Software Process Improvement, based on a Maturity Level or a Process Capability Profile, from a Capability Maturity Model or an ISO/IEC 15504-based model, is well established in the software industry as a successful practical means for improving software intensive organizations. In consequence there is an opportunity to understand how these models have been developed and consolidate this knowledge to support the development of new models by a broader community including the industry. This article introduces practices and techniques of a Method Framework for Engineering Process Capability Models as an element of a methodology on a Process Capability Profile to drive Process Improvement. This method framework is based on previous experiences to develop different process capability models. Its current version is composed of sequential practices, customization rules, guidelines for using the framework, a repository for examples of utilization and another repository for examples of techniques. This method framework is part of a methodology. An initial validation indicates a first confidence that this method framework is a useful proposal for developing methods and processes for engineering process capability models.
Software process assessments have been used to verify the conformance with quality reference models or standards, usually in a context of software process improvement programs. Most of these assessments are concerned with just one specific model or standard. However, organizations could be interested in more than one model, being necessary to offer an integrated assessment that allows evaluate the conformance with different models at the same time, reducing time and costs. To do this, it is necessary to have some kind of mapping among the models to permit some level of automation. In this context, this paper presents a method to mapping process capability models and standards, including its application. A software tool is also presented to demonstrate how to use the resulting mapping in a real life situation.
This article introduces an innovative process assessment method that uses modeling theory to consider the continuously improvement of a process under three dimensions. These dimensions are related with three types of process models used during a process improvement cycle: Process Capability Profile model, Process Enactment Description model and Process Performance Indicator model. The article presents the motivations for this work, the objectives, methodology and process for this work, a description of the proposed method, experiences using the method and considerations about its evaluation.
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