Reflections on the capability and maturity models of engineering processes

The emerging interest in 'capability and maturity models' for a variety of engineering processes, especially for the R&D function, has aspects of both being a serious development of a new management approach and that of being just another fad. Systematic deliberation and reflections on the roots of this methodology in modern conceptual thinking and economics, as well as its pragmatic and formal evaluations, are necessary to avoid the many potential pitfalls of its misapplication, misuse, overestimation of its power and effectiveness, and of failing to consider resulting adverse consequences. Conclusions of this study, supported by the author's encounters with five different maturity systems already in use, indicate that their objectives in process stability and predictability may be a poor fit to the observed dynamics and discontinuities of the engineering environment in the 1990s with their demands for high rates of innovation and flexibility in response to frequent changes. These conclusions also lead to suggestions how to improve the overall probability of success of both engineering management methodology developers and users, namely to the necessity to start with a comparison of maturity models effectiveness versus available alternative approaches, and with an assessment of appropriate strategies and levels of their application. It is crucial to ensure that the introduction of this new methodology is justified by a serious economic analysis of the necessary investment, instead of by a simple reliance on some assumed inherent, or supposedly self-evident value of suggested maturity schemes.