With increasing interest by the software development community in software process improvement (SPI), it is vital that SPI programs are evaluated and the reports of lessons learned disseminated. This paper presents an evaluation of a program in which low-rigour, one-day SPI assessments were offered at no cost to 22 small Australian software development firms. The assessment model was based on ISO/IEC 15504 (SPICE). About twelve months after the assessment, the firms were contacted to arrange a follow-up meeting to determine the extent to which they had implemented the recommendations from the assessment.Comparison of the process capability levels at the time of assessment and the follow-up meetings revealed that the process improvement program was effective in improving the process capability of 15 of these small software development firms. Analysis of the assessment and follow-up reports explored important issues relating to SPI: elapsed time from assessment to follow-up meeting, the need for mentoring, the readiness of firms for SPI, the role of the owner/manager, the advice provided by the assessors, and the need to record costs and benefits. Based on an analysis of the program and its outcomes, firms are warned not to undertake SPI if their operation is likely to be disrupted by events internal to the firm or in the external environment. Firms are urged to draw on the expertise of assessors and consultants as mentors, and to ensure the action plan from the assessment is feasible in terms of the timeframe for evaluation. The RAPID method can be improved by fostering a closer relationship between the assessor and the firm sponsor; by making more extensive use of feedback questionnaires after the assessment and follow-up meeting; by facilitating the collection and reporting of cost benefit metrics; and by providing more detailed guidance for the follow-up meeting.As well as providing an evaluation of the assessment model and method, the outcomes from this research have the potential to better equip practitioners and consultants to undertake software process improvement, hence increasing the success of small software development firms in domestic and global markets.
The requirements for conformance of a process model to the international standard for process assessment, ISO/IEC 15504, cover a broad range. The most significant of these is the need to establish a complete and unambiguous mapping between the Process Assessment Model and the relevant Process Reference Model and the Measurement Framework described in the Standard. This is required to support the development of a mechanism for translating the outputs from an assessment using the Process Assessment Model into the standard process profiles defined in ISO/IEC 15504. This article reports the results of an analysis of the relationship between CMMI®, as a ‘candidate conformant Process Assessment Model’, relative to the Measurement Framework defined in ISO/IEC 15504‐2, and the Process Reference Model described in ISO/IEC 12207 Amd 1/2. It is shown that, while in general terms a complete mapping can be established, there are specific areas where coverage is weak. Use of CMMI as a Process Assessment Model in ISO/IEC 15504 Conformant assessments will need to take account of these issues. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Software processes described by natural languages are frequently ambiguous and it is usually difficult to compare the similarity and difference between one process defined in one standard and its counterpart defined in another standard. This paper proposes Composition Tree (CT) as a graphic language to model software process based on its purpose and expected outcomes. CT is a formal graphic notation originally designed for modeling component based software system. This paper demonstrates that CT can be a powerful notation to give a clear and unambiguous description of a software process as well. This paper also investigates an algorithm which can compare two CT-modeled processes and provide an intuitive view called a Comparison Composition Tree (CCT) to highlight the differences and similarities between the two processes.
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