancement, and continuous improvement, where deliberate changes are implemented to elevate performance and achieve greater consistency. This distinction underscores the need for organizations to proactively identify and implement targeted improvements to deliver high-quality products and services consistently.

Certification Considerations: Organizations can pursue ISO 9001:2015 certification through accredited third-party certification bodies. Achieving this certification significantly enhances brand equity and market credibility for their products and services, assuring customers that their processes adhere to the rigorous quality management standards set by an independent organization.

Application Areas: Applicable across all industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, education, and public administration.

ISO 15288 - System Engineering Model

History and Development:

ISO 15288 was first published in 2002 and is based on the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). It serves as the reference standard describing the processes related to the lifecycle of systems and subsystems from an engineering perspective. It has been updated in 2008, 2015, and 2023.

Definition and Purpose:

ISO 15288:2023 is an international standard for systems and software life cycle processes. It provides a framework for developing, controlling, improving, maintaining, and retiring systems and software in a consistent and structured manner (ISO 15288, 2023). This standard incorporates suppliers and consumers and covers the entire SIPOC- Supplier, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, Consumers pipeline.

Process Areas: This standard serves as a comprehensive reference for system life cycle processes, encompassing four distinct process groups: agreement processes, organizational project-enabling processes, technical management processes, and technical processes. This holistic approach ensures a structured and standardized approach to managing the entire system lifecycle, from initial conception to eventual retirement (Dori, 2023).

Table 4: ISO 15288:2023 Process Area Summary

Process Area	Description
Agreement Processes (Clauses 6.1)	This section involves the following two processes related to contracting and procurement. Clause 6.1.1 - Acquisition Processes Clause 6.1.2 - Supply Chain Processes
Organizational Project-Enabling Processes (Clauses 6.2)	This section involves the following six processes related to enabling projects as a means to deliver on organizational objectives. Clause 6.2.1 - Life Cycle Management ProcessesClause 6.2.2 - Infrastructure Management ProcessesClause 6.2.3 - Portfolio Management ProcessesClause 6.2.4 - Human Resources Management ProcessesClause 6.2.5 - Quality Management ProcessesClause 6.2.6 - Knowledge Management Processes
Technical Management Processes (Clauses 6.3)	This section involves the following eight processes related to the use of projects within the technical projects.Clause 6.3.1 - Project Planning ProcessesClause 6.3.2 - Project Assessment and Control Processes Clause 6.3.3 - Decision Management ProcessesClause 6.3.4 - Risk Management ProcessesClause 6.3.5 - Configuration Management ProcessesClause 6.3.6 - Information Management ProcessesClause 6.3.7 - Measurement ProcessesClause 6.3.8 - Quality Assurance Processes
Technical Processes (Clauses 6.4)	This section involves the following 14 processes governing the use of technical considerations throughout the SDLC phases. Clause 6.4.1 - Business or Mission Analysis ProcessesClause 6.4.2 - Stakeholder Needs & Requirements Definition ProcessesClause 6.4.3 - System Requirements Definition ProcessesClause 6.4.4 - Architecture Definition ProcessesClause 6.4.5 - Design Definition ProcessesClause 6.4.6 - System Analysis ProcessesClause 6.4.7 - Implementation ProcessesClause 6.4.8 - Integration ProcessesClause 6.4.9 - Verification ProcessesClause 6.4.10 - Transition ProcessesClause 6.4.11 - Validation ProcessesClause 6.4.12 - Operation ProcessesClause 6.4.13 - Maintenance ProcessesClause 6.4.14 - Disposal Processes

Application Areas: ISO 15288:2023 can be used in various application areas, including software development, systems engineering, information technology, aerospace, defense, healthcare, and financial services.

Comparative Analysis

In today's increasingly regulated landscape, individuals and organizations face a critical dilemma: which standards and frameworks best suit their needs? For those in the technical domain, aligning with ISO 15288:2023 or ISO 9001:2015 can be particularly challenging. Teams may also grapple with the decision to adopt methodologies like Six Sigma or CMMI. At the individual level, the value of pursuing ISO certifications and understanding the certification status of products or services can be unclear.

To navigate this complex landscape, let's delve into a comparative analysis of these options, shedding light on their distinct advantages and how they can be leveraged to achieve optimal outcomes.

Connections between Standards and Frameworks

A framework is a skeletal structure or blueprint that provides a general outline or structure for an activity, process, or system. It consists of principles, concepts, and practices that can be adapted and applied to specific situations or needs. Frameworks are often used to guide decision-making, problem-solving, and the development of strategies and plans. They offer a consistent approach and help ensure that all relevant factors are considered.

On the other hand, a standard is a set of specific requirements or criteria that must be met in order to achieve a certain level of quality, consistency, or interoperability. Organizations or industry bodies typically develop standards through a consensus-based process involving multiple stakeholders. These stakeholders include frameworks as references to build their standards. For instance, many of the ISO standards are related to risk management concepts or leadership principles (Inflectra, 2024). There is a rich body of literature on each of these domains, and those frameworks are referenced by these standards. Therefore, there is a 1:N relationship between a standard and a framework.

For instance, the ISO 9001:2015 standards incorporate the PDCA framework devised by Shewart and Deming. Similarly, ISO 15288:2023 incorporates model-based system engineering (MBSE) (Rajagopalan, 2023) and further leverages guidelines from software engineering-related frameworks like the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) standard for Information Technology services. Consequently, the ISO 9001:2015 can be used in a software development process as well as by a manufacturing firm that receives raw materials from various sources and uses them in constructing machines.

Furthermore, both the ISO 9001:2015 and the ISO 15288:2023 can benefit from the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), observes Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan, Global Head of Agile Strategy, Transformation, and Training Services at Inflectra. CORBA can be used to implement the distributed object computing requirements of ISO 9001:2015 and create traceable and auditable quality records for product quality objectives and for communicating with suppliers and customers for process quality objectives. Similarly, CORBA can create a distributed system for managing project artifacts or communicating with stakeholders to demonstrate ISO 15288:2023 compliance.

The standards are often used to ensure that products, services, or processes meet specific minimum requirements and are compatible with each other broadly in many industries or within a particular industry. For instance, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 15288:2023 are applicable across many industries. However, ISO 26262 is specific to road vehicle safety in the automotive industry, ISO 14971 is unique to the medical devices sector in the healthcare industry, and ISO 20022 is specific to the payment sector within the financial industry.

Use Cases for ISO 9001, ISO 15288, CMMI & Six Sigma

Scenario: Let us consider a simple use case. John is a Design Engineer, and Mary is a QA Manager, working for a 100-people “Get Well Soon” organization focusing on healthcare-specific marketing messages to promote prescription adherence. They both are part of an agile team within the IT department working on developing an internal mobile app to track customer requests and monitoring the use of critical infrastructure resources. In this use case, what standards or frameworks apply to John, Mary, the Agile Team, the IT department, and the Get Well Soon firm?

Evaluation: CMMI and ISO 9001:2015 are process improvement frameworks, but they have different emphases. CMMI focuses on improving the maturity of an organization's software development processes. ISO 9001:2015 is a quality management system (QMS) standard and can be applied to any type of organization. Six Sigma is a quality management framework focusing on statistically driven data insights to reduce defects and improve quality. ISO 15288:2023 is a standard specifically for systems and software life cycle processes.

Solutions:

• The Get Well Soon organization can benefit from using ISO 9001:2015 to validate its processes across product development, marketing, training, and supplier/vendor qualification. By bringing all these processes into an application lifecycle management (ALM) tool, the organization can increase transparency, inspection, adaptation, traceability, and auditability.

• The IT department can benefit from the concepts of ISO 15288:2023. It can help product development improve the way the product's information architecture is designed, with functional and non-functional requirements for security, portability, reliability, stability, safety, sustainability, etc.

• The Agile Team can use the CMMI to evaluate themselves against the process maturity levels and adjust their ways of working to ensure that the product they develop meets both process and product quality considerations.

• Both John and Mary can benefit from the foundational knowledge of the quality triads (planning, assurance, and control) and the related techniques (CoQ, Lean Concepts, Quality Control Tools) by applying their knowledge in developing the right types of processes in product management, the right levels of metrics in the ALM tool to measure their process/product maturity and the right level of monitoring for performance in the operational excellence initiatives.

Summary

ISO 9001, ISO 15288, CMMI, and Six Sigma are foundational reference standards and frameworks that can help organizations improve their processes, products, and services. These standards and frameworks can be used independently or combined together to create a comprehensive system for improving an organization's overall performance. Choosing the right standard or framework for the organization, teams, or team members depends on several factors, such as the organization's size, industry, specific strategic needs and objectives, inherent internal and external risks and issues, and the overarching quality goals.

While ISO 9001:2015 is a good choice for organizations to improve their overall quality management system, ISO 15288:2023 is a good choice for organizations that develop software organically or use another provider's software in their system. In both cases, the goal is not to certify themselves for these ISO standards based on their business and system development processes.

At the same time, organizations can use the CMMI to evaluate their readiness to comply with these ISO standards and develop the appropriate policies, processes, and procedures (Rajagopalan, 2019) to increase the team’s knowledge. In these processes, if the focus is also on reducing defects and improving quality, individuals and teams can improve their knowledge of the Lean and Six Sigma principles.

Organizations can use these standards and frameworks to achieve a variety of business benefits, including:

• Improved quality: By implementing these standards and frameworks, organizations can improve the quality of their products and services. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction, reduced costs, and improved profitability.

• Increased efficiency: These standards and frameworks can help organizations identify and eliminate waste in their processes, leading to increased efficiency and productivity.

• Improved customer satisfaction: By implementing these standards and frameworks, organizations can better meet the needs of their customers. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

• Reduced risk: These standards and frameworks can help organizations identify and mitigate risks. This can reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes and help organizations achieve their goals.

• Improved competitiveness: By implementing these standards and frameworks, organizations can improve their competitiveness in the marketplace. This can lead to increased sales and profits.

References

CMMI Levels of Capability and Performance (n.d.) CMMI Institute. Retrieved June 9, 2024, from https://cmmiinstitute.com/learning/appraisals/levels

Coras Blog (2017). The five stages of PMO Maturity. Retrieved June 1, 2024, from https://www.coras.com/resources/2017/6/9/the-five-stages-of-pmo-maturity

Dori, D. (2023). Model-based standards authoring: ISO 15288 as a case in point. Systems Engineering, 27: 302-314.

Inflectra (2024). ISO Standards Demystified: Your Blueprint for Project Success, QA, and Risk Mitigation. Retrieved June 12, 2024, from https://www.inflectra.com/Ideas/Entry/recap-iso-standards-for-projects-quality-and-risks-1744.aspx

ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023 (2023). Systems and Software Engineering - Systems Life Cycle Processes. Retrieved June 11, 2024, from https://www.iso.org/standard/81702.html

Project Management Institute (2017). The Standard for Program Management. Pennsylvania, PA: Project Management Institute.

Purdue University (n.d.). DMAIC vs DMADV. Retrieved June 9, 2024, from https://www.purdue.edu/leansixsigmaonline/blog/dmaic-vs-dmadv/

Rajagopalan, S. (2019). OPA: Differences among policies, processes, and procedures. Retrieved from https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2020/04/opa-differences-among-policy-processes.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2020). Organized Common Sense: Why do Project Management Skills Apply to Everyone. Outskirts Press. https://outskirtspress.com/sriramrajagopalan

Rajagopalan, S. (2023). Model Based System Engineering (MBSE): Relating Systems to Value. Retrieved June 11, 2024, from https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2023/01/model-based-system-engineering-mbse.html

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