Instructional Software Analysis: Lessons from Software Development Process Improvement

Author(s):  
David Diez ◽  
Camino Fernandez ◽  
Juan Manuel Dodero ◽  
Paloma Diaz ◽  
Ignacio Aedo
2014 ◽  
pp. 1363-1384
Author(s):  
Mohammad Zarour ◽  
Alain Abran ◽  
Jean-Marc Desharnais

Software organizations have been struggling for decades to improve the quality of their products by improving their software development processes. Designing an improvement program for a software development process is a demanding and complex task. This task consists of two main processes: the assessment process and the improvement process. A successful improvement process requires first a successful assessment; failing to assess the organization’s software development process could create unsatisfactory results. Although very small enterprises (VSEs) have several interesting characteristics such as flexibility and ease of communications, initiating an assessment and improvement process based on well-known Software Process Improvement (SPI) models such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and ISO 15504 is more challenging in such VSEs. Accordingly, researchers and practitioners have designed a few assessment methods to meet the needs of VSEs organizations to initiate an SPI process. This chapter discusses the assessment and improvement process in VSEs; we first examine VSEs characteristics and problems. Next, we discuss the different assessment methods and standards designed to fit the needs of such organizations and how to compare them. Finally, we present future research work perceived in this context.


Author(s):  
Rory O’Connor ◽  
Shuib Basri

This article identifies the effect of team dynamics in the context of software development teams and its impact on software process improvement (SPI) activities in very small companies, in order to understand the relationship between these two variables. Most software development work is done by teams of software engineers working together in a collaborative manner to execute a software development process. Although there is much literature examining software process and how to improve it, less attention has been paid to the issues of team-working and specifically the impact of team dynamics on the software development process. Team dynamics is the term used to define how people work and interact together in teams. Teamwork is more effective with the existence of positive team dynamic, as it encourages a better working environment with satisfied, fulfilled employees who will in turn be more productive. This paper presents the results of a research study of team dynamics in very small software development companies and its impact on the software development process and software process improvement activities.


Author(s):  
Makoto Sakai ◽  
Ken-Ichi Matsumoto ◽  
Koji Torii

While small computer systems have provided us with a wide array of development and operational environments, implementation methods, and domains of the software to be developed, it has also made the software development more risky. This paper proposes a new framework for improving the software development process on small computer systems to reduce software development risks. The key idea of the proposed framework is that the solutions to the software development problems can be extracted by the project manager, with relatively low overload, from the development processes that were actually executed in order to reduce the development risks, and then be formalized and stored in a database. The formalized solutions can be used not only for process improvement, but also for devising new solutions if new problems should occur in the future. We believe that the proposed framework is capable of making up for the difficulties in implementing CMM on small computer systems, and it encourages us to apply CMM to such risky software development.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Zarour ◽  
Alain Abran ◽  
Jean-Marc Desharnais

Software organizations have been struggling for decades to improve the quality of their products by improving their software development processes. Designing an improvement program for a software development process is a demanding and complex task. This task consists of two main processes: the assessment process and the improvement process. A successful improvement process requires first a successful assessment; failing to assess the organization’s software development process could create unsatisfactory results. Although very small enterprises (VSEs) have several interesting characteristics such as flexibility and ease of communications, initiating an assessment and improvement process based on well-known Software Process Improvement (SPI) models such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and ISO 15504 is more challenging in such VSEs. Accordingly, researchers and practitioners have designed a few assessment methods to meet the needs of VSEs organizations to initiate an SPI process. This chapter discusses the assessment and improvement process in VSEs; we first examine VSEs characteristics and problems. Next, we discuss the different assessment methods and standards designed to fit the needs of such organizations and how to compare them. Finally, we present future research work perceived in this context.


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