An application tool to support the implementation of integrated software process improvement for Malaysia's SME

Abstract

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. However, different standards and practices may require substantial resources and cost, resulting in reluctance of adoption by software organizations especially those of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). Integrated Software Process Improvement Knowledge Base and Methodology 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. This paper describes an application tool which was developed to implement the iSPA (Integrated Software Process Assessment) model. This tool was specially designed and formulated to support locally software development companies, especially of small scale enterprises to achieve some flexibility and choices in their self-assessment based on a customized SPI model for Malaysia SME which is iSPA.

The Adoption of Software Process Improvement in Saudi Arabian Small and Medium Size Software Organizations: An Exploratory Study

“…Furthermore, it can be argued from the results presented in Fig. 7 about project management methods that Saudi's SMEs are majorly concerned with the delivery of software products to client on budget within the stipulated time and this is consistent with findings in [23]. It also means that, they do not pay any critical attention to best practice standards in software development but find it easier to employ ad-hoc and/or agile approach, enabling quicker delivery of a working software product.…”

“…Nevertheless, most of the software organizations in the world are considered as small-to-medium size; for example, small-tomedium size organizations represent 97.3 of the total business established in Malaysia [17], whereas they represents 92% in Mexico [18] and more than 85% in India, Canada, China, US, Ireland and Finland [19]. A number of studies have investigated the adoption of SPI models in several countries, for example, in India [19], Malaysia [17], [20]- [23], US and Japan [24], New Zealand [25], Finland [26], Pakistan [27], Australia [23], [24] Ireland [30] and Mexico [18]. However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior work exists which aims at specifically investigating the adoption of SPI in Saudi Arabia.…”

Measuring the maturity of Indian small and medium enterprises for unofficial readiness for capability maturity model integration‐based software process improvement

“…Mishra and Mishra 21 have studied and analyzed the status of Indian software SMEs. Ali and Ibrahim 22 have developed an application tool to implement SPI in Malaysia's SME. Dyba 23 emphasized that SMEs should concentrate on human resource engagement in SPI activities in their organization.…”

A roadmap for a comparison framework for an adaptable software process improvement framework in small software companies

“…[7,22] 3) iSPA Integrated Software Process Assessment The Malaysian software industry was facing difficulties in their software projects due to lack of putting into practice the best practices and standards. According [23] 50% of all application are unsuccessful and did not achieve business goals whereas 40% of software projects failed to deliver intended return on investment due to lack of best practices. Among the causes of lack of best practices was level of awareness and understanding amongst software development companies.…”