PRIORITIZATION OF PROCESSES FOR SOFTWARE PROCESS

IMPROVEMENT IN SMALL SOFTWARE ENTERPRISES

Francisco J. Pino

IDIS Research Group, Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering Faculty

University of Cauca, Street 5 # 4 – 70 Popayán, Colombia

Félix Garcia, Mario Piattini

ALARCOS Research Group

Information Systems and Technologies Department, UCLM–Soluziona Research and Development Institute

University of Castilla–La Mancha, Paseo de la Universidad, 4 – 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain

Keywords: Prioritization of processes, Software process improvement, SPI, Software process management, Small

software enterprises, VSEs, SMEs, Reference process model.

Abstract: In this article a set of processes which are considered to be of high-priority when initiating the

implementation of a Software Process Improvement –SPI– project in Very Small Software Enterprises –

VSEs–, is presented. The objective is to present the VSEs with a strategy to deal with the first processes that

must be considered when they undertake an SPI project. The processes proposed in this article are

fundamentally based on the analysis and contrast of several pieces of research carried out by the

COMPETISOFT project. The fundamental principle of the proposal is that process improvement must be

connected with the other software process management responsibilities.

1 INTRODUCTION

From the beginning of the 21st century onwards, the

Software Engineering community (industry and

researchers) has expressed a special interest in

Software Process Improvement –SPI– for Small

Software Enterprises –VSEs–. Interest in SPI in

VSEs is growing due to the fact that these

companies are an extremely important cog in the

gears of the economy of many nations in the world.

The software industry in most countries has an

industrial backcloth, made up mainly of small

software organizations which favour the growth of

national economies. In order to fortify this kind of

organizations, efficient strategies, practices and/or

guides to tailor software process improvement to

their size and type of business are needed.

Currently, the COMPETISOFT project is being

devel

oped. This project deals with the creation of the

software reference process, assessment and

improvement models adapted to the characteristics

of the software industry in Latin America. One of

the strategies of the COMPETISOFT Project is to

carry out theoretical and/or practical studies in the

area of SPI for VSEs, which provide information in

order to attain more elements of judgement and to

thus facilitate the adoption and implantation of

international or regional standards related to SPI in

VSEs. In this article a set of processes which are

considered to be of high-priority when initiating the

implementation of a project SPI in VSEs, is

presented. The objective is to present the VSEs with

a strategy to deal with the first processes that must

be considered when they undertake an SPI project.

The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2

related works

are presented. The high-priority

processes are shown in Section 3 and 4, and finally,

our conclusions and future work are outlined.

2 RELATED WORKS

There are various related works that present a set of

processes which VSEs could use to derive

significant benefit from process improvement. These

include:

337

J. Pino F., Garcia F. and Piattini M. (2007).

PRIORITIZATION OF PROCESSES FOR SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT IN SMALL SOFTWARE ENTERPRISES.

In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Software and Data Technologies - SE, pages 337-340

DOI: 10.5220/0001330503370340

 SciTePress

 MoProSoft (Oktaba, 2005) proposes 6

processes (based on ISO 12207, CMM).

 MPS.BR (Weber et al., 2005) proposes 23

processes (based on ISO 12207 and CMMI).

 RAPID (Cater-Steel et al., 2005) proposes 8

processes (based on ISO 15504:1998).

 PROCESSUS (Horvat et al., 2000) proposes 6

processes (based on CMM and ISO 9001).

 ADEPT (McCaffery et al., 2006) proposes 12

processes (based on CMMI).

The main contribution that this work pretends to

make in the area of SPI in VSEs is to propose and

prioritize several reference processes based both on

the VSEs’ special characteristics and on the existing

literature dealing with SPI. Prioritization of

processes allows VSEs to be guided in the question

of which practices should be carried out first at the

beginning of an SPI project, regardless of the

process reference model used. It is important to

emphasize that this work wishes to explain to VSEs

which processes to tackle at the beginning of an SPI

project. The description of the processes as well as

their results, conclusions, practices, inputs, etc., are

available in process reference model material such

as MoProSoft, MR-MPD de MPS.BR, RAPID,

PROCESSUS, ADEPT, ISO/IEC 12207, CMMI.

3 SELECTION OF PROCESSES

The processes proposed in this article are

fundamentally based on the analysis and contrast of

three research works carried out by the

COMPETISOFT project:

 An exploration of the background of

software process practices in the south-

western Colombian software industry

(Hurtado et al., 2006). From this research

work we can see that companies are more

interested in the implementation of disciplines

related to the Engineering Process Group

(requirement elicitation, analysis and design,

software construction, testing and software

installation). The companies are less interested

in disciplines related to the Management

Process Group (planning, tracking and

control) and to the Support Process Group

(quality assurance, configuration management

and requirement management).

 A systematic review of software process

improvement in small software enterprises

(Pino et al., 2006). From this research work

we can see that companies are more interested

in improving: (i) the processes of project

management related to the management

process group; and (ii) the documentation

processes, change request management and

configuration management related to the

support process group. Companies do not

appear to show much interest in carrying out

improvements to the engineering process

group, with the exception of the requirement

elicitation process.

 An analysis of the contribution of

international standards to the management

and improvement of software process (Pino

et al., 2007). As this work is related to the area

of software process improvement, it is

important to express a special interest in the

processes which are strongly connected to the

responsibility of improving processes: (i)

organizational alignment and measurement

related to the management process group, and

(ii) process establishment, process assessment

and process improvement related to the

Process improvement process group. It is

essential to bear in mind that process

improvement is immersed in process

management.

The processes that are proposed as high-priority in

the implementation of a software process

improvement programme in small software

enterprises are described in Table 1. With the aim of

expressing these processes in terms of an

internationally recognized reference model, the

nomenclature of processes and groups of process

defined in the ISO/IEC 15504-5:2006 standard, is

followed. This standard has been chosen because its

process group has a greater degree of detail.

Table 1: Processes proposed to begin SPI in VSEs.

ENG 1. Re

uirements elicitation

ENG 2. S

stem re

uirements anal

sis

ENG 3. S

stem architectural desi

ENG 4. Software re

uirements anal

sis

ENG 5. Software desi

ENG 6. Software construction

ENG 7. Software inte

ration

ENG 8. Software testin

ENG 11. Software installation

ENG 12. Software maintenance

SUP 1.

ualit

assurance

SUP 7. Documentation

SUP 8. Confi

uration mana

ement

SUP 10. Chan

e re

uest mana

ement

MAN 1. Or

anizational ali

nment

MAN 3. Pro

ect mana

ement

MAN 6. Measurement

PIM 1. Process establishment

PIM 2. Process assessment

PIM 3. Process im

rovement

ENG ― Engineering Process

Group

MAN ― Management Process

Group

PIM ― Process Improvement

Process Group

SUP ― Support Process Group

ICSOFT 2007 - International Conference on Software and Data Technologies

338

The processes displayed in the previous table are

organized into process groups, which have been

selected according to the results of the research

shown previously. For the selection of these

processes the following issues have been considered:

 The engineering process group with the aim of

improving and complementing the technical

disciplines (analysis and design, software

construction, etc) which are those most

frequently carried out by VSEs. The intention

is to consolidate this area in order to guarantee

the responsibilities to be carried out by

following the best practices proposed by a

reference model. It is necessary to place great

emphasis on requirement elicitation because it

is a discipline that tends to be implemented

and improved.

 The processes of project management,

documentation, change request management,

process establishment, configuration

management and quality assurance. These

processes have been the subject of many

improvement attempts by SPI efforts carried

out in VSEs. These processes also contribute

to the support of control process responsibility

within software process management.

 The processes of organizational alignment,

measurement, process establishment, process

assessment and process improvement, because

these practices are closely related to the

responsibilities of defining, measuring and

improving processes within software process

management.

4 PRIORITIZATION OF

PROCESSES

According to (Derniame et al., 1999) the emphasis

on processes and on process management provides

the main justification for many standardization

initiatives, such as CMMI, SCAMPI, ISO/IEC

15504, ISO/IEC 12207 (in addition to the efforts of

measuring process capability) and therefore for other

proposals based on the philosophy of these

standards. Process improvement, following the

conception of measuring its capability, is based on

statistical processes control. Statistical processes

control is based on the management process and its

four key responsibilities: improve the process, define

the process, measure the process and control the

process. It is also important to emphasize that

process improvement is immersed as a responsibility

within software process management (Florac et al.,

1997).

On the other hand, VSEs are generally created as

the result of having carried out a successful project.

In fact, in these organizations the process is carried

out in an innate way. The process is born with the

organization although it is neither defined nor

visible. These organizations start their operation by

carrying out technical processes, which is an

inherent responsibility of the project management.

According to the information presented in (Hurtado

et al., 2006) and (Pino et al., 2007) there is a high

risk that VSEs will never cease to carry out technical

processes, and evidence of this is: (i) their interest in

implementing these processes and (ii) the

improvements introduced into these kind of

companies are concentrated on project management.

Project management is responsible for ensuring that

a software product is developed according to a plan

and that that plan is feasible.

Therefore it is fundamental that, through

software process improvement, the enterprises can

carry their processes from process execution and

project management up to the establishment of the

four software process management responsibilities.

We propose that process groups should be

prioritized by setting up the process groups in the

following order:

 The process improvement process group.

 The management process group.

 The support process group.

 The process engineering group.

Once the SPI programme has been established in

the VSE, the first step is to follow an iterative and

incremental improvement process (for instance,

PmCOMPETISOFT (Vidal et al., 2006)). The

improvement process guides the creation (or

improvement) of processes within the VSE, with the

objective of creating a basic infrastructure for

software process management at the first iteration.

This infrastructure is based on the following

processes: process improvement, process

establishment, process assessment, organizational

alignment, project management, and measurement.

With the improvement or creation of these processes

and their later execution within the VSE,

responsibilities such as defining, measuring, and

improving the process are supported.

The following step is to use a second

improvement project iteration to set up the processes

related to the support process group. Besides being

those that the majority of VSEs look to improve,

these processes also help to support and deal with

PRIORITIZATION OF PROCESSES FOR SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT IN SMALL SOFTWARE

ENTERPRISES

339

the responsibility of controlling the process. Process

control tries to make results predictable, which

means keeping the process within its normal

inherent limits of operation.

Finally, practices relating to the engineering

process group must be established through more

improvement project iterations. It is also possible to

include other processes determined by the

organization’s business objectives.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORKS

This article has proposed and prioritized a group of

processes with which to guide VSEs as they begin

an SPI project. The process selection and

prioritization which has been carried out was based

on the fact that process improvement is not an

isolated activity, but is closely related to process

management.

The fundamental principle of our proposal is that

process improvement must be connected to the other

process management responsibilities. Having taken

this into consideration, an SPI in VSEs project must

first establish a basic infrastructure related to the

responsibilities of the process management. This is

the reason why the first processes to be established

must be those in the improvement and management

group, with the objective of creating the ring of

Improve-Define-Execute-Measure necessary for

process management. The second step is to include

the control process through the support process

group. Finally, engineering process improvement

must be carried out. It is important to emphasise that

the establishment of this infrastructure in itself

implies process improvement within the VSE.

Our future work is to apply this proposal in order

to refine and validate it. This application will be

made to different process improvement projects that

will be carried out in the Latin American companies

involved in the COMPETISOFT project.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work has been funded by the following

projects: COMPETISOFT” (506PI287) financed by

CYTED; MECENAS” (PBI06-0024) granted by the

“Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha” of

Spain; and ESFINGE (TIN2006-15175-C05-05)

financed by Dirección General de Investigación of

the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain.

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