Process Maturity and Software Quality: A Field Study

Quality has emerged as a key issue in the development and deployment of software products (Haag et al. 1996; Prahalad and Krishnan 1999; Yourdon 1992). As software products play an increasingly critical role in supporting strategic business initiatives, it is important that these products function correctly and according to users’ specifications. The costs of poor software quality (in terms of reduced productivity, downtime, customer dissatisfaction, and injury) can be enormous. For example, the Help Desk Institute, an industry group based in Denver, estimates that in 1999, Americans spent 65 million minutes on “hold” waiting for help from software vendors in debugging software problems (Minasi 2000)

Time Pressure in Real-Time Dynamic Decision Making

This research investigates the impact of time pressure and individual differences on performance and learning in a Real-Time Dynamic Decision Making (RTDDM) task. Our results indicate that individuals with high spatial WM capacity improved their performance in a high time pressure environment, while individuals with low spatial WM capacity did not. Our results also indicate that individuals with high linguistic WM capacity performed worse than individuals with low linguistic WM capacity. These results suggest that in high time pressure tasks, spatial thinking helps decision makers to build more efficient and effective cognitive models of the environment. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for training and for the design of computer support in RTDDM tasks

The Impact of Schedule Pressure on Software Development: A Behavioral Perspective

Timely software development has been a major issue in both information systems research and software industry. While researchers and practitioners seek better techniques to estimate and manage software schedules, it is important to understand the impact of management pressure on software development projects. This paper investigates the impact of schedule pressure on the performance in software projects. Data analysis indicates that a U-shaped function exists between time pressure and cycle time. A similar relationship is found between time pressure and development effort. Meanwhile, time pressure does not significantly affect software quality. The findings of this study will help software project managers develop effective deadline and budget setting policies

Benefits of CMM-Based Process Improvements for Support Activities: An Empirical Study

Software process improvement historically focused on cost savings accrued in software engineering. However, the effect of process improvement on support activities is not well understood. This study examines the relationship between process maturity measured by the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model and savings in non-engineering support activities such as configuration management, data processing operations, senior management, and quality assurance

The Life Cycle Effects of Software Process Improvement: A Longitudinal Study

Rapid innovation, intense competition, and the drive to survive have compelled information technology (IT) firms to seek ways to develop high quality software quickly and productively. The critical issues faced by these firms are the inter-relationships, sometimes viewed as trade-offs, between quality, cycle time, and effort in the software development life cycle. Some believe that higher quality can only be achieved with increased development time and effort. Others argue that higher quality results in less rework, with shorter development cycles and reduced effort. In this study, we investigate the inter-relationships between software process improvement, quality, cycle time, and effort. We perform a comprehensive analysis of the effect of software process improvement and software quality on all activities in the software development life cycle. We find that software process improvement leads to higher quality and that process improvement and quality are associated with reduced cycle time, development effort, and supporting activity effort (e.g., configuration management, quality assurance). We are in the process of examining the effect of process improvement and quality on post-deployment maintenance activities

1966 Farm Business Analysis Report

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