“Tailoring that weakens evidence is fraud. Tailoring that strengthens relevance is gold.” 💎
You might know the children's story: a girl named Goldilocks tries three bowls of porridge: one too hot, one too cold, and one just right. 🐻
Goldilocks tries three bowls of porridge: one too hot, one too cold, and one just right. 🐻 (Gemini generated image)
She wasn’t just reading fairy tales — she was describing process tailoring.
Every project faces the same question: How much process is enough? 🤔
Management loves heavy templates 📂, snake-oil consultants whisper “ISO 26262 will get you if you don’t”, and engineers pray for mercy under the weight of PowerPoint. Somewhere between bureaucracy and chaos lies the balance ASPICE actually intends.
This episode is about finding that balance, and exposing the tricks that pretend to.
✂️ Tailoring: The Misunderstood Villain 😈
Say "tailoring" and many managers picture a get-out-of-jail-free card 🃏: write exceptions, call it pragmatic, move on.
Snake-oil consultants make it worse. The moment engineers push back on an impractical rule, they pull the fear card:
"If you don't do it like this, you will fail the ISO 26262 assessment." 🚨
Never mind that the project isn't even safety-related. Fear works better than logic when the room doesn't have three PhDs in systems engineering.
But tailoring isn't about skipping. It's about shaping - cutting the noise so the evidence chain (Episode 5) stays intact.
👉 Fear is not tailoring. It’s just another bottle of snake oil. 🧴
Fear is not tailoring. It's just another bottle of snake oil. 🧴 (Gemini generated image)
⚖️ Why Tailoring Matters
Too heavy, and engineers drown in forms nobody reads. 📉
Too light, and you lose the very evidence that protects customers. 📈
Tailoring is survival. It keeps the process sharp enough to cut through audits and thin enough not to strangle the team.
Fake tailoring feels clever in PowerPoint. On the road, it becomes failure. 💥
⛓️ Work Products: The Goldilocks Chain 🔗
Here's the balance in one picture:
Requirement → Review → Design → Build → Test → Report 🔁
That's the Goldilocks Chain. Every link is justified, every link is discoverable.
Too much tailoring, and the chain snaps - no trace from need to proof.
Too little, and you bury the links in noise until no one can follow. 🙉
Tailoring done right keeps the chain intact — not too heavy, not too light. ⚖️
Tailoring done right keeps the chain intact - not too heavy, not too light. ⚖️ (Gemini generated image)
🔍 The Assessor's Lens
Assessors don't grade how comfortable the process feels. They test whether the chain holds when pulled. 💪
- Can you trace a requirement to the test that proves it? 🔎
- Can you show the design decision that explains why it exists?
- Can you show that nothing essential was skipped under the word "tailored"?
Back in Episode 4 we said ASPICE is a flashlight 🔦, not theater lighting 🎭. Tailoring decides whether the flashlight shows the real path, or just props.
🧴 The Snake-Oil Playbook 🎭
Where tailoring becomes an excuse, you'll see the same tricks:
- "Tailored" processes that skip critical evidence. ❌
- PowerPoint justifications that collapse in real projects. 📊💥
- Consultants who weaponize fear instead of reason.
- Assessments shopped until one agrees with the fairy tale. 🛒
These are not clever shortcuts. They are failures-in-waiting. The road will find them. 🛣️
👉 Fake tailoring looks good on stage, but the road isn’t theater. 🚗💥
Fake tailoring looks good on stage, but the road isn't theater. 🚗💥 (Gemini generated image)
🛠️ Practical Moves: Tailor Like Goldilocks ✂️
Here's how to tailor without fraud:
- 🛑 Guardrails first: Define what cannot be tailored away (e.g. traceability, testing).
- ⛓️ Evidence chain intact: Every tailored step must still connect requirement → proof.
- 👨💻 Empower engineers: Let teams adapt within guardrails, not fight bureaucracy.
- 📝 Document intent, not excuses: State why tailoring strengthens relevance, not why you were "too busy".
- 🔍 Review tailoring itself: Just like code reviews, tailoring decisions deserve peer review.
- 🧭 Assessor-friendly mapping: Ensure one calm liaison can explain how tailoring still preserves ASPICE intent.
Tailoring that cuts red tape is maturity.
Tailoring that cuts evidence is fraud. ❌
Real tailoring removes noise while keeping the evidence chain intact. ✂️➡️⛓️ (Gemini generated image)
🧩 The Tailoring Quadrants
Tailoring isn’t guesswork. It’s about matching rigor to context. Think in four quadrants:
- Low Risk + Low Impact → Lightweight Process Peer review via PRs, basic unit tests, simple ticket tracking.
- Low Risk + High Impact → Balanced Process Add design reviews, requirement traceability, and broader test coverage.
- High Risk + Low Impact → Balanced Process Increase test rigor, require design sign-off, maybe run threat modeling.
- High Risk + High Impact → Full Rigor Full ASPICE V-model, detailed FMEA, bi-directional traceability, independent reviews.
👉 This isn’t a rigid rulebook but a conversation starter. For each work item, ask: What’s the risk? What’s the impact? Plot it mentally, and you’ll have a defensible rationale for tailoring decisions. That’s the difference between arbitrary tailoring and justified tailoring.
Risk vs. Impact: Tailoring isn’t about cutting corners — it’s about matching rigor to context. (Gemini generated image)
🔑 Takeaway: The Bears Will Come Home 🐻
Goldilocks got away with breaking chairs and tasting porridge, until the bears came home. 🏠
Projects are the same. Tailoring that looks safe in a slide deck will face the bears of reality: audits, customers, and failures on the road. 🚧
If your tailoring preserves the chain, you'll be fine. ✅
If it weakens it, no fairy tale will save you. ❌
🔖 If you found this perspective helpful, follow me for more insights on software quality, testing strategies, and ASPICE in practice.
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