Title: A Software Process Improvement Framework for Small Organizations – A Research Approach
More than 90 percent of the software organizations on the market today employ 20 employees or less. Despite of this little academic attention has been devoted to software process improvement for small software organizations, even though the rules for managing projects in small organizations differs from managing projects in large organizations. It has been shown that Software Process Improvement efforts in small organizations that are based on frameworks which are designed for large organizations often fail.This Master Thesis discusses Software Process Improvement (SPI) for small organizations. The main objective is to produce an SPI model that can be used by small software organizations in order to evaluate the own capacity of delivering high quality or maturity. Purchaser can also use the model to evaluate small software supplying organizations. The model is based on parts from established SPI frameworks, such as; The Capability Maturity Model for Software, Capability Maturity Model Integrated and ISO 9001:2000. In order to find out what SPI activities in those models that are important for small organizations a survey was conducted. In the survey both supplying and purchasing organizations participated. The survey resulted in a prioritization of SPI activities, which represented the base for the new SPI model. The authors named the proposed model SPISO – Software ProcessImprovement for Small Organizations.
Author: Daniel Vasiljevic, Stefan Skoog
Source: Blekinge Institute of Technology
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1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.4 RESEARCH GOALS
1.5 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
1.5.1 Why this subject was selected
1.5.2 The Prestudy
1.5.3 The Research
1.5.4 Research Results and Analyses
1.5.5 The Model
1.5.6 Epilogue
1.5.7 How the report could be read
1.6 READING GUIDELINES
1.6.1 Audience
1.6.2 Instructions
1.6.3 Limitations
1.6.4 Definitions/Abbreviations
2 SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT – AN OVERVIEW
2.1 WHAT IS SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT – SPI
2.2 THE VISION
2.2.1 The Software Process Improvement Cycle
2.3 THE NEED FOR SPI
2.4 SPI FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
2.4.1 SPI Priorities in Small Businesses
2.5 IDENTIFIED SPI PROBLEMS
2.6 SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER
3 SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT MODELS
3.1 SIX SIGMA
3.2 THE TICKIT GUIDE TO ISO 9001:2000
3.3 BOOTSTRAP
3.4 SPICE
3.5 CAPABILITY MATURITY MODEL FOR SOFTWARE SW-CMM
3.6 CAPABILITY MATURITY MODEL INTEGRATED CMMI-SW
3.7 TRILLIUM
3.8 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER
4 HYPOTHESIS AND EXPECTATIONS
4.1 A MODEL
4.2 THE QUESTIONNAIRE
5 RESEARCH
5.1 RESEARCH METHODS
5.1.1 Empirical Research Methods
5.1.2 Approaches for Collecting the Data
5.1.3 Validity of the result
5.2 RESEARCH DESIGN
5.2.1 Choice of Research Method
5.2.2 Choice of Collection Approach
5.2.3 Sampling of Respondents
5.2.4 Standardization
5.2.5 Validation of Data
5.2.6 Quantitative Study
5.2.7 Survey Questionnaire
5.2.8 Testing the Questionnaire
5.3 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER
6 RESEARCH RESULTS AND ANALYSES
6.1 PRESENTATION OF THE QUANTITATIVE STUDY
6.1.1 How the Result was Calculated
6.1.2 General about the Result
6.1.3 Summary of the Survey Result
6.2 ANALYSIS OF THE RESULT
6.2.1 Analysis of the Categories
6.2.2 Supplier
6.2.3 Purchaser
6.2.4 Supplier vs. Purchaser
6.2.5 How does the Qualitative Result Relate to the Theory
6.3 SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER
7 MODEL PROPOSAL
7.1 DESCRIPTION
7.2 SCOPE
7.3 MODEL FOUNDATION
7.4 THE SCALE
7.4.1 Point-scale
7.4.2 Maturity Scale
7.5 GROUPS/LEVELS
7.5.1 Groups
7.5.2 Levels
7.6 ARCHITECTURE OF THE MODEL
7.6.1 Main Sections
7.7 REQUIRED, EXPECTED, AND INFORMATIVE COMPONENTS
7.8 HOW THE GROUPS WERE CREATED
7.9 HOW THE SCORE WAS CREATED
7.10 HOW ACTIVITIES WERE DEVELOPED
7.11 MEASURE MATURITY
7.12 IMPLEMENTATION GUIDELINES
7.12.1 Self Assessment
7.12.2 Supplier Assessment
7.13 THE SPI-PROGRAM
7.14 EXCLUDED AREAS
7.15 FLAWS WITH THE SPISO-MODEL
7.16 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER
8 EPILOGUE
8.1 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
8.1.1 Strengths and Weaknesses
8.1.2 Aims and Objectives
8.1.3 Research Questions
8.2 FUTURE WORK
9 REFERENCES
10 APPENDIX A – THE RESULT OF THE SURVEY IN GRAPHS
10.1.1 REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT
10.1.2 PROJECT PLANNING
10.1.3 SOFTWARE PROJECT TRACKING AND OVERSIGHT
10.1.4 SUPPLIER AGREEMENT MANAGEMENT
10.1.5 MEASUREMENT AND ANALYSIS
10.1.6 PROCESS AND PRODUCT QUALITY ASSURANCE
10.1.7 CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT
10.1.8 REQUIREMENTS DEVELOPMENT
10.1.9 TECHNICAL SOLUTION
10.1.10 PRODUCT INTEGRATION
10.1.11 VERIFICATION
10.1.12 VALIDATION
10.1.13 ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS FOCUS
10.1.14 ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS DEFINITION
10.1.15 ORGANIZATIONAL TRAINING
10.1.16 INTEGRATED PROJECT MANAGEMENT
10.1.17 RISK MANAGEMENT
10.1.18 DECISION ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTION
10.1.19 ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS PERFORMANCE
10.1.20 QUANTITATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
10.1.21 ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION AND DEPLOYMENT
10.1.22 CAUSAL ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTION – DEFECT PREVENTION
10.1.23 RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
10.1.24 CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION
APPENDIX B – THE QUESTIONNAIRERESULT