Ayca Tarhan

Business process maturity models: a systematic literature review

Abstract Context The number of maturity models proposed in the area of Business Process Management (BPM) has increased considerably in the last decade. However, there are a number of challenges, such as the limited empirical studies on their validation and a limited extent of actionable properties of these models in guiding their application. These challenges hinder the widespread usage of the maturity models in the BPM field. Objective In order to better understand the state of the research on business process maturity models (BPMMs) and identify opportunities for future research, we conducted a systematic literature review. Method We searched the studies between the years 1990 and 2014 in established digital libraries to identify empirical studies of BPMMs by focusing on their development, validation, and application. We targeted studies on generic models proposed for business process maturity, business process management or orientation maturity, and selected 61 studies out of 2899 retrieved initially. Results We found that despite that many BPMMs were proposed in the last decade, the level of empirical evidence that reveals the validity and usefulness of these models is scarce. Conclusion The current state of research on BPM maturity is in its early phases, and academic literature lacks methodical applications of many mainstream BPMMs that have been proposed. Future research should be directed towards: (1) reconciling existing models with a strong emphasis on prescriptive properties, (2) conducting empirical studies to demonstrate the validity and usefulness of BPMMs, and (3) separating the assessment method used to evaluate the maturity level from the maturity model which acts as the reference framework for the assessment.

Systematic analyses and comparison of development performance and product quality of Incremental Process and Agile Process

Context: Although Agile software development models have been widely used as a base for the software project life-cycle since 1990s, the number of studies that follow a sound empirical method and quantitatively reveal the effect of using these models over Traditional models is scarce. Objective: This article explains the empirical method of and the results from systematic analyses and comparison of development performance and product quality of Incremental Process and Agile Process adapted in two projects of a middle-size, telecommunication software development company. The Incremental Process is an adaption of the Waterfall Model whereas the newly introduced Agile Process is a combination of the Unified Software Development Process, Extreme Programming, and Scrum. Method: The method followed to perform the analyses and comparison is benefited from the combined use of qualitative and quantitative methods. It utilizes; GQM Approach to set measurement objectives, CMMI as the reference model to map the activities of the software development processes, and a pre-defined assessment approach to verify consistency of process executions and evaluate measure characteristics prior to quantitative analysis. Results: The results of the comparison showed that the Agile Process had performed better than the Incremental Process in terms of productivity (79%), defect density (57%), defect resolution effort ratio (26%), Test Execution V&V Effectiveness (21%), and effort prediction capability (4%). These results indicate that development performance and product quality achieved by following the Agile Process was superior to those achieved by following the Incremental Process in the projects compared. Conclusion: The acts of measurement, analysis, and comparison enabled comprehensive review of the two development processes, and resulted in understanding their strengths and weaknesses. The comparison results constituted objective evidence for organization-wide deployment of the Agile Process in the company.

Run-Time Measurement of COSMIC Functional Size for Java Business Applications: Is It Worth the Cost?

The issue of functional size measurement is crucial for software project management, and the instant measurement of functional size from source code might be beneficial for progress tracking. Since it is time-consuming and costly when functional size measurement from source code is done manually, automating the process of measurement came to the fore. In this study, runtime measurement of COSMIC functional size is aimed by the discovery of functional processes, which are triggered via user interface of a three tier Java business application. A Measurement Library has been developed to monitor the data movements occurring in the functional processes. The measurement method which requires code addition into the source code of the application for the utilization of the library is semi-automatic. In a recent study, we reported that the utilization of the library from a simple student registration system led to 92% approximate results in functional sizes measured automatically and calculated manually. Subsequently in this study, three case studies have been carried out to compare the costs of semi-automatic and manual measurements to verify if the method is worth the cost. The results have shown that the method can decrease costs up to %280 compared to the manual measurement process when it is integrated early in the coding phase. This study explains our semi-automatic functional size measurement method, details the implementation of the case studies, and overviews the results.

Tailoring ISO/IEC 12207 for instructional software development

The authors describe their experiences in tailoring ISO/IEC 12207 for instructional software development. The project was initiated by a large government agency, and the process defined is to be followed by its suppliers during a typical software development contract. The process is targeted especially to small software development companies and provides guidance on what to do with respect to the customers expectations.

Investigating suitability of software process and metrics for statistical process control

The application of statistical process control (SPC) techniques for software is rare due to such requirements as high maturity, rational sampling, and effective metric selection. Existing studies report results from their own implementations and provide suggestions for success. In this paper, we explain an approach used for assessing the suitability of software process and metrics for starting SPC implementation via control charts. The approach includes guidance to identify rational samples of a process as well as to select process metrics. We explain the application of the approach over a review process of a software and system development organization.

Investigating the effect of variations in the test development process: a case from a safety-critical system

Variation is inherent to a process, and process management demands understanding the nature of variation in quantitative terms, for evaluation and prediction purposes. This understanding requires the identification of process indicators that build the system of variation. To utilize quantitative techniques to understand and improve a software process, more indicators are needed than in a manufacturing process. The need to identify the indicators of a software process and the lack of a generic approach to assess the ability of a software process for quantitative management encouraged us to carry out a sequence of studies that resulted in the development of an Assessment Approach for Quantitative Process Management (A2QPM). This paper explains an application of the A2QPM to the test development process of an avionics software project and presents the results. The study aimed at understanding the effect of the test design stage and the effect of internal reviews as verification activities in test development, with respect to process productivity and product quality measures. The measurement data collected during the execution of the processes were analyzed by control charts to observe the evidence of process stability. The mean values of measurement data were utilized to make performance comparisons between the various executions of the test development process. The results showed that process productivity was unaffected, but the test procedure quality was positively influenced by the application of test design and internal reviews. The utilization of the A2QPM as a guide for the quantitative implementation enabled the systematic evaluation of the test development process and measures prior to analysis. This resulted in the identification of process clusters having stable variation.

Do mature business processes lead to improved performance? : a review of literature for empirical evidence

There is a considerable number of maturity models proposed for business processes or BPM, but their exact contribution or impact on business performance is unclear. In order to better understand the state of the research on the relation between the use of business process maturity models (BPMMs) and business performance and to identify opportunities for future research, we conducted a systematic literature review. We searched the studies between the years 1990 and 2014 in established digital libraries. Out of 2899 studies retrieved initially, we selected 62 studies to provide a list of BPMMs referenced in the academic literature and 7 studies within this set to thoroughly review the evidence provided for the relation between higher maturity leading to higher business performance. We found that while several BPMMs were proposed in the last decade, the number of empirical studies that reveal the effect of using these maturity models on a firm’s performance is scarce - even for the most referenced BPMMs. We propose that future research should be directed towards empirical studies in the form of longitudinal case studies and surveys to better demonstrate the validity and usefulness of BPMMs and thereby foster a wider adoption of these models in practice

Using Process Enactment Data Analysis to Support Orthogonal Defect Classification for Software Process Improvement

Defects occur in many software development projects. It is important to extract semantic information from defects to investigate their root causes and improve the process. In this study, enactment data of a software development process in which defects originated was used to support Orthogonal Defect Classification (ODC). In a sample project of a CMMI ML3 organization ODC was applied to the defects and the utilization of the process enactment data was found to be effective and efficient in providing information about the root causes of the defects and deriving improvement actions. The defect attributes were analyzed and compared before and after applying suggested improvement actions. The comparison between the initial and the improved defect trigger and origin distributions showed that there was a positive change in the software development process of the project.

Run-Time Calculation of COSMIC Functional Size via Automatic Installment of Measurement Code into Java Business Applications

Functional size measurement provides a solid ground throughout software projects to estimate planning parameters and track progress. Since it is time-consuming and costly when functional size measurement is made manually, automating the process of measurement has gained importance. In order to measure COSMIC functional size, in this study we propose a measurement procedure that automatically installs measurement library code into an application and calculates size during the execution of user scenarios at run-time. The procedure is targeted to measure functional size of three-tier web applications developed in Java by following an iterative methodology in a software development institute. The procedure has been implemented as a software package and tested to measure functional size of a part of software product currently in use by a government-based organization. We report that functional sizes measured manually and automatically were %94 convergent and that automatic measurement took 8 minutes which was 1/34 of manual measurement effort. This study explains measurement library, procedure and software together with example measurement and its verification.

Managing instructional software acquisition

Managing acquisition and development efforts of contracted software is hard work for many organisations which require high-quality products to be produced. Mature supplier processes best work with mature acquisition processes which are able to appropriately plan, track and evaluate the work of the supplier. However, acquirer organisations might not always be that mature, so selecting and managing the best-fit suppliers becomes rather difficult. This paper introduces a study performed to overcome this difficulty for the Ministry of National Education (MONE) of Turkey. The first phase of the study includes defining the evaluation criteria for pre-qualification of software development companies, and the second phase includes defining the basic instructional software development process as well as the standards for the deliverables of the process. The paper also identifies the effort required by the Ministry for evaluating and managing the pre-qualification and development work in practice. Copyright