Subject: The "Mafteach" methodology

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 17:57:09 +0200 (EET)

Recently I reviewed a request for biddings for software by a government
ministry.
I noticed that they require the use of the "Mafteach" methodology
(developed by Methoda - http://www.methoda.co.il/).

1. For a methodology whose use is mandatory in government software
   biddings, this methodology seems not to be discussed in open mailing
   lists and forums.  Does Methoda require users to keep secret
   any comments and criticism on the methodology?
2. If there is anyone familiar with the methodology and free to speak his
   opinion about the methodology:  is it really good?
3. Is it compatible with the use of Free Software tools in projects, which
   need features, which are available from Free Software tools?
                                             --- Omer
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---

From: Arik Baratz <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 18:33:31 +0200

>    any comments and criticism on the methodology?

Not that I know of. I never had to sign anything regarding Mafteach. 
Maybe it is included in my military vow of secrecy, but AFAIK these 
documents were not classified for BITACHON SADE so I guess I can talk 
about it.

>    opinion about the methodology:  is it really good?

The methodology is actually a retrofit of a DoD standard, translated to 
Hebrew. It is actually one large document, which describes your software 
project. It has many many many many sections and subsections. Not all of 
them are required.

This document needs to be filled (you get a MS Word template) in the 
requirements phase of the software project, which produces your software 
requirements (SR) document. You than save it, and rewrite the whole 
thing at the design phase, which gives you the design document (DR). The 
life cycle of this document actually follows the lifecycle of the 
software project. The lifecycle of the project has 5 phases, which are 
(from memory) the requirements phase, the design, implementation, 
maintainance. Yes, there are 5 but I can't remember the 5th or where it 
fits.

The advantage of using this document, is that if you acually follow 
through with it to the letter you can ask MECHON HA-TKANIM HA-ISRAELI to 
give you an ISO-9002 certification. The disadvantage is that it 
increases your operational costs (which comprise mostly of the time and 
effort of filling this document and dealing with MECHON HA-TKANIM) about 
%10 all-in-all.

The NOHAL MAFTEACH comes on a CD, which contains mostly the MS Word 
templates and tons of help files arranged in some non-standard hypertext 
engine that explain how to fill the templates. All of the templates make 
the complete document.

>    need features, which are available from Free Software tools?

The methodology wasn't written with open-sorce in mind, but there's 
really no reason why it can't be used in an open-source environment.

I think that mainly you'd have to invent some way of measuring the cost 
of programming, because the cost in MAFTEACH are based on the fact that 
there is an amount of programmers available and their work can be 
quantized in work-days units, but once you're over this the rest is 
down-hill.

It is a long document and it's tiresome to fill it, but if some company 
is willing to finance the MACHON HA-TKANIM certification you can be the 
first ISO-9002 certified open-source project :-)

Enjoy and take care,

-- Arik