Gonzalo Cuevas

Methodology for process improvement through basic components and focusing on the resistance to change

This paper describes a multi‐model methodology that implements a smooth and continuous process improvement, depending on the organizations business goals and allowing users to establish their improvement implementation pace. The methodology focuses on basic process components known as ‘best practices’. Besides, it covers following the topics: knowledge management and change management. The methodology description and the results of a case study on project management process are included. Copyright

Assessment of the requirements management process using a two-stage questionnaire

This research advocates the idea that although requirements management process is not carried out in many organizations, there are some people within the organization that perform some requirements management practices. However, these practices are usually not documented and as consequence are not spread across the organization. This paper proposes an assessment methodology based on a two-stage questionnaire to identify which practices of the requirements management process are performed but not documented, which practices require to be prioritized and which are not implemented due to bad management or unawareness. In order to validate the assessment methodology, the questionnaire was applied to an industrial case study.

Critical success factors taxonomy for software process deployment

Many organizations have adopted methods, models, and standards to improve their software processes. However, despite these efforts, they can still find it difficult to deploy processes throughout the organization because most of them focus more on the technical rather than human aspects. This paper proposes a taxonomy of critical success factors for software process deployment. A method to create this taxonomy was developed and applied based on a systematic review of existing literature and is complemented with industry experiences where software processes have been deployed or implemented. Finally, the categories, subcategories, and items of this taxonomy are presented.

Expected Requirements in Support Tools for Software Process Improvement in SMEs

Nowadays being competitive is an important challenge for software development organizations. In order to achieve this, since last years, software process improvement has been an obvious and logical way. Unfortunately, even when many organizations are motivated to implement software process initiatives, not all know how best to do so, especially in Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs) where due to its especial features, they have to be carefully in how to manage its resources to assure their market survival. Besides, even when there has been developed models which pretend to helps SMEs in the implementation of software process improvements, one of the main barrier that stopping SMEs to implement software process improvements are the lack of knowledge and support of software process improvement. This paper presents an analysis of software process improvement at SMEs focusing on identifying on the one hand, SMEs features and success factors in the implementation of SPI initiatives. On the other hand, the expected requirements in a software tool focus on providing support for SMEs in the implementation of software process improvements initiatives (SPI).

Managing the software process with a software process improvement tool in a small enterprise

Top‐down process improvement approaches provide a high‐level model of what the process of a software development organization should be. Such models are based on the consensus of a designated working group on how software should be developed or maintained. They are very useful in that they provide general guidelines on where to start improving, and in which order. However, the majority of them have only worked in scenarios within large companies. We aim to help small software development organizations to adopt an iterative approach by providing a Process Improvement Web‐based Tool (SysProVal). This paper presents research into the proposal that a small organization may use this tool to define and implement a set of project management practices that can be strengthened using the CMMI‐DEV 1.2 model as reference. Copyright

A Process Asset Library to Support Software Process Improvement in Small Settings

A main factor to the success of any organization process improvement effort is the Process Asset Library implementation that provides a central database accessible by anyone at the organization. This repository includes any process support materials to help process deployment. Those materials are composed of organization’s standard software process, software process related documentation, descriptions of the software life cycles, guidelines, examples, templates, and any artefacts that the organization considers useful to help the process improvement. This paper describes the structure and contents of the Web-based Process Asset Library for Small businesses and small groups within large organizations. This library is structured using CMMI as reference model in order to implement those Process Areas described by this model.

Process Improvement from an Academic Perspective: How Could Software Engineering Education Contribute to CMMI Practices?

Educating software engineers is a longstanding challenge, but the results of examining the overlap between software engineering educational standards (SE 2004 and GSwE 2009) and one of the most well-known software process improvement models (CMMI-DEV) could prove useful to both industry and academia.

MEDEPRO: A Method to Deploy Processes Focused on People

Nowadays, organizations need to respond to customer demands with quality products and services. Methodologies and process models have been developed to help organizations to achieve these objectives. However, despite the efforts of organizations, they still come up against difficulties in their deployment and the processes are not institutionalized. Difficulty in process institutionalization arises due to the fact that most of these efforts focus on technical issues, and people issues are ignored. This paper presents the critical success factors to take into account in the process deployment, and a process deployment method to be used in software projects. These highlight the importance of having an effective process deployment strategy to adopt, use and institutionalize the process. The results of a case study are included.

Implementation of Software Process Improvement through TSPi in Very Small Enterprises

This article shows an experience in a very small enterprise related to improving software quality in terms of test and process productivity. A customized process from the current organizational process based on TSPi was defined and the team was trained on it. The pilot project had schedule and budget constraints. The process began by gathering historical data from previous projects in order to get a measurement repository. Then the project was launched and some metrics were collected. Finally, results were analyzed and the improvements verified.

Process Deployment: A Taxonomy of Critical Success Factors

Various methods, models and standards for software process improvement have been adopted by organizations to improve their software processes. However, despite these efforts they still encounter difficulties in their process deployment throughout the organization. This is because the vast majority of these efforts focus more on the technical aspects, bypassing the human aspects. There is a set of factors that influence the successful deployment of new or modified processes. This paper presents taxonomy of critical success factors in software process deployment to achieve the processes institutionalization. The development of a taxonomy related to these critical success factors is based on a systematic review of existing literature on specialized databases and industrial experiences that have deployed or implemented processes.