The Trillium Model, created by a collaborative team from Bell Canada, Northern Telecom and Bell

Northern Research (Northern Telecom and Bell Northern Research later merged into Nortel
Networks) combines requirements from the ISO 9000 series, the Capability Maturity Model (CMM)
for software, and the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, with software quality standards
from the IEEE. Trillium has a telecommunications orientation and provides customer focus. The
practices in the Trillium Model are derived from a benchmarking exercise which focused on all
practices that would contribute to an organization's product development and support capability.
The Trillium Model covers all aspects of the software development life-cycle, most system and
product development and support activities, and a significant number of related marketing
activities. Many of the practices described in the model can be applied directly to hardware
development.

Contents

1 Objectives

2 Scale

3 Architecture

4 Benefits

5 Comparison with CMM

6 External links

Objectives

The Trillium Model has been developed from a customer perspective, as perceived in a
competitive, commercial environment. The Model is used in a variety of ways:

In benchmarking an organization's product development and support process capability against

best practices in the industry,

In self-assessment mode, to help identify opportunities for improvement within a product

development organization, and

In pre-contractual negotiations, to assist in selecting a supplier.

This Model and its accompanying tools are not in themselves a product development process or
life-cycle model. Rather, the Trillium Model provides key industry best practices which can be used
to improve an existing process or life-cycle