# DevSecOps Assessment Framework (DAF) and DSOMM — Practical Positioning

> **Bottom line:** use **DAF** when you want a spreadsheet-first, assessment-and-roadmap artifact that practitioners can review together and turn into action; use **DSOMM** when you want a richer open maturity model with reusable dimensions, activities, and mappings. Neither replaces BSIMM or SAMM, but both are useful overlays for DevSecOps-specific maturity work.

## Why this page exists

BSIMM and SAMM are strong models, but many teams want something closer to the day-to-day DevSecOps reality of:

* CI/CD controls;
* secrets handling;
* signing and verification;
* container and image checks;
* evidence collection;
* maturity scoring that can be used in workshops.

That is where **DAF** and **DSOMM** become useful.

## What DAF appears to be good at

Publicly visible materials for **Jet Security Team’s DevSecOps Assessment Framework (DAF)** show it as an assessment-oriented framework distributed as a workbook-style artifact with heatmap and maturity-pyramid elements. Public updates in 2025 emphasized refreshed mappings, an English version for the international community, and support materials for secure-development process documentation.

This makes DAF especially useful when you need:

* an assessment workshop artifact teams can discuss line by line;
* a roadmap-oriented maturity conversation rather than only narrative guidance;
* a bridge between engineering reality and formal mapping requirements.

## What DSOMM is good at

The **OWASP DevSecOps Maturity Model (DSOMM)** is a more established open model. Public descriptions emphasize dimensions and activities for incremental DevSecOps improvement, mappings to other standards, and a GitOps-like approach to tracking implementation progress.

This makes DSOMM especially useful when you need:

* an open reference model with reusable structure;
* a public maturity language other teams may already know;
* mapping support and iterative maturity tracking.

## Practical positioning

| Need                                                            | Better starting point |
| --------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------- |
| Workshop-based assessment with a concrete planning artifact     | DAF                   |
| Open maturity model with public activity structure and mappings | DSOMM                 |
| Broad software-security benchmarking                            | BSIMM                 |
| Target-state secure-SDLC roadmap                                | SAMM                  |

## A realistic combined pattern

A pragmatic pattern for Product Security or platform teams is:

1. use **SAMM** to describe the target secure-SDLC state;
2. use **BSIMM** to benchmark against what mature software-security initiatives do;
3. use **DAF** or **DSOMM** to run a DevSecOps-focused workshop over pipelines, build systems, artifact trust, and operational controls;
4. translate the result into a quarter-by-quarter improvement plan with owners and evidence.

## Where this helps most

### Platform engineering

A platform team can use DAF/DSOMM to evaluate whether the internal platform actually embeds:

* secure defaults;
* policy enforcement;
* artifact trust controls;
* secrets handling;
* evidence generation.

### CI/CD and release security

These models are especially useful when the question is not “do we own a scanner?” but rather:

* where in the pipeline do controls exist;
* how consistently are they enforced;
* what is advisory versus blocking;
* what evidence survives release review.

### Security transformation

If your current state is still tool-by-tool and team-by-team, DAF/DSOMM can help create a more explicit maturity conversation around stages, responsibilities, and repeatability.

## What not to do

* do not treat DAF or DSOMM as a compliance certificate;
* do not let a maturity score replace actual threat-model and incident data;
* do not level up every activity uniformly; sequence the ones that reduce your most likely delivery and product risk first.

## Suggested use with the rest of this KB

* use this page with [DevSecOps Playbook Domains, Priority, Difficulty, and Adoption Roadmap](/devsecops-cicd-and-supply-chain/index/devsecops-playbook-domains-priority-difficulty-and-adoption-roadmap.md)
* use it with [Security Quality Gates and Release Blocking](/devsecops-cicd-and-supply-chain/index-1/security-quality-gates-and-release-blocking.md)
* use it with [Product Security Maturity, Scale, and Business Translation](/metrics-audit-risk-evidence-and-compliance/index/product-security-maturity-metrics-and-business-translation.md)
* use it with [Maturity Roadmaps and Transformation Plans](/strategy-governance-and-leadership/index/maturity-roadmaps-and-transformation-plans.md)

## Related pages

* [BSIMM and OWASP SAMM — Overview, Value, and Comparison](/metrics-audit-risk-evidence-and-compliance/index-3/bsimm-and-owasp-samm-overview-value-and-comparison.md)
* [OWASP SAMM Deep Dive — Business Functions, Practices, and Roadmapping](/metrics-audit-risk-evidence-and-compliance/index-3/owasp-samm-deep-dive-business-functions-practices-and-roadmapping.md)
* [Using BSIMM and SAMM Together — Assessments, Roadmaps, and Quarterly Reviews](/metrics-audit-risk-evidence-and-compliance/index-3/using-bsimm-and-samm-together-for-assessments-roadmaps-and-quarterly-reviews.md)

***

*Author attribution: Ivan Piskunov, 2026 - Educational and defensive-engineering use.*


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