Tomás San Feliu

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

Critical Success Factors in Software Process Improvement: A Systematic Review

Many methods, models and standards for software process improvement have been developed. However, despite the efforts, they still come up against difficulties in their deployment and the processes are not institutionalized. There is a set of factors that influence the successful deployment of new or modified processes. In this paper we describe the methodology and results from a systematic review of critical success factors in software process improvement and deployment. A total of 28 primary studies were analyzed as a result of the systematic review. Some of the top factors for process improvement and process deployment initiatives are: commitment, alignment with the business strategy and goals, training, communication, resources, skills, improvement management and staff involvement. The obtained results show that is important to take into account organizational, technical and people issues in order to achieve success in improvement initiatives.

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).

Building an IT service catalog in a small company as the main input for the IT financial management

IT departments in non-IT small companies lack guidelines for defining the services they provide and for assigning costs to these services. This article compares international models and standards and describes an approach that can be used by these companies in order to define and implement their service catalog to be used as an input for their IT financial management. The proposed solution is based on the concept of a process asset library. The proposal has been tested in a non-IT small company. The results provide useful insights for companies interested in defining their own service catalog from a standard service catalog.

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.

Introducing Scrum in a Very Small Enterprise: A Productivity and Quality Analysis

The very small enterprises are seriously affected by the actual global economic crisis. At this scenario the competitiveness is a key factor and productivity enhancements are needed. This article shows an experience about introducing an agile methodology in a very small enterprise. The organization needed to improve their projects productivity without compromising the quality and decided to introduce Scrum in order to verify its efficiency. The goal of this paper is to analyze the productivity and quality by comparing the Scrum pilot project with a previous similar experience based in TSPi.

High-maturity levels: achieving CMMI ML-5 in a consultancy company

Most organizations that use the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) stop their process improvement journey at Maturity Level 3 or less. The discussion about CMMI high‐maturity levels has always been controversial, going most of the times through the consideration of return of investment, provider selection, and interpretation issues. Achieving Level 5 is not an easy task; it derives a lot of steps during the way. This article will show an example of the implementation of Level 5 in a consultancy company in two constellations: development and service. It depicts the example in steps, to help the understanding of the whole process. Copyright

Review of Critical Success Factors Related to People in Software Process Improvement

Information systems are designed, constructed, and used by people, using a set of defined processes previously deployed, as a result of software process improvement initiative. Software process improvement is not a purely technical task, but a complex psycho-socio-technical process. This paper presents a systematic review to identify the categories most used in literature to classify software process improvement success factors and the critical success factors related to people. We found several studies related to critical success factors, but only 10 of them proposed a critical success factors classification. The quantitative data from a systematic review were analyzed using descriptive statistics. As a result the following common categories are identified: organization, people and process. The critical success factors related to people are presented in this paper.

An empirically validated simulation for understanding the relationship between process conformance and technology skills

Software development is a fast-paced environment where developers need constant update to ever-changing technologies. Furthermore, process improvement initiatives have been proven useful in increasing the productivity of a software organization. As such, these organizations need to decide where to invest their training budget. As a result, training in technological update to their workforce or training in process conformance with its productive processes become conflicting alternatives. This paper presents a system dynamics simulation of a software factory product line. The objective of this simulation is to understand the changes in behavior when selecting either one of the above-training alternatives. The system dynamics model was validated with an expert panel, and the simulation results have been empirically validated—using statistical process control—against the performance baseline of a real software development organization. With the simulation under statistical control and performing like the baseline, the independent variables representing process conformance (process training) and technology skills (skills training) were modified to study their impact on product defects and process stability. Our results show that while both variables have positive impact on defects and process stability, investment in process training results in a process with less variation and with fewer defects.