Software process improvement in small organizations

IGI Global. Available In. DOI: Current Special Offers. No Current Special Offers. An initiative like this is a knowledge-intensive activity that uses and creates knowledge related to multiple areas SPI knowledge that should be managed. It also presents the knowledge created or required to accomplish the implementation of this type of initiative. Finally, it discusses the characteristics that a software tool should have to effectively support this KM process.

Chapter Preview. Use of this web site signifies your agreement to the terms and conditions. Process improvement for small organizations Abstract: Software process improvement has been a hot topic within the software industry for numerous years.

Its high profile has been partly due to the introduction and industry acceptance of standard improvement models, most notably the Capability Maturity Model CMM developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

To this end, a small organization must minimize the limitations of its smaller size and maximize the benefits inherent in its culture. The authors describe an approach to SPI that has been used successfully in an organization of approximately software engineers. A typical report first presents briefly the approach, then it develops the results of the questionnaire and summarizes them according to the six axes, then it analyses those results according the situation of the evaluated structure the age, the history, the declared goals,..

The micro-model has been experimented on a sample of representative structures IT small companies, IT services in other businesses, public administrations using IT. Figures 1, 2 and 3 below give examples of the resulted grids for three different situations. The left-hand grid is the detailed evaluation results according to the selected practices while the right-hand one is a summarized pictures according to the six selected axes.

One can notice, that the first two cases show an evident weakness in the process of software development itself. This corresponds actually to an amateurish development without any well-distinguished phases or even any notion of a lifecycle.

Though, these two units have some strengths in the subcontractor management, for example. A software process improvement for these units should obviously start by the elaboration of a lifecycle and of a development methodology.

The third example corresponds to a more mature unit which can expect, in the short or the middle term, a good evaluation according to a more complete model. Some weaknesses in the given assessment correspond, in fact, to some good practices which are applied only to some projects but not generalized to all the projects. The micro-evaluation model above could be viewed as a preparatory phase preceding the use of the mini-evaluation model.

This latter one should be sufficient by itself for the majority of small organizations. The adaptation principles The adaptation of standard models that underlies the elaboration of the OWPL tailored model follows the key ideas below. In fact, certain terms used in the classical models or at least in their translation to French appear too technical and troublesome. Small business resources are too few and necessary to their immediate production tasks.

So, the model clearly indicates that the different terms used for the tasks description designate different roles but not necessarily different persons. The fact that two different tasks are or must be assigned to different persons should be given explicitly. The model invites the assessed organization to refine its objectives into goals and sub-goals and to relate them to the processes and the practices of the OWPL model. We believe that making explicit the relationship between the outcomes of processes and practices on the one hand, and the declared goals of the organization on the other hand, would be motivating in the improvement process.

The importance of making explicit the definition of goal is pointed out by the GQM approach [6][7]. The mini-evaluation model OWPL defines 8 processes each decomposed into a number of practices between 3 and 12 and is supported by some success factors. This process actually includes all practices related to the generalization of acquired basic practices and their utilization in order to improve in the medium term and the long term.

The identified processes are thus the following ones: 1. Each of the above processes is assigned a general goal in accordance with the organization defined objectives.

One can notice the traceability between the above process and the key axes used in the micro evaluation model Section 2. Each practice is defined by its goal, its inputs and outputs, the resources assigned to support it and its weight.

This last attribute is an indicator of the importance of the practice for the whole process improvement, its possible values are normal, high or critical. Success factors are general requirements related to the environment of the process which determine its effective success. They includes organizational, management, technical and human resources factors.

A detailed description of the OWPL model can be found in [8]. The complete evaluation model Some evaluated organizations may have or may reach a sufficient maturity level that allow them to expect a good rating in the scale of standard models; such rating could also be critical for them to maintain or to advance their situation in a highly competitive market.

We do not actually develop a new complete model for such situations, instead we propose a SPICE evaluation. Actually, at this stage of our experience, a very small number of SMEs are already in this situation.