2. Rationale

The NASA OCE assesses project compliance matrices for a variety of reasons including identification of patterns and trends that indicate areas of concern or potential need for requirements revision.  This requirement also helps address the NPD 7120.4 ²⁵⁷ policy for the NASA Chief Engineer to “Maintain periodic oversight of compliance with the Office of the Chief Engineer's policy, procedural requirements, and standards throughout the Agency and its contractor community.”

3. Guidance

Projects maintain and record NPR 7150.2 compliance matrices for the life of the software project (see SWE-125). These matrices contain all requirements, waivers and deviations necessary to complete the software development life cycle.  

Projects provide approved compliance matrices (see SWE-126) to the NASA OCE, upon request, to help address NPR 7120.4 ²⁵⁷ policy for managers and engineers to “Support and provide information for assessments of Centers' and contractors' capabilities and compliance with engineering and program/project management requirements and standards.”

Projects also have compliance matrices available for review during OCE surveys and Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) Quality Audit, Assessment and Review (QAAR) audits. 

Additional data calls requiring compliance matrix data may come from the NASA Software Working Group.

The NASA OCE reviews these compliance matrices looking for patterns and trends in waivers and deviations or tailoring of software engineering requirements.  Such patterns and trends may indicate where projects or particular Centers need assistance to meet specific requirements.  Such patterns may also indicate areas to be addressed in the next update of software engineering, software safety, or software assurance requirements to better clarify requirement intent, purpose or means of fulfillment.

Additional guidance related to compliance matrices may be found in the following related requirements in this Handbook:

4. Small Projects

No additional guidance is available for small projects.

5. Resources

5.1 Tools

Tools to aid in compliance with this SWE, if any, may be found in the Tools Library in the NASA Engineering Network (NEN).

NASA users find this in the Tools Library in the Software Processes Across NASA (SPAN) site of the Software Engineering Community in NEN.

The list is informational only and does not represent an “approved tool list”, nor does it represent an endorsement of any particular tool. The purpose is to provide examples of tools being used across the Agency and to help projects and centers decide what tools to consider.

6. Lessons Learned

There are currently no Lessons Learned identified for this requirement.