The number of associated research topics reflects the increasing popularity of software product line engineering in both research and industry. Researchers propose software product line engineering methods, models, tools, and processes for the whole spectrum of software development disciplines and activities.

This paper proposes an “organizational maturity model of software product line engineering for evaluating the maturity of the organizational dimension.” According to the authors, some key organizational factors--“organizational structure, roles and responsibility, organizational learning, change management, conflict management, organizational culture, organizational communication, [and] organizational commitment”--affect software product line engineering performance. These factors constitute the base of the maturity model proposed.

The paper cites a previous proposal of a software product line engineering maturity model that does not give much detail about each dimension (business, architecture, process, and organization). The aim of this paper is to deeply detail the organizational dimension. In spite of being detailed, the proposed maturity levels and the statements that configure each level suggest an ad hoc definition, since there is no concrete support for such decisions.

On the other hand, the authors make some effort to evaluate the proposed model. The assessment includes case studies of two real-world companies. This assessment is, in fact, quite subjective: it does not measure whether the model is adequate or not, but only if it is applicable. There is also an interesting preliminary study on improving the activities the companies performed after the maturity assessment.

In general, the paper’s presentation is quite straightforward. It presents several important theories about maturity assessment.