SSMM, the Software Sustainability Maturity Model, is a methodology for active discovery of viable potential IT solutions for a given business need, whether those solutions are open source, proprietary software, in-house development, cloud-based solutions, or opportunities for open innovation partnerships.
The focus of SSMM is to undertake a breadth-first search of the solution space focussed on business and sustainability criteria rather than product features, narrowing the field to viable solutions. Subsequent phases look at strategic fitness, and freedom to innovate with the solution - a solution that fits well in the short term but has little flexibility to adapt to changing business needs represents a potential source of business risk.
At Cetis LLP we’ve worked with the SSMM with several of our clients in a range of scenarios, honing the original methodology and toolkit to deliver rapid solution intelligence for our clients. In some cases we’ve used it to produce a snapshot of the potential solution space, from initial contact with the client to a completed analysis in ten days. In other cases we’ve worked through several iterations with a client to build the internal business case for a particular solution strategy. We’ve also used it to help businesses conduct due diligence on potential competitors and collaborators for in-house product development.
The SSMM can be used in a robust manner with more sophisticated tools such as QSOS, but in practice we’ve found clients like to use our rapid response service to gather solution intelligence, and then undertake further exploration using in-house expertise. All our SSMM reports are fully referenced and transparently coded so that in-house teams can check all of our assumptions and recommendations and build upon the evidence base.
SSMM was originally developed by OSS Watch at the University of Oxford.