A Model to Measure Organizational Readiness for

Software Process Improvement

Aldo Dagnino and Andrew Cordes

ABB Corporate Research, 940 Main Campus Drive, Raleigh, NC. 27606, U.S.A.

Keywords: Software Process Improvement, Change Management, Change Agent.

Abstract: This paper presents a model that can be used to measure the readiness of an organization to engage in a

software process improvement (SPI) program. This model focuses on the main stakeholders of an SPI

program, which include the “Sponsor”, the “Change Agent”, and the “Organization” directly affected by the

improvements. The model identifies the drivers that motivate the SPI main stakeholders and assigns metrics

to these drivers so that it is possible to evaluate the readiness of the whole organization to start and maintain

an SPI program. The model presented augments the concepts of “Change Management” from the Software

Engineering Institute by incorporating the experiences of ABB in implementing SPI programs in its

business units during the past decade. The paper presents as well an example on how this model has been

used to track the evolution of SPI in an ABB organization.

1 INTRODUCTION

Like any software development project,

implementing a software process improvement (SPI)

initiative in an organization presents risks that must

be identified and managed to ensure the highest

likelihood of success. One common risk in SPI

initiatives revolves around how ready an

organization is to accept and embrace the changes

that an SPI initiative brings. When an organization

is used to carry out their productive activities in a

certain way, members of the organization have

difficulty to make changes in the way they work

(Massey et al, 1998). Change occurs when any part

of the organizational system is modified or replaced.

Change means replacing what is established in

favour of something new. In a software process

improvement activity, old and established

development practices are replaced by improved,

streamlined, and more efficient practices and

processes. Even if the new practices and processes

selected for adoption enhance the organization’s

operations, there is always a tendency for the

organization to resist the change. Organizational

change readiness refers to the capacity that an

organization possesses to respond to new challenges

in its operational environment. This paper presents a

model that can be used to quantify this risk and

measure the mitigation progress being made during

the course of the SPI effort.

2 SOFTWARE PROCESS

IMPROVEMENT (SPI)

SPI refers to the use of improved software

development practices in an organization to improve

the quality of products, increase customer

satisfaction, reduce development costs, increase

employee’s job fulfilment, and enhance delivery

times. SPI activities are typically conducted using

software development process frameworks and

standards such as CMMI-DEV, ISO/IEC,

SWEBOK, and others. When conducting SPI

initiatives, two important factors need to be

considered. The first factor involves the technical

issues related with the process frameworks used in

the SPI initiative. Second, it is important to consider

those human and organizational factors that impact

the change and occur due to natural human

resistance to change (Lopez and Garay 2012).

Early research in the SPI field was primarily

focused on the technical, procedural, quality and

instrumental aspects and models (Ferreira and

Wazlawick, 2011). More recent research in the SPI

has recognized the importance of both the technical

329

Dagnino A. and Cordes A..

A Model to Measure Organizational Readiness for Software Process Improvement.

DOI: 10.5220/0005002303290336

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Software Engineering and Applications (ICSOFT-EA-2014), pages 329-336

ISBN: 978-989-758-036-9

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

and organizational and human/management aspects

of the software process improvement activity

(Khokhar et al., 2010). Muller et al. (2010) assert

that not considering the organizational aspect of a

software process improvement initiative leads to a

failure in the initiative.

3 ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

READINESS

Organizational change readiness refers to the

capability that an organization exhibits at a

particular point in time to adopt a new behaviour and

respond to new challenges in its operational

environment. Software process improvement is

viewed as a “change” activity within an organization

because SPI inevitably bring a change in processes,

procedures, policies, methods, and sometimes even

tools.

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and

Debou (2009) have defined a change matrix that

identifies the necessary elements for change and

how the lack of these elements results in frustrated

and ineffective efforts, as shown in Figure 1.

Necessary elements for change, and hence for the

implementation of a successful SPI program include:

(a) vision on where we want the organization to be

with the proposed SPI program; (b) skills in the

organization necessary to achieve the improvements;

management to the organization to change its

behaviour; (d) resources needed to successfully

conduct the SPI activity; (e) an action plan that

guides the SPI program activities. Figure 1 shows

that the lack of vision in an SPI program causes

confusion in the organization. The lack of skills

necessary to conduct the SPI activities causes

anxiety in the organization. The lack of incentives or

dis-incentives to members of the organization

affected by the SPI activities cause a delay in the

SPI program. The lack of adequate resources (tools,

time, people, etc.) causes great frustration in an

organization trying to implement a successful SPI

program. And finally, the lack of an action plan

causes false starts and disorientation in the SPI

program.

When an organization is faced with a severe

change prospect such as a major SPI program,

people in the organization may suffer from similar

reactions as the stages of loss and grief which

include denial and isolation, anger, bargaining,

depression, and acceptance (Kubler-Ross, 1969).

Figure 1: Organizational Change Matrix.

In an SPI program is important to recognize that

people will embrace changes differently. The

advocates see the changes that the SPI program

brings as a “good thing” and will support the

initiative. The apathetic do not care initially about

the initiative until they see how it affects them. The

incubators have thought about trying new things, so

the SPI initiative may have some appeal to them.

And the resisters have concerns about the SPI

initiative and make things difficult for the

implementation of the changes through overt or

covert resistance.

4 READINESS ASSESSMENT

MODEL

Kautz (2000), Maturro and Saavedra (2012), and the

Software Engineering Institute (2014) identify four

components essential to change management in an

organization. The first component evaluated is the

organizational readiness that refers to the load an

organization has at a particular point in time with

respect to management issues, change initiatives,

and operational and legal issues taking place. The

second component evaluated refers to the sponsor’s

commitment and readiness to the SPI activity that is

supported by what the sponsor expresses about the

SPI initiative, by the sponsor’s inherent

characteristics as a leader, and by the visible actions

of the sponsor towards the SPI initiative. The third

component evaluated is the change agent (CA)

commitment and readiness to the SPI activity that

evaluates what the CA expresses about the SPI

initiative, the inherent characteristics of the CA, and

the behaviour of the CA towards the SPI initiative.

The fourth component evaluated refers to the level

of organizational expertise and experience that the

members in the organization have relative to the SPI

initiative (SPI model utilized, appraisal

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330

methodologies, process improvement cycle, etc.).

The rEAdiness asSEssment model (EASE)

presented in this paper evaluates the four above

mentioned components, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: EASE Model.

Sections 4.1 to 4.4 below provide details on the

main factors that are individually evaluated. Based

on his/her observation, the evaluator gives weights

(1-5) to each of the factors and composes an overall

index for each component. Section 5, provides an

example of the evaluation utilizing a real-world

example.

4.1 Organizational Readiness

An SPI initiative will almost certainly increase the

stress level in an organization. For this reason is

important to evaluate the stress conditions in the

organization before starting the SPI initiative. Table

1 shows detailed stress factors that need to be

evaluated before an SPI initiative begins and

monitored as the SPI program makes progress. It is

important to have a sense of whether there are

currently other competing initiatives such as

introduction of a new technology, or a major

construction project, a major litigation, etc.

Similarly, it is important to understand the general

attitude and experience the organization has towards

any change that has occurred in the past.

Each of the elements in Table 1 needs to be

evaluated before the SPI initiative starts (typically

by the potential SPI project manager, or an assessor)

and they need to be continuously evaluated at

determined points in time during the SPI project. In

the EASE model, an experienced assessor evaluates

each sub-element of an element of a component by

assigning a weight between 1 and 5. Taking an

example from Table 1, under the component

“Organizational Readiness”, the “Process Changes”

element has as sub-element the “New customer

service program” to which the readiness evaluator

gives a weight of 5 if at the time of the evaluation

there is an active and engaging customer service

program ongoing in the organization. On the other

hand, if there is no customer service program, the

evaluator assigns a weight of 1 to same sub-element.

Once weights w

ijk

(where i = component i, and j =

element j, and k = sub-element k) have been

assigned, an overall weight W

is calculated as



∑







ijk

)/n to calculate the element index. The

overall component index (Evaluate Organizational

Readiness for SPI) is a normalized summation value

of the weights of each element.

Table 1: Factors of organizational stress.

Management Issues

New senior management

New skills or employee retention

Culture change effort

Performance appraisal

Major reorganization or downsizing

Process Changes

New customer service program

Ongoing quality initiative

New Quality initiative

Productivity improvement project

History on past improvement projects

Operational and Legal

New Technology introduction

Major construction project

Working extra-time

Strike

Major Litigation

4.2 Sponsor Commitment and

Readiness to SPI

Members of the software development organization

are very perceptive on how the sponsor(s) of the SPI

initiative behaves and talks relative to the initiative,

as the sponsor’s support is key to the success of the

SPI project. Table 2 shows the relevant

characteristics that a sponsor should exhibit in a

successful SPI initiative. These factors are evaluated

in the EASE model to measure the level of

commitment that the sponsor has to the SPI

initiative.

The sponsor(s) needs to be very careful on how

he/she communicates with the rest of the

organization about the SPI initiative. The sponsor(s),

as the main promoter of SPI, needs to publically

Evaluate Organizational

Readiness for SPI

Evaluate Sponsor

Commitment and

Readiness to SPI

Evaluate Change Agent

(CA) Commitment and

Readiness to SPI

Evaluate Organizational

Expertise and Experience

on SPI Initiative

Management Issues Index

Process Changes Index

Operational and Legal Index

What Sponsor Expresses Index

Sponsor Characteristics Index

How Sponsor Acts Index

What CA Expresses Index

CA Characteristics Index

How CA Acts Index

Sponsor Expertise Index

CA Expertise

Organizational Expertise

Organizational Readiness Index

Sponsor Commitment Index

CA Commitment Index

Organizational Expertise Index

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Table 2: Sponsor characteristics for SPI.

What the Sponsor(s) Expresses

Expressed how SPI relates to company strategy

Expressed strong personal commitment to SPI

Communicates clear and understandable message

Communicates the impact to affected individuals

Communicates objectives of SPI to organization

Promotes problem solving attitude

Publically expresses behaviours that must change

Communicates to encourage direct feedback

Observable Sponsor Characteristics

Strong motivation to implement SPI

Believes in the business benefits of SPI

Shows strong support if SPI to direct reports

Demonstrates personal changes aligned with SPI

Demonstrates willingness to pay the price for SPI

Strong and tenacious in pursuing the SPI activities

Invests effort to build support for the CPI effort

Has good relationship with change implementers

Has good relationship with people affected by SPI

Has a good track record in past change initiatives

How Sponsor Acts

Commits the necessar

resources to SPI

Establishes incentives to reinforce chan

Emphasizes rewards for achieving change

Focuses on reinforcement on direct reports

Emphasizes formal and informal reco

nition

Links rewards to the achievement of change

Establishes mechanisms for data gathering to

monitor progress of change

Makes clear how to report SPI

ress

Makes old

ehaviours difficult to perfor

Makes new behaviours easier to perfor

promote behaviour modification, needs to have a

clear message to the organization,and overall needs

to have a clear commitment to the SPI initiative. The

sponsor(s) needs to understand the business value

that the SPI initiative will bring to the organization.

The sponsor(s) needs to demonstrate to his/her direct

reports that he/she supports and is willing to pay the

price for the initiative. The sponsor(s) needs to have

a very good relationship with the change agent. The

organization needs to see the sponsor(s) “walk the

talk” and align behind the SPI initiative. The sponsor

needs to make SPI a priority, commit the necessary

resources, and reinforce the change with the

appropriate incentives or disincentives. Table 2

shows the main characteristics that a sponsor must

exhibit to increase the probability that the SPI

initiative succeeds. The sponsor needs to be

evaluated in each of these factors before and during

the course of the SPI initiative.

4.3 Change Agent Commitment and

Readiness to SPI

The change agent(s) is the person(s) that leads the

SPI initiative and makes it successful. The change

agent needs to work with the sponsor(s) to move

forward the SPI initiative smoothly and to report

progress.

The change agent typically manages the SPI

project, builds support in the organization for SPI,

and works closely with the affected people.

The change agent also monitors and tracks the

SPI initiative as an internal project in the

organization which is at the same level as a

development project. The change agent is

instrumental in identifying and managing the

sources of resistance in the SPI initiative and must

respond to the different types of resistance (overt

and covert). There are different types of change

agents: (a) traditional, who are focused on delivery

of SPI results; (b) facilitators, who emphasize

transfer of change to stakeholders; (c) and

advocators, who are considered to be the true

champions of change. Table 3 shows the main

characteristics that a change agent must exhibit to

increase the probability of his/her success with the

SPI initiative. The change agent needs to be

evaluated on each of these factors before and during

the SPI initiative to increase his/her effectiveness.

4.4 Organizational Expertise

This is the fourth element considered in EASE, and

it evaluates the level of technical expertise and

competence that the organization has relative to the

SPI initiative. The Sponsor, change agent, and the

affected organization need to have a competent level

of experience and technical expertise in the change

management process, in the SPI software framework

utilized (i.e. CMMI-DEV, IEEE, SCRUM, XP,

SWEBOK, etc.), diagnostics methodology,

continuous process improvement, etc. Table 4

provides the specific factors evaluated in terms of

organizational expertise.

5 A REAL WORLD CASE

As part of the ABB software process improvement

initiative, a business unit that develops software for

the power industry implemented a multi-year

software process improvement program. An SPI

initiative consists of five stages: (a) Initiate; (b)

Diagnose; (c) Establish; (d) Act; (e) Leverage.

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Table 3: Change agent characteristics for SPI.

What Change Agent Expresses

Believes on the rewards of SPI

Understands the disruption that change will bring

Is committed to the goals of the SPI project

Expresses interest in being responsible for SPI

Is optimistic about the potential SPI results

Expresses confidence in Sponsor's commitment

Believes in a positive personal future through SPI

Expresses enthusiasm about the SPI initiative

Is happy with time and resources available for SPI

Observable Change Agent Characteristics

Has a successful history in the organization

Is viewed as competent in current position

Experience working with different groups

Experience working with all levels of management

Knowledgeable of perspectives/needs of sponsor

Has trust, respect, and credibility with the sponsor

Is viewed as a real asset to the SPI project

Knowledgeable of the perspectives and needs of

affected people in SPI initiative

Affected people respect and trust the change agent

Effectively manages resistance to change

Works well with structure of the organization

Understands the organization's culture

Has a working “change” principles

Possesses high level of analytical skills

Understands the value of human and business issues

Has excellent communication skills

Is a team player

Is proactive, sets goals, and achieves them

Enjoys challenge and uncertainty

Feels comfortable working with sponsor

How Change Agent Acts

Has sufficient time to dedicate to the SPI project

Exerts sufficient authority to make changes

Energizes the organization to promote change

Has access to sufficient resources for SPI initiative

Knows when and how to use power and influence

Generates a high level of team work

Has vested personal commitment to the SPI project

Is proactively seeking creative solutions

Is proactively informing sponsor about SPI progress

Has

roperly planned SPI projec

These are the stages of the IDEAL

model

developed by the Software Engineering Institute

(Software Engineering Institute, 2014; Kautz et al.,

2000). During the “Initiate” phase, a foundation is

laid for a series of successful improvement efforts in

the SPI initiative. It is at this stage where the

readiness assessment (utilizing the EASE model) of

an organization is conducted. In the “Diagnose”

phase, an understanding of the current technologies,

processes and organizational interactions is

established and documented to create a baseline for

the improvement activity. This information supports

the improvement planning and prioritization process,

and acts as an indicator to help track and verify the

impact of the program’s activities. The “Establish”

phase determines the foundation for the actions of a

specific improvement cycle. The course of action

taken is determined by the results of the diagnostic

activity. To implement these actions, a software

improvement plan is developed to make the

appropriate changes (introduce a new technology,

develop a new product, make improvements in

processes or change the architecture of a product),

which draws on the vision established during the

“Initiate” phase. During the “Act” phase, the

established plan is put into action, and the core work

needed to make the specific software process

improvements proceeds. Finally, the objective of the

“Leverage” phase is to analyze how the

improvement cycle has been carried out, to assemble

the lessons learned, and to incorporate these lessons

learned into the software improvement plan that will

be used in the next improvement cycle.

In our example, the SPI initiative of the software

development group consisted of IDEAL cycles with

one year duration. Readiness assessments using

EASE were conducted at the beginning of each

cycle and also in the middle of the cycle. Hence, as

the SPI initiative was planned for a three year

period, six readiness assessments were conducted.

The following sections discuss details of the

readiness assessments conducted in the SPI initiative

for this particular business unit.

Table 4: Organizational expertise relevant to SPI.

Sponsor Expertise/Experience

Experience in change management

Knowledge of SPI technology (CMMI, IEEE…)

Experience in continuous process improvement

Change Agent Expertise/Experience

Knowledge/expertise in change management

Expertise of SPI technology (CMMI, IEEE…)

Experience of SPI technology (CMMI, IEEE…)

Change Agent experience in change management

Experience in continuous process improvement

Organizational Expertise/Experience

Expertise of SPI technology (CMMI, IEEE…)

Experience of SPI technology (CMMI, IEEE…)

Experience on participating in change management

Expertise in continuous process improvement

Experience in continuous process improvement

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5.1 Initial Readiness Assessment of an

ABB Company using EASE

The ABB business unit in this study develops

software for power systems applications and will be

identified in the remainder of this paper as ABB

MVPower. This business unit decided in January of

2003 to start a software process improvement (SPI)

initiative and committed to have the initiative

running for three years. Hence, the data analysed is

aligned with this timeline. The sponsor for the SPI

initiative was the site manager. He vocally expressed

strong support for the SPI initiative and identified a

change agent who was a project leader from the

software development organization.

In January of 2003, the authors utilized the

EASE model to conduct an initial readiness

assessment of the ABB MPower unit. Figure 3

shows the results of the initial evaluation of the

sponsor of the SPI initiative in the three dimensions

shown in Table 2. As can be observed, in January of

2003, the sponsor seemed to be strong in his

characteristics as a sponsor and the way he talked

about the SPI initiative. However, the perception of

his actions on SPI showed a need for improvement.

Figure 3: Sponsor evaluation in January of 2003.

Figure 4 shows the evaluation of the change

agent in January of 2003. The evaluation shows that

the change agent needed to improve in all three

dimensions, particularly in how he behaved as a

change agent. This became evident because the

person selected for this role, at the time, was the

leader of the software development group and did

not have much change agent experience. He did,

however, have a very high level of credibility in the

organization and also possessed good change agent

qualities.

Figure 4 shows the evaluation in January of 2003

on the organizational situation with respect to SPI.

Figure 5 shows that there were no major stress

factors due to management issues, but that there

were some concerns related to operational issues

such as the introduction of new technologies and

people working extra hours. Also, the organization

was involved in a major ISO initiative that was

nearing completion.

Figure 4: Change agent evaluation in January of 2003.

Figure 5: Organization evaluation in January of 2003.

Figure 6 shows the evaluation of the

organizational expertise in the SPI initiative. The

organization decided to utilize the CMMI-DEV

framework for software process improvement. Their

decision was not to demonstrate a maturity level, but

to use the CMMI-DEV framework to improve their

processes. As can be observed in Figure 5, the level

of experience and expertise in SPI for the whole

organization was very limited. For this reason, the

authors worked with the organization to increase

their level of expertise in SPI activities.

Figure 6: Org expertise evaluation in Jan 2003.

100

150

What Sponsor

Expresses

Observable

Sponsor's

Characteristics

How Sponsor

Acts

Ideal

Jan 1‐2003

100

200

300

400

500

What Change

Agent Expresses

Observable

Change Agent

Characteristics

How Change

Agent Acts

Ideal

Jan 1‐2003

Management

Issues

Process Changes

Operational and

Legal

Ideal

Jan‐03

Sponsore

Expertise

Change Agent

Expertise

Organizational

Expertise

Ideal

Jan‐03

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Figure 7 below shows a complete picture of the

evaluation of the four elements combined to give the

overall assessment picture in January of 2003. From

this graph it is evident that the organization was

open to the SPI initiative. The sponsor and the

change agent needed to improve their level of skills,

and the sponsor needed to improve his commitment

to the SPI initiative. Moreover, the organization

needed to improve its level of expertise in the SPI

initiative.

Figure 7: Overall organizational readiness for SPI.

5.2 Progressive Readiness Assessment

Table 5 shows the numeric values of the historical

evaluations of the readiness assessments of ABB

MVPower from Jan 2003 to Jan 2006

Table 5: Historical readiness assessment of ABB

MVPower from January 2003 to January 2006.

Figure 8 shows the graphic representation of the

weight values shown in Table 5. From the different

readiness assessments performed, it is interesting to

observe the changes that occurred in the three years

of the SPI initiative

Figure 8: Graphical representation of historical readiness

assessment for ABB MVPower.

For example, comparing the assessments from

January 2003 and July 2003, a few things can be

observed. The organizational readiness remained

constant and the organizational expertise in the SPI

activities increased. Nevertheless, the sponsor’s

commitment and the change agent readiness

significantly decreased. This trend seemed to

continue until July of 2004.

Figures 9 and 10 below show the details on the

assessments of the sponsor and the change agent in

July 2004. Both figures show a significant decrease

in the evaluation of how well the sponsor and

change agent expressed support for the SPI activity

and also how they acted towards the SPI activity. An

interesting point was that the sponsor seemed to

change negatively in his own inherent characteristics

towards the SPI initiative, while the change agent

seemed to acquire skills that made him a better

change agent.

Figure 9: Sponsor evaluation in July of 2004.

The situation in July of 2004 was definitely not

good for the SPI initiative, and something had to be

done. After deeper analysis, we discovered that there

was a breakdown in the communication between the

sponsor and the change agent. This then caused a

deep mistrust from both towards each other. The

sponsor on the one hand felt that the change agent

was not delivering the results that he expected from

the SPI initiative. On the other hand, the change

agent felt that the SPI activity was hampering his

position in the organization and that the sponsor was

not supporting him and the organization in the SPI

initiative. It took a concentrated effort to increase the

communication between the sponsor and the change

agent so that things began to turn around. As can be

observed in Table 5 and Figure 7, there was

subsequently, considerable improvement in both the

sponsor and the change agent. Also, the organization

felt more comfortable and the SPI initiative ended

on a positive note. It is important to point out, that a

direct result of the SPI initiative was the

improvement of the Requirements Engineering

100

200

300

400

Organizational

Acceptance

Sponsor

Commitment

Change Agent

Readiness

Organizational

Expertise

1‐Jan‐03

1-Jan-03 1-Jul-03 1-Jan-04 1-Jul-04 1-Jan-05 1-Jan-06

Organizational Acceptance 355 352 357 345 347 377

Sponsor Commitment 251 178 120 106 286 330

Change Agent Readiness 222 181 174 157 206 260

Organizational Expertise 223 265 299 206 286 354

100

200

300

400

Organizational Acceptance

Sponsor Commitment

Change Agent Readiness

Organizational Expertise

Summary: MV Group Readiness for CMMI

100

150

What Sponsor

Expresses

Observable

Sponsor's

Characteristics

How Sponsor

Acts

Ideal

Jul 1‐2004

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process and this caused a reduction in the cost of

poor quality of 10% annually.

Figure 10: Change agent evaluation in July of 2004.

6 CONCLUSIONS

EASE is a model that quantifies the readiness of an

organization to commit to a software process

improvement initiative. EASE was developed as part

of the ABB software process improvement initiative.

Although EASE has been developed specifically for

assessing the readiness of an organization to

seriously engage in a software process improvement

activity, EASE can also be utilized in any other

organizational change situation, such as introduction

of a new technology, change in organizational

structure, change in customer base, introduction of a

new product or service, etc. EASE considers four

essential elements in the change situation (SPI

implementation) and they include the sponsor

readiness and commitment, change agent readiness

and commitment, organizational readiness, and

organizational level of expertise in SPI and the

specific model utilized for SPI. The sponsor plays an

essential role in exemplifying the new behaviour

(walk-the-talk), providing necessary resources,

aligning the SPI activity with business goals,

providing incentives for the new behaviour,

rewarding process improvement, and in general

being a proactive supporter of the SPI initiative. The

change agent is a multi-disciplinary person that

needs to master both the technical and organizational

aspects of the SPI initiative, must be highly

respected in the organization, must have excellent

communication skills, must communicate effectively

with the sponsor, and in general needs to have the

“fire” for the SPI initiative. The organization on the

other hand needs to have a relatively low level of

stress with other change initiatives, must have the

required level of training and skills for the SPI

initiative, needs to see tangible benefits originating

from the SPI initiative, and needs to be proactively

involved and committed to the SPI initiative. In the

future Fuzzy Logic will be used to evaluate the

elements and sub-elements in the EASE model.

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