Critical Success Factors and Barriers for Lightweight Software
Process Improvement in Agile Development
A Literature Review
Elia Kouzari
1
, Vassilis C. Gerogiannis
2
, Ioannis Stamelos
1
and George Kakarontzas
3
1
Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
2
Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece
3
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece
Keywords: Software Process Improvement, Agile Development, Critical Success Factors, Barriers, Return on
Investment.
Abstract: The majority of software development companies are significantly benefitted by adopting software process
improvement (SPI). This has been extensively addressed both in terms of research and established standards.
In particular, the need for SPI in the context of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) led a lot of
researchers to focus on this area. SMEs struggle daily to survive in a very competitive environment and their
distinguishing characteristics such as the small number of employees, the flat and small organizational
structure and the flexibility that governs them make it hard for them to adopt and implement SPI. On the same
spirit, their distinguishing characteristics are also those that make SMEs an ideal environment for the adoption
of agile methodologies. The agility that governs SMEs allows flexibility in every process they apply and,
thus, promotes lightweight SPI approaches in order to remain on the battle fields of competition. In this article,
we examine the special characteristics SMEs have and highlight critical success factors that should be taken
advantage of and barriers that could be avoided during SPI, as they are presented in the relevant literature. In
addition, we examine how critical success factors of SPI could positively affect a firm’s Return on Investment
and, consequently, help the firm survive in the long-term.
1 INTRODUCTION
In an era where the classic saying “Time is money” is
more than ever true, thousands of (small and medium-
sized) enterprises are struggling daily to improve their
processes in order to survive. Although the rapid
development of methods and tools has provided a
long list of software process improvement (SPI)
alternatives for the well-established large enterprises,
software Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) all
around the world are still trying to find tailored
solutions to their needs to quickly adapt to changes
and, at the same time, maximize Return On
Investment (ROI).
During the last decade, a lot of research has been
done in the field of implementing SPI in the context
of SMEs. Lately, there is a need to focus on small and
medium companies using agile development
methodologies. More specific, a lot of interest has
been shown in companies that adopt lightweight SPI.
Today, we are in a position to identify critical success
factors and barriers of lightweight SPI for SMEs
implementing agile development processes and focus
on the cost these factors bring in SMEs.
In particular, this paper aims to answer the
following research questions:
RQ1: What are the special characteristics of
software SMEs that follow agile
methodologies?
RQ2: What are the main Critical Success Factors
and Barriers involved in SPI?
RQ3: How do the Critical Success Factors and
Barriers affect the ROI in companies that
apply lightweight SPI?
The answer of these questions will be helpful to
identify the significance of these factors for a
successful SPI implementation and will potentially
support SMEs that follow agile methodologies to
concentrate on satisfying them in order to achieve
higher ROI in a shorter amount of time.
151
Kouzari E., Gerogiannis V., Stamelos I. and Kakarontzas G..
Critical Success Factors and Barriers for Lightweight Software Process Improvement in Agile Development - A Literature Review.
DOI: 10.5220/0005555401510159
In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Software Engineering and Applications (ICSOFT-EA-2015), pages 151-159
ISBN: 978-989-758-114-4
Copyright
c
2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
The rest of the paper is structured as follows:
Section 2 provides information on related studies and
previous work on similar topics. Section 3 highlights
the special characteristics of agile organizations and
summarizes the benefits and limitations known for
SMEs that apply such methodologies. Section 4
identifies a list of critical success factors and barriers
as presented in the literature that firms have to address
when considering to implement SPI. Section 5
specifies a group of success factors and barriers that
relate with ROI resulting from adopting a lightweight
SPI in the context of a company realizing agile
development. Finally, section 6 provides the
conclusions and future work as they emerge from this
study and identifies some research gaps in the related
area.
2 RELATED WORK
An extensive amount of papers deals with SPI as it is
vital for software organizations to successfully re-
engineer their processes and find a cost effective
solution to deliver software products and services.
However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no
review article that specifically concentrates on critical
success factors and barriers in the context of
lightweight SPI in software SMEs following agile
development practices.
In (Viju et al., 2013) the authors present a
comparative analysis of the problems SMEs face in
adopting SPI. Among others, in this paper the
negative perception of SMEs about various standards
and methods such as SPI-KM, RAPID, MR-MPS and
CMMI, the difficulties in relating SPI with benefits
and the availability and shared ability of successful
SPI best practices are presented. The authors
conclude at the end of the paper that at the time there
was insufficient knowledge about which innovations
were effective and which factors influenced the
adoption of SPI in SMEs and on the fact that there is
a need to develop a software process model based on
the features required by SMEs on SPI models.
In (Villalon et al., 2002) the difficulty to apply SPI
in SMEs is assigned to various cost types (financial,
time, resources) and is suggested that organizations
that are initiating SPI efforts should first assess their
current capability to develop and maintain software
products. Assessment helps to identify the strengths
and weaknesses of the process evaluated with respect
to a software process model, e.g. CMMI. At the end,
the process to be improved is selected. This paper
presents a new SPI method called MESOPYME
whose main focus is to reduce effort and time on the
SPI implementation. This specific method focuses on
the improvement implementation stage based on the
concept of Action Package that is a set of components
which help to give a concrete solution to a software
development problem. The authors conclude that the
Action Package can be used in various improvement
methods providing a working guide to begin
improvement implementation and, therefore, to
achieve reduction in effort, time and cost.
In (Cater-Steel et al., 2006) an assessment model
based on ISO/IEC 15504 is applied prior to SPI in
small firms. Low-rigor, one-day SPI assessments
were offered for free to 22 small Australian software
development firms. After one year the firms had a
follow-up meeting to determine the extent to which
they had implemented the recommendations derived
from the assessments. The analysis of the assessment
and follow-up report highlighted important issues for
SPI such as: elapsed time from assessment to follow-
up meeting, need for mentoring, and readiness of
firms for SPI etc. Finally, the authors advice small
firms not to undertake SPI if their operation is likely
to be disrupted by events in the internal or external
environment of the firm.
A more recent research work (O’Connor and
Laporte, 2011) supports that top-down SPI standards
like CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration)
and ISO 9000 that were developed to assist
companies in performing SPI, are not being widely
adopted and their influence in the software industry
remains more at a theoretical than practical level. This
is again mainly due to the cost that is associated with
SPI. Especially for SMEs, they find it difficult to
relate these standards to their business needs and the
vast majority of these cannot afford the resources for
establishing software processes as defined by current
standards and maturity models such as CMMI, ISO
9000 and SPICE.
Key challenges in process improvement for small
businesses like the understanding of the assessed
processes, identification of their strengths and
weaknesses and the importance of staff commitment
are highlighted in (Anacleto et al., 2004). The authors
applied a customized assessment method based on
ISO/IEC 15504 standard and focused on process
improvement in four small software companies in
Brazil. Assessments were found to be very beneficial
as they led to better understanding of the assessed
processes, helped on the identification of strengths
and weaknesses of the assessed processes, showed
ways to improve the software process and increased
the commitment of employees involved in SPI.
A systematic literature review was presented in
(Pino et al., 2008) that deals with existing approaches
ICSOFT-EA2015-10thInternationalConferenceonSoftwareEngineeringandApplications
152
of SPI in SMEs. Here, the authors discussed the
significant issues related to this area like the
approaches that SMEs follow on SPI, the number of
employees committed on SPI and the factors that
affect the end results of an SPI effort. The review
focused primarily on case studies carried out in
industry. Following the guidelines of Kitchenham
(Kitchenham, 2004) and the protocol template of
Biolchini et al., (2005), they searched in five digital
libraries of research articles and identified 45 primary
relevant studies. From the statistical analysis on the
selected studies they identified that company
commitment is vital for SPI success in a company.
They concluded that existing models such as CMMI
can be applied only with difficulty in SMEs and so
there is an increased need of alternate models and
approaches for firms of this size.
Finally, (Clarke and O’Connor, 2012) also
discusses SPI and positively associates SPI with
business success using the Holistic Scorecard (HC)
(Sureshchandar and Leisten, 2005) as a business
success reference framework with the aim to examine
both the financial and non-financial aspects of
business success. HC was developed as a business
success measurement framework for software
development organizations and is composed of 6
classifications of business objectives and a listing of
16 critical success factors associated with the 6
business objectives. The authors found a positive
association between SPI and business success in
software SMEs and this finding highlights the
importance of SPI in successful software SMEs.
The current paper emphasizes on lightweight
approaches to realize SPI particularly suitable for
SMEs. A lightweight approach requires less time and
effort and consequently less cost for SPI
implementation. Cost is managed ad hoc as there is
no standard procedure for SPI in a lightweight case.
A firm can follow a bottom up procedure to improve
its business processes as it can first identify the most
critical problems and then work towards the solution
of them. A lightweight approach provides the ability
to improve specific process areas that will improve
the overall performance of a company.
3 AGILE SW DEVELOPMENT
Although there is not a typical definition for Agile
Software Development, the vast majority of
researchers and practitioners in the field agree on a
single value: there is always the need to deliver faster,
better and cheaper solutions to customers. This
created the need for software development methods
that would be able to directly respond to customer's
changing needs and quickly provide a product that
would satisfy those needs before competitors catch.
According to (Pino et al., 2010) small
organizations share some specific characteristics:
- They follow lightweight processes which focus in
person-to-person communication: this enables
communication and sharing of information among
every person in the company.
- They are flexible: Flexibility is useful in a world
where user requirements change on a daily basis.
However, in a strict SPI procedure where
following well-documented guidelines is
considered a critical success factor, flexibility
may not always work in favour of the
development team.
- They follow informal mechanisms to manage
every day activities: Communication, decision
making and problem resolution are then
facilitated.
- Their staff is not expertized in several specialized
functions of the firm: This might prove to be fatal
in some cases of SPI as staff experience is very
important for the successful application of SPI.
- Their economic resources are limited: SPI is often
an expensive procedure that normally yields
profits after a significant amount of time has
passed. In small firms this alone might be a major
reason to not involve with SPI initiatives.
These characteristics indicate that appropriate
management for SPI processes is required for
companies that go agile. Agile methods are usually
adapted in SMEs. This happens because agile
practices can best be applied in their software
processes basically due to the small initial investment
required. On the other hand, the agility of SMEs can
speed up SPI (Viju et al., 2013). An agile team is
flexible enough to continue evaluating company’s
needs even throughout the SPI process. This
guarantees that an improvement initiative is always
emphasizing on the most valuable processes
providing eventually more profits for the
organization.
4 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
AND BARRIERS
As presented in section 2, the successful
implementation of SPI is crucial for every
organization as it requires not only a lot of time but
an extensive amount of other resources as well. In the
last decade, a lot of research has been done in the
CriticalSuccessFactorsandBarriersforLightweightSoftwareProcessImprovementinAgileDevelopment-ALiterature
Review
153
critical success factors and barriers that are associated
with the decision an organization takes to perform
SPI. In the remaining of this section a detailed list is
provided with the most common critical success
factors and barriers as those are reported in the
literature. A general discussion for the most popular
of these is provided in order for the reader to
understand the point to which each factor/barrier
affects the decision of a firm for adopting SPI.
4.1 Commitment
Senior management commitment (Cater-Steel, 2004;
Cater-Steel et al., 2006; Dybå and Dingsøyr, 2008;
Ferreira et al., 2007; McCaffery et al., 2007; Niazi,
2006; Niazi and Babar, 2009; Niazi et al., 2005a;
Niazi et al., 2005b; Niazi et al., 2006; Pino et al.,
2008; Viju et al., 2013; von Wangenheim et al., 2006)
appears to be a vital success factor in the
implementation of SPI in an organization. This is
mainly due to the fact that higher management
involvement in the procedure guarantees the
achievement of good results. Since the top employees
in the hierarchy work close enough with other
employees to ensure that the selected process attains
the agreed standards this serves as a security
mechanism that provides quality results at the end. In
addition, high involvement from the part of
management ensures that every step of the process is
tailored to the business goals and provides control on
the allocation of all resources making sure these are
spent in the most efficient manner.
4.2 Staff Involvement
Staff involvement (Cater-Steel, 2004; Dybå and
Dingsøyr, 2008; Ferreira et al., 2007; McCaffery et
al., 2007; Niazi et al., 2005a; Niazi et al., 2005b; Niazi
et al., 2006; Pino et al., 2008; Pino et al., 2010; von
Wangenheim et al., 2006) is presented in the literature
as a success factor of great importance. Since the
procedures for SPI are applied in the internal
environment of an organization this means that the
higher the involvement of the employees the higher
the productivity will be. Especially in a firm that
chooses agile development, where communication
and agility are important practices, the actions of the
staff will directly affect the success of the whole
procedure. In SMEs, where the number of employees
is significantly smaller than that of a big organization,
the role of the employees is even more important as
they have to work for the establishment of standards
in an organization that will eventually provide them
with career opportunities.
4.3 Training
Organizations have nowadays realized that
experienced staff and training (Cater-Steel et al.,
2006; Ferreira et al., 2007; Niazi et al., 2005b; Niazi
et al., 2006; Pino et al., 2008; Viju et al., 2013) are an
integral part of SPI implementation (Niazi et al.,
2006). As a result, by providing training sessions and
knowledge to the employees, management
familiarizes the staff with SPI procedures and benefits
and as a result they successfully achieve together the
desired results. However, the lack of training cannot
only withhold the commitment of the employees but
can also delay the attainment of ROI for the
organization.
4.4 Resources
On the one hand, staff time is directly associated to
the previously mentioned success factor “staff
involvement”. On the other hand, the time spent by
the staff is also related to the resources (Cater-Steel,
2004; Ferreira et al., 2007; Niazi, 2006; Niazi and
Babar, 2009; Niazi et al., 2005a; Niazi et al., 2005b;
Niazi et al., 2006; Pino et al., 2010; Unterkalmsteiner
et al., 2012; Villalon et al., 2002; Viju et al., 2013;
von Wangenheim et al., 2006) available by the
organization. Either these are money, or time, or
number of employees or even the technological
equipment of the company it is clear that an SPI
activity will eventually be tailored according to the
available resources. Limited resources can either
cause the activity to be partially executed, causing
misleading results or the whole activity to be applied
in a very short amount of time by omitting vital
stages. Both situations will not guarantee the
improvement of the processes in an organization and
thus, cannot also guarantee a higher ROI in the long
term. In contrast, the availability of adequate
resources will provide the proper environment for the
SPI procedure to be carried out following all
improvement guidelines and performing the required
assessment of current processes leading to more
accurate results that will add eventually more value to
the organization.
4.5 Process Action Teams
In agile software development the members of the
development team work closely together and thus
have enhanced communication. A manager can easily
recognize the advantages and fields of expertise of
each one person in the team and can make appropriate
selections and form process action teams (Ferreira et
ICSOFT-EA2015-10thInternationalConferenceonSoftwareEngineeringandApplications
154
al., 2007; McCaffery et al., 2007; Niazi et al., 2005a;
Niazi et al., 2005b; Niazi et al., 2006) that will work
on specific tasks for SPI. By having the right people,
on the right teams, working on the right tasks can
improve both the process of SPI and the results
achieved as well. However, the formulation of the
teams must be based on appropriate criteria that can
be different for every task of the SPI process.
4.6 Staff Experience
The more experienced (Cater-Steel, 2004; Ferreira et
al., 2007; McCaffery et al., 2007; Niazi et al., 2005a;
Niazi et al., 2005b; Niazi et al., 2006; Viju et al.,
2013) the employees in the organization, the better for
the SPI process. This is due to the fact that
experienced staff is familiar with the way the
organization performs on a daily basis and so they are
in position to indicate where problems arise and what
good practices are currently applied. Experienced
staff can provide the knowledge required to the team
leading the SPI initiative for the organization so that
they then proceed to the analysis targeted to the needs
of the company. Inexperienced staff cannot only
make the procedure last longer or seem more
complicated but also put at risk the accomplishment
of tasks.
4.7 Guidance
Since small organizations that follow agile practices
find it generally difficult to adopt pre-existing
standards of SPI, the guidance (Cater-Steel et al.,
2006; Dybå and Dingsøyr, 2008; Niazi et al., 2005a;
Niazi et al., 2005b; Niazi et al., 2006; Pino et al.,
2010; Villalon et al., 2002; von Wangenheim et al.,
2006) that they receive on their approach for process
improvement is very important. In particular, in the
articles mentioned above, it is clearly stated that
companies who follow a sequence of activities for
improvement that is tailored to their own business
processes generally enjoy more benefits at the end.
This happens because the presence of an engineer
who will guide the management and staff during this
time-consuming and costly procedure unofficially
guaranties that the targets set at the beginning will be
met and that the plan established by considering the
resources invested will also be applied.
4.8 Reviews - Feedback
In organizations that follow agile methodologies
communication is very important. The reviews (Dybå
and Dingsøyr, 2008; Niazi et al., 2005a; Niazi et al.,
2005b; Niazi et al., 2006; von Wangenheim et al.,
2006) that occur after the analysis of the existing
processes that contain all the problems and good
practices that the organization currently follows are a
way to communicating to the staff areas that need
improvement. The feedback that is also providing
during the SPI process and the software process
assessment performed in the meanwhile, has been
proved vital to the establishment of good practices
after the procedure is finalized.
4.9 Implementation Methodology
This is another important success factor related with
guidance. A defined SPI implementation
methodology (Dybå and Dingsøyr, 2008; Ferreira et
al., 2007; Niazi, 2006; Niazi and Babar, 2009; Niazi
et al., 2005a; Niazi et al., 2006; Pino et al., 2008; Viju
et al., 2013) guarantees that analysis has been
performed prior to the beginning of this process.
During the analysis all the problems of the
organization were examined and all the available
resources were also taken into consideration. This
means that since there are some steps to guide the
team through the SPI process there is less probability
the outcomes will be poor and more chances on
higher ROI and more effective processes. At the end,
it is the managers that need the guidance on how to
implement the SPI activities and the defined
implementation methodology plays a vital role in the
implementation of SPI programs.
4.10 Monitoring
In the critical success factors that are being analyzed,
it is clear that the vast majority of factors is related to
guidance in SPI. In this domain, there are several
variations in order to cover every aspect of this
complicated procedure for an organization.
Monitoring and supervision (Dybå and Dingsøyr,
2008; Niazi and Babar, 2009; Niazi et al., 2006; Pino
et al., 2008; Pino et al., 2010) are very important even
though a defined SPI implementation methodology
might be already taking place in a firm. It shows that
even though all proper analysis has been performed
and the steps have already been discovered, there is
also a need to ensure that they are being followed.
Monitoring establishes that the procedure decided is
applied and also ensures that there are no deviations
from the agreed resource allocation plan.
4.11 Communication
Senior executives, department managers, employees
CriticalSuccessFactorsandBarriersforLightweightSoftwareProcessImprovementinAgileDevelopment-ALiterature
Review
155
and SPI engineers are all involved in the complicated
and time consuming process for improving the
processes in the organization. Since the commitment
of each one of the teams stated above is very
important for the completion of the process, it is
valuable to ensure that all of these teams can
communicate. Communication (Niazi et al., 2005a;
Niazi et al., 2006; Pino et al., 2008; Pino et al., 2010)
might involve daily meetings and exchange of
opinions but can also involve various checks
performed to ensure that the process is being applied
as agreed.
4.12 Return on Investment
Although attainment of high ROI (Niazi and Babar,
2009; Pino et al., 2008; Pino et al., 2010) was
explicitly declared in 3 articles in the literature, it is
of great importance if not of the greatest. At the end
of the day, every organization proceeds in SPI in
order to improve daily activities and achieve great
operational excellence. SPI is such a consuming
process that requires not only extensive allocation of
resources but great effort from all the participants that
eventually the only thing that makes it worth it is the
attainment of high ROI that will benefit the
organization on the long term. In section 5 if the paper
the relationship of ROI with lightweight SPI is further
discussed.
4.13 Awareness of SPI
Awareness of SPI (Ferreira et al., 2007; Niazi, 2006;
Niazi and Babar, 2009; Niazi et al., 2005a; Niazi et
al., 2005b; Niazi et al., 2006) is one of the first steps
towards the success of SPI. When all the parties
involved in the process understand the high benefits
this provides upon completion and all the parties are
aware of the problems that arise if such an expensive
process is not carried out appropriately, then this is
the key to a good start. The knowledge that emerges
from being aware of the benefits and risks of SPI is
valuable because it can be used to shed some lights
on aspects of the current process that could be
candidate for improvement. In addition, being
updated on all the new practices and tools that can be
used during the new established processes can also
help as technology drastically changes on a daily
basis and techniques that were not available yesterday
might arise today. The adaption of such techniques
can facilitate an organization to adjust the costs
according to its resources and even help achieve
fastest ROI.
4.14 Additional Critical Success Factors
and Barriers
Other critical success factors and barriers that do not
appear in the literature very often are the following:
Critical Success Factors
- Flexibility of SPI model (Pino et al., 2008; von
Wangenheim et al., 2006)
- Identification of risks and improvement
opportunities (von Wangenheim et al., 2006)
- Assignment and responsibility of SPI (Niazi et
al., 2005a)
- Overcome resistance (Ferreira et al., 2007)
- High management feeling of ROI (Niazi and
Babar, 2009)
- Adaptation to volatile requirements (Niazi and
Babar, 2009)
- Effective project planning (Niazi and Babar,
2009)
- Minimize resistance to change (Pino et al.,
2008)
- Readiness of firms for SPI (Cater-Steel et al.,
2006)
Barriers
- Existence of Organizational Politics (Cater-
Steel et al., 2006; Ferreira et al., 2007; Niazi et
al., 2005a; Niazi et al., 2005b)
- Lack of support (Niazi et al., 2005a; Niazi et al.,
2005b; Viju et al., 2013)
- Negative/bad experiences (Niazi, 2006; Niazi
and Babar, 2009; Niazi et al., 2005a)
- Paperwork required (Cater-Steel, 2004; Niazi et
al., 2005a; Viju et al., 2013)
- Inappropriate and non-existent tools (Cater-
Steel et al., 2006; Ferreira et al., 2007; Viju et
al., 2013)
- High training costs (Cater-Steel, 2004; Viju et
al., 2013)
- ROI produced in medium high time (Niazi and
Babar, 2009; Villalon et al., 2002)
- Poor project management activities (Niazi and
Babar, 2009)
5 ROI IN RELATION WITH
LIGHTWEIGHT SPI IN AGILE
DEVELOPMENT
ROI is mainly concerned with the profits that are
generated after an amount of resources is invested in
an organization. Estimating and planning a large
development project is a complex process that
ICSOFT-EA2015-10thInternationalConferenceonSoftwareEngineeringandApplications
156
involves the allocation of extensive resources of a
company (Torrecilla-Salinas et al., 2015).
As described in the above sections, SPI is a very
complicated process. ROI is produced in medium-
high time in SPI in general and so for SMEs this is
critical as their financial and human resources are
limited (Villalon et al., 2002). The more resources are
allocated, the more expensive the SPI initiative for a
company. And the more resources spent during SPI,
the more crucial is the successful implementation of
SPI.
Unfortunately, the established models for SPI are
tailored mostly for large organizations as they involve
strict procedures to guide the process and this makes
it difficult for smaller companies to adapt them due to
their distinguishing characteristics (Niazi, 2006). An
SPI project may require a lot of funds, expertise and
management time and so SMEs need to focus on the
principal high-priority processes in relation with the
company’s business goals (von Wangenheim et al.,
2006).
In the literature there are some papers that report
some metrics for evaluating an SPI initiative. Some
success indicators for process improvement are:
estimation accuracy, cost, time to market and ROI
(Unterkalmsteiner et al., 2012). The aforementioned
factors all include cost and thus the allocation of
resources is assigned a significant role in order to
achieve high revenue in a short time period. If the
costs of implementing SPI are viewed as an
investment then the payoff is expressed in a
temporarily-shifted ROI model (Ferreira et al., 2007).
As presented in (Van Solingen, 2004), analyzing
SPI’s ROI is relevant for:
- convincing managers to invest money and effort
in improvement
- deciding the process to improve first
- carrying out the entire SPI process in the long-
term
- surviving.
ROI estimation in agile development is different from
that of traditional development. Since agile
development allows flexibility and adaptation as the
process is being carried out, requirements can change
and, as a result, the amount of resources that need to
be allocated is also modified. The majority of agile
methodologies propose a set of techniques to estimate
and plan a project (Torrecilla-Salinas et al., 2015).
According to the proposed techniques for cost
estimation, managers and engineers are able to
identify the most important customer needs that will
eventually provide more value to the product. In
addition, agile methods presented advanced
economic models such as real options (Amram and
Kulatilaka, 1998)that require further examination of
every aspect in the development process.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The special characteristics of SMEs require
appropriate management for SPI processes. SMEs are
great for applying agile methods. Flexibility and
communication are inherent parts of agile
methodologies and they are both in alignment with a
lightweight SPI approach. Lightweight SPI enables
SMEs to involve their employees in the execution of
the improvement activities and supports them to
adopt improvement opportunities in their daily
activities.
Lightweight SPI is not alone enough to guarantee
success in SMEs. Numerous studies have
investigated critical success factors and barriers that
directly affect the SPI initiative in a firm (Ferreira et
al., 2007; Niazi et al., 2005a; Niazi et al., 2005b). It is
obvious that the majority of the Critical Success
Factors and the Barriers of the SPI procedure can be
related to SMEs using agile methodologies.
Considering the critical success factors and the
barriers that are involved in an SPI procedure, firms
can work towards an approach that will highlight
those key process areas in the organization that need
to be improved in order to provide more value and
eventually higher ROI and profitability.
To conclude, in this paper the detailed
examination of studies found in the literature helped
extract the most critical success factors and the
barriers that are involved in the software process
improvement process in a company. Most of the
factors are directly related to cost and return on
investment and thus it is crucial that they are
addressed in order to ensure that the SPI process will
benefit the company. SMEs usually follow agile
methodologies and are more flexible in the SPI
process they follow. That does not mean that they can
start changing processes and models without
analyzing business processes and estimating the cost.
Since their resources are usually limited, they will
have to address a lot of issues in order to carry out
successfully such a complex process. By focusing on
the critical success factors and paying attention to
possible barriers that can appear during the process,
they can be more confident that eventually all
resources spent will be return in the form of high ROI
and even the attainment of a competitive advantage.
Currently, we are working on a systematic
mapping study that will allow us to further support
our findings as it will take in mind all recent related
CriticalSuccessFactorsandBarriersforLightweightSoftwareProcessImprovementinAgileDevelopment-ALiterature
Review
157
works on this field. In addition, the study will be
empirically supported as it will involve a survey
analysis in SMEs investigating the critical success
factors and barriers during SPI. We also believe that
further analysis of SPI cost is required so that every
firm can identify prior to the implementation of an
SPI process the cost and effect that will bring in the
survival of the firm.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research has been co-financed by EU (European
Social Fund–ESF) and Greek national funds through
the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong
Learning" of the National Strategic Reference
Framework - in the context of the research project
“SPRINT SMEs”, act: “ARCHIMEDES III”.
REFERENCES
Amram, M., & Kulatilaka, N., 1998. Real Options:
Managing Strategic Investment in an Uncertain World.
OUP Catalogue.
Anacleto, A., von Wangenheim, C. G., Salviano, C. F., &
Savi, R., 2004. Experiences gained from applying
ISO/IEC 15504 to small software companies in Brazil.
In 4th International SPICE Conference on Process
Assessment and Improvement. Lisbon, Portugal. (pp.
33-37).
Biolchini, J., Mian, P. G., Natali, A. C. C., & Travassos, G.
H., 2005. Systematic review in software engineering.
System Engineering and Computer Science Department
COPPE/UFRJ. Technical Report ES. 679(05), 45.
Cater-Steel, A. P., 2004. Low-rigour, rapid software
process assessments for small software development
firms. In Software Engineering Conference. 2004.
Proceedings. 2004 Australian (pp. 368-377). IEEE.
Cater-Steel, A., Toleman, M., & Rout, T., 2006. Process
improvement for small firms: An evaluation of the
RAPID assessment-based method. Information and
Software Technology. 48(5), 323-334.
Clarke, P., & O’Connor, R. V., 2012. The influence of SPI
on business success in software SMEs: An empirical
study. Journal of Systems and Software. 85(10), 2356-
2367.
Dybå, T., & Dingsøyr, T., 2008. Empirical studies of agile
software development: A systematic review.
Information and software technology. 50(9), 833-859.
Ferreira, A. I. F., Santos, G., Cerqueira, R., Montoni, M.,
Barreto, A., Barreto, A. O. S., & Rocha, A. R., 2007.
Applying ISO 9001: 2000, MPS. BR and CMMI to
achieve software process maturity: BL informatica's
pathway. In Software Engineering. ICSE 2007. 29th
International Conference on (pp. 642-651). IEEE.
Kitchenham, B., 2004. Procedures for performing systema-
tic reviews. Keele, UK. Keele University. 33(2004), 1-
26.
Mc Caffery, F., Taylor, P. S., & Coleman, G., 2007. Adept:
A unified assessment method for small software
companies. Software. IEEE, 24(1), 24-31.
Niazi, M., 2006. Software process improvement: a road to
success. In Product-Focused Software Process
Improvement. (pp. 395-401). Springer Berlin
Heidelberg.
Niazi, M., & Babar, M. A., 2009. Identifying high
perceived value practices of CMMI level 2: an
empirical study. Information and software technology.
51(8), 1231-1243.
Niazi, M., Wilson, D., & Zowghi, D., 2005. A maturity
model for the implementation of software process
improvement: an empirical study. Journal of Systems
and Software. 74(2), 155-172.
Niazi, M., Wilson, D., & Zowghi, D., 2005. A framework
for assisting the design of effective software process
improvement implementation strategies. Journal of
Systems and Software. 78(2), 204-222.
Niazi, M., Wilson, D., & Zowghi, D., 2006. Critical success
factors for software process improvement
implementation: an empirical study.
Software Process:
Improvement and Practice. 11(2), 193-211.
O’Connor, R. V., & Laporte, C. Y., 2011. Using ISO/IEC
29110 to harness process improvement in very small
entities. Systems, Software and Service Process
Improvement. (pp. 225-235). Springer Berlin
Heidelberg.
Pino, F. J., García, F., & Piattini, M., 2008. Software
process improvement in small and medium software
enterprises: a systematic review. Software Quality
Journal. 16(2), 237-261.
Pino, F. J., Pedreira, O., García, F., Luaces, M. R., &
Piattini, M., 2010. Using Scrum to guide the execution
of software process improvement in small
organizations. Journal of Systems and Software. 83(10),
1662-1677.
Sureshchandar, G.S., Leisten, R., 2005. Holistic Scorecard:
strategic performance measurement and management in
the software industry. Measuring Business Excellence.
9 (2), 12–29.
Torrecilla-Salinas, C. J., Sedeño, J., Escalona, M. J., &
Mejías, M., 2015. Estimating, planning and managing
Agile Web development projects under a value-based
perspective. Information and Software Technology, 61,
124-144.
Unterkalmsteiner, M., Gorschek, T., Islam, A. M., Cheng,
C. K., Permadi, R. B., & Feldt, R., 2012. Evaluation and
measurement of software process improvement—a
systematic literature review. Software Engineering,
IEEE Transactions on 38(2), 398-424.
Van Solingen, R., 2004. Measuring the ROI of software
process improvement. Software. IEEE. 21(3), 32-38.
Viju, G. K., Elsalam, M. M. M. A., Ibrahim, K. A., &
Jassim, M. J. M., 2013. Important Problems in
Adopting Software Process Improvement by the Small
and Medium Enterprises–A Comparative Analysis.
International Journal of Computer Science and Infor-
ICSOFT-EA2015-10thInternationalConferenceonSoftwareEngineeringandApplications
158
mation Security (IJCSIS). 1(1), 16.
Villalón, J. A. C. M., Agustín, G. C., Gilabert, T. S. F.,
Seco, A. D. A., Sánchez, L. G., & Cota, M. P., 2002.
Experiences in the application of software process
improvement in SMES. Software Quality Journal.
10(3), 261-273.
von Wangenheim, C. G., Varkoi, T., & Salviano, C. F.,
2006. Standard based software process assessments in
small companies. Software Process: Improvement and
Practice. 11(3), 329-335.
CriticalSuccessFactorsandBarriersforLightweightSoftwareProcessImprovementinAgileDevelopment-ALiterature
Review
159
