Skip to main content

Level 5: Leadership & Strategic Advantage

At this level, an organization has an optimized process for managing open source software. The organization has a continuous improvement process in place for open source software management, and it is well integrated with the overall software development process. The organization also has a strategy for consuming open source, contributing to open source software projects and engaging with the open source community.

Strategic Guidance From the OSPO​

The TODO Group suggests that an OSPO might provide the organisation with various types of strategic guidance:

  1. Advising which open source technologies to adopt or remove from the organisation's technology stack.

  2. Evaluating the criteria of acceptability in open source projects.

  3. Understanding open source politics and surfacing community considerations.

Further Reading​

  1. The OW2 Open Source Good Governance Initiative refers to this level as the "Strategy Goal", describing it as:

    [At this level] the enterprise embraces the full potential of OSS. It proactively uses OSS for innovation and competitiveness. It leverages OSS as an enabler of digital transformation and digital sovereignty. C-level open source awareness is achieved.

  2. The TODO Group refers to this level where the OSPO becomes "a Strategic Decision-Making Partner":

    ... the CTO and other technology leaders consult the OSPO and its leadership on which open source technologies to rely on and which decision criteria to use in judging open source projects. Because major open source technology choices tend to generate significant secondary and tertiary costs and affect upstream and downstream technolo- gies as well as hiring plans, the choice of open source projects becomes a major business decision.

OSMM Level 5 Expected Activities​

Leveraging Open Source as a Strategy

OSMM Level 5 is about Strategy. At this level, you seek to make decisions that shape the technology landscape in your favor to create new opportunities.

Why Open-Source a Firm Project?

Just as there are many reasons to contribute to open source projects, it is the same when it comes to a financial institution deciding to open-source. However, the reasoning behind might be different.