Standards and Software Process Improvement

This chapter discusses knowledge management (KM) aspects of how software process and software process improvement (SPI) is practiced within very small entities (VSEs) in the context of Irish software development industry. In particular, this study is concerned with the process of software development knowledge management in supporting the SPI. In order to understand the support process, the authors of this chapter have studied how KM processes are practiced within VSEs which includes communication, learning, sharing, and documentation process. This study also focuses in detail on the issues of the knowledge atrophy problem in VSEs. The findings explain how KM has been practiced and influenced the software development process and process improvement in VSEs. This result indicates that KM processes in VSEs are being undertaken in a very informal manner and also in indirect way. This is due to a small team size, autonomous working and macro-management style and caused VSEs to be more informal in their KM processes specifically and SPI generally. In addition, the results have indicated that the informal environment and culture helped VSEs to easily create and share knowledge between staff members and also assisted VSEs to mitigate the knowledge atrophy problem in their organization.

A practitioner’s guide to light weight software process assessment and improvement planning

work of W. Edwards Deming has convinced industry that must first measure quality and then emphasise process to improve quality. In response to Deming's arguments and in light of perception that software industry is unable to produce quality products on schedule, and within budget, more software development organisations are now emphasising process measurement, monitoring, and assessment. This paper describes what is meant by software process and discusses an approach for its measurement and improvement. INTRODUCTION Unreliable software makes big news, from emergency services disasters to social security payment blunders. Improved software quality is essential to ensure reliable products and services, and gain customer satisfaction. While software development has existed for more than four decades, we failed so far to make as an industry and as an engineering discipline rather than craft. Developing reliable and usable software that is delivered on and within budget still represents difficult endeavour for many organisations. As role of software becomes increasingly critical for businesses as well as for human lives, problems caused by software products that are late, over budget, or that do not work, become magnified. If lives are lost or people inconvenienced due to incapable computer software, news media is there to make big stories. Organisations are realising that their fundamental problems is immaturity of their software process. Robert Lai (1993) proposes that process improvement is second maturity wave of software industry. He states that the first wave of software was developed using waterfall model in 1970's. Today we are Transactions on Information and Communications Technologies vol 8, © 1994 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3517 216 Software Management in midst of second wave maturity movement as we attempt to formally define development process and best ways to continuously improve it (Lai 1993). Taking lead in this area has been Watts Humphrey (Humphrey 1989, 1990, 1991), and Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. SEI started in 1986 to develop process maturity framework to help organisations appraise maturity of their software process, and to provide guidance for organisations to improve their software process capability. A brief description of framework was released in September 1987, including maturity questionnaire. SEI evolved model and questionnaire into 5 -Level Capability Maturity Model (CMM) in 1991. In February 1993, released CMM version 1.1 (Paulk et al 1993). This paper discusses software process and describes capability maturity model (CMM). It also shows how CMM can be used as basis to measure maturity of software process of an organisation and plan its improvement. SOFTWARE QUALITY AND PROCESS IMPROVEMENT In his book Quality is Free Phil Crosby states that: Quality is free. It is not gift, is free. What cost money are unqualify of things all actions that involve not doing jobs right first time (Crosby 1980). If such statement is true for many disciplines, is particularly true for evidence is abundant in number of software products which exceeded their budget, were produced late, failed to satisfy user requirements, and are full of bugs. demand for improved software quality is increasing to ensure reliable products and services. benefits of improved quality comes in form of reduction in failure costs. For software projects failure costs include (DTI 1992): • costs of correcting defects, both before and after delivery • overruns against and budget • unnecessary high maintenance costs • indirect costs which users incur due to poor quality software link between process maturity and software quality is expressed in premise that The quality of software system is governed by quality of process used to develop and maintain it. One stumbling block to improving software quality seems to be that not enough attention is paid to overall development process itself. While software professionals typically devote their to developing, testing or documenting software products, no one has prime responsibility for improving software process. Experience has shown that if Transactions on Information and Communications Technologies vol 8, © 1994 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3517 Managing Systems 217 no one is working on software process, orderly improvement is unlikely. process certainly won't improve itself, rather, most likely, will deteriorate over time. Continuous improvement can occur only if process infrastructure is in place. Watts Humphrey argues in an early article published in Datamation, April 1989 that: Without work on process, there will be little or no progress in improving software. THE SOFTWARE PROCESS Adopting process view of software development represents revolutionary change in perspective. A process orientation to software development involves elements of structure, focus, measurement, ownership, skills, and supporting technology. In this section we investigate what is meant by software process. What Is Software Process According to Webster's dictionary, process is a system of operations in producing something .. series of actions, changes, or functions that achieve an end result. Chambers Concise Dictionary defines process as a series of actions or events .. sequence of operations or changes undergone. IEEE defines process as a sequence of steps performed for given purpose. In general business context, process is defined as a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce specified output for particular customer or market (Davenport 1993). These definitions put strong emphasis on HOW work is done, in contrast to product focus's emphasis on WHAT. Accordingly, process can be considered as a specific ordering of work activities across and place, with beginning, an end, and clearly identified inputs and outputs: structure for action. In this paper we will adopt following definitions quoted in (Humphrey 1990, Paulk et al 1993) are intended to encompass software throughout its life, which covers new development, enhancement, and repair. software process is The set of activities, methods, and practices used in production and evolution of software. software engineering process is The total set of software engineering activities needed to transform user's requirements into software. Transactions on Information and Communications Technologies vol 8, © 1994 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3517 218 Software Management People and Software Process Software development is still people-intensive activity. Talented people are most important element in any software organisation. Even if you get best people available, if they do not follow common process, if everyone wrote in different programming languages, used different conventions, or didn't co-ordinate their design and code changes with their peers, results will be chaos. Successful software organisations have learned that even best professionals need structured and disciplined environment in which to do cooperative work. Software organisations that do not establish such disciplines condemn their people to endless hours of repetitively solving technically trivial problems. obvious fact is that attracting best people is vital, but is also essential to support them with an effectively managed software process. Technology and Software Process Another myth is widespread belief that some technologically advanced tool or method will provide magic answer to software crisis. This is not only wrong, but is dangerous. Organisations which jumped on bandwagon of CASE tools, and ended up in failure and wasted and effort have learned their lesson hard way. Just ask yourself before introducing technology: What do I want to automate? In absence of defined, practised, and managed process, introducing automation can lead to increased chaos. There are several factors which limit effective use of software technology: an illdefined process, inconsistent process implementation, and poor process management. Software technology cannot be fully effective until these problems have been properly addressed. Need for Defined Process If no effort is made to define and enhance software development process across whole organisation, each software development project latches on to its own tools, methods, and practices with little guidance available on how to use them. This ad hoc approach will not be sufficient to tackle task of developing complex software systems. goal of software process management is to enable organisations to produce software that meets cost, schedules, and quality objectives. principles are same that underpins statistical process control-principles that have been successfully used in controlling scientific experiments and in high -volume manufacturing operations. Statistical concepts have been found to be just as applicable to software development as they are to production of manufactured goods such as motor cars. Applying such concepts will only be possible if there is defined and managed process. Software Process Models Transactions on Information and Communications Technologies vol 8, © 1994 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3517

The emerging international standard ISO/IEC 15504 on ‘Information Technology – Software Process Assessment’ aims to harmonize the various assessment approaches used in software process improvement (SPI). While approaches based on the organization-focused ‘staged model’ (SW-CMM etc.) provide a ‘roadmap’ generally true for most organizations, the process-focused ‘continuous model’ of ISO/IEC 15504 does not prescribe any particular improvement path. SPI projects using the ISO/IEC 15504 approach are thus considered to have to deal with increased complexity in improvement planning. Targeting this problem, the basic ideas behind a generalized system dynamics model of ‘a set of improving software processes’ currently under development to support SPI action planning at a tactical level are presented. The basic intention is to determine the impact of a set of scheduled improvement actions on the strategic target variables of SPI (time-to-market, cost, quality). The approach integrates the two main ‘mental models’ behind ISO/IEC 15504: the process model described textually as a network of processes and work products, and the model of maturing single processes. The development of the model is oriented at organizations with lower capability and medium sized development projects. The results of preceding software process assessments are used as a major source for model initialization. How simulation can support software process improvement is discussed, and insights from sample applications are presented. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Software process and product improvement: an empirical assessment

Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is becoming a vital part of present day research in software process improvement (SPI). Nevertheless, there is no available study that provides detail review of the published software process improvement SLRs. Objective: The aim of this article is to classify the SLRs of SPI in order to identify the main research areas covered and evaluate the quality of the published SLRs. Methodology: A tertiary study was conducted to review the SLRs published by other researchers on the topic of SPI. Results: Twenty-four SLR articles were identified in the field of SPI. Results show that the quality of the selected SLRs on SPI is decreasing over the recent years. The most popular research topics are factors affecting SPI and process models. Conclusions: This study provides the review and state of the art in the context of SPI research. The results of this article would be of great interest for future SPI researchers by providing in depth understanding of various research areas in SPI. The number of process improvement SLRs is increasing and the overall quality is decreasing, which could lessen their potential impact on SPI practice. Currently, SPI literature is weak in the knowledge areas such as quality and software testing process improvement.

Currently, a number of specific international standards are made available within software engineering discipline to support Software Process Improvement (SPI) such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), ISO/IEC 15504, ISO/IEC 90003 and ISO/IEC 12207. Some suggest on integrating and harmonizing these standards to reduce risks and enhance practicality, however there is no official initiative being made to date to implement this reality. Integrated Software Process Assessment (iSPA) is a proposed initiative being developed on the premise to harmonize and integrate a number of existing software process assessments and practices including improvement standards, models and benchmarks. A survey was conducted on thirty software practitioners to measure the strength and weaknesses of their organization's current software process. The survey also attempts to evaluate the acceptance and needs of implementation of a customized SPI model for Malaysia's SME.

Software engineers have always been experimenting with various models in an endeavor to improve upon software processes. Recently, a new area of software process improvement through experience management has got attention of the software engineering community. Software developers are experimenting with experience management to improve software process. This chapter explores the role of experience management in mitigating the effects of software crisis and investigates the current state of EM in Indian software engineering environment. The chapter discusses the need and integration of knowledge and experience management practices in software engineering environments. The chapter begins with the discussion of the ills of software engineering, classically referred to as “software crisis,” like late delivery of the systems, ill-functionality, and cost overruns, and justifies how managing the knowledge and experience of software engineers and practitioners can ward off these evils. The chapter then discusses the models and methodologies for knowledge and experience management in software engineering. Finally, the chapter sheds light on the major works carried out in this area and suggests possible future research avenues in this domain.

Problems in measuring effectiveness in software process improvement: A longitudinal study of organizational change at Danske Data

Continuous improvement of software development capability is fundamental for organizations to thrive in competitive markets. Nevertheless, software process improvement (SPI) implementation based on software process reference models and standards is a complex and long-term endeavor that requires investment of large sums of money. This paper describes a national program for SPI in Brazilian organizations. The main goal of this initiative is to develop and disseminate a Brazilian software process model (named MPS Model) aiming to establish a feasible pathway for organizations to achieve benefits from implementing SPI at reasonable costs, especially SMEs. This paper presents the main components of MPS Model. The results of MPS Model adoption and dissemination in Brazilian software industry are also presented in this paper. Although the main focus of the MPS Model is on SMEs, the model demonstrated to be adequate to support SPI implementation and assessment in large organizations.

Software process play an important role in improving the quality of software products. Formal software process model is conducive to the accurate description of software processes. A software process meta-model is a formal tool used to define software process models. In this paper, a software process meta-model SPMM is designed. Firstly, five important properties in software processes are discussed. Furthermore, based on CSP and Hoare Logic, the definition of SPMM and the rules to build software process models are proposed. In SPMM, not only are the important components, e.g. tasks, activities and software processes in software processes, formally defined, but also the five important properties of software process are embodied. Therefore, SPMM can model software processes at different abstract levels. Thus, the basis to simulate, control, analyze, measure and improve software processes is established.

Continuous software process improvement corresponds to one of the major goals of software organizations. Standardization is a necessary prerequisite for software process improvement, but first, it is necessary to understand the restrictions of the development environment. In geographically distributed environments, working groups usually have different characteristics. It is very hard to define a unique and suitable software process. We propose a model to standardize software processes and to support their continuous improvement. An initial software process is defined according to the restrictions of the environment. Then, four other software processes are specialized, each corresponding to a different maturity level. An evaluating process defines the maturity level of each group and verifies whether the working group correctly used its software process. Then, an action list determines activities to be done to continuously improve the software process of each single working group.

The emergence of agile methods and practices has not only changed the development processes but might also have affected how companies conduct software process improvement (SPI). Through a set of complementary studies, we aim to understand how SPI has changed in times of agile software development. Specifically, we aim (a) to identify and characterize the set of publications that connect elements of agility to SPI, (b) to explore to which extent agile methods/practices have been used in the context of SPI, and (c) to understand whether the topics addressed in the literature are relevant and useful for industry professionals. To study these questions, we conducted an in‐depth analysis of the literature identified in a previous mapping study, an interview study, and an analysis of the responses given by industry professionals to SPI‐related questions stemming from an independently conducted survey study. Regarding the first question, we identified 55 publications that focus on both SPI and agility of which 48 present and discuss how agile methods/practices are used to steer SPI initiatives. Regarding the second question, we found that the two most frequently mentioned agile methods in the context of SPI are Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP), while the most frequently mentioned agile practices are integrate often, test‐first, daily meeting, pair programming, retrospective, on‐site customer, and product backlog. Regarding the third question, we found that a majority of the interviewed and surveyed industry professionals see SPI as a continuous activity. They agree with the agile SPI literature that agile methods/practices play an important role in SPI activities but that the importance given to specific agile methods/practices does not always coincide with the frequency with which these methods/practices are mentioned in the literature.

Calculating Software Process Improvement's Return on Investment

In this chapter, an overview of the research progress both in software processes and software evolution are presented from the viewpoints of methodologies, technologies, tools and management. Firstly, the basic concepts related to software processes are discussed. In addition, an overview of the research progress in the areas of software process modelling and descriptions, software process modelling languages and description languages, software process improvement, CMM, software process reuse and process-centred software engineering environments is presented. Furthermore, the basic concepts related to software evolution are discussed. Finally, the work in the areas of software evolution and software reengineering is also discussed. The research outlined in this chapter shows that both software evolution and software process have become the hot spots in software engineering. The combination of software evolution and software process will promote smooth and effective software evolution.