Best practices (BPs) are actionable recommendations aiming at meeting specific goal (SGs) defined in the Software Maturity Model. BPs are based on evidence (either collected during interviews with teams, or identified in literature, or identified by observation) and describe HOW to meet the goal, in a given context and by considering specific constraints.

Each BP is described by the following attributes:

• Name, providing in a brief and concise manner the concept captured by the BP
• Objective, stating the goal that should be acheived by the practice
• Outcome, indicating the major results delivered if the practice is implemented
• Applicability, Target Area/Specific Goal from SMM that is addressed by the BP
• Context, description of relevant settings (team-specific) in which the BP was extracted
• Prerequisites to apply, initial state of the process, in which the BP could be applied
• Recommendation, the actual action or sequence of actions (stated in an imperative or declarative way) that describes how the practice should be applied
• Risks that could materialize during application of the practice, along with selected possible (but not all) consequences of materializing the risk
• Related practices that could be affected or affect the subject practice
• Status of the practice, describing premises and foundations on which the practice has been formulated