Conceptualization and Measurement of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM): An Examination of Past Practices and Suggestions for Future Applications

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) has obtained world-wide status as a premier process improvement framework. This influence has not gone unnoticed by the academic community who has utilized the CMM as a key construct representing a firm’s IT project management and development capabilities. However, an examination of the current state of research reveals no consensus on how to best operationalize CMM-based process capability; therefore, this study seeks to start a dialog in the academic community about how CMM-based process capability should be conceptualized and measured. While the results do suggest that CMM-based process capability is multidimensional, and that a process structure rather than a level structure may be the most appropriate; the main intent of this research is to call attention to the need for greater rigor in the measurement and conceptualization of CMM-based process capability in the academic literature. The hope is this research represents a first step in developing a fully refined and validated CMM-based process capability measure

Proposta de aplicação do software Quality Function Deployment em ambiente computacional

A qualidade de um software precisa estar alinhada com o grau de satisfação do cliente. Para que isto ocorra, é fundamental que os requisitos do cliente sejam devidamente identificados e atendidos a fim de suprir suas reais necessidades. O QFD (quality function deployment) também conhecido como a casa da qualidade foi originalmente criado para melhorar a qualidade de produtos a partir do atendimento da voz do cliente. O QFD tem sido utilizado por pesquisadores tanto para desenvolver quanto para melhorar a qualidade de softwares. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo propor a utilização do QFD como ferramenta de melhoria do ambiente computacional (Ideiaware) desenvolvido no projeto de pesquisa “Ambiente Computacional para Desenvolver a Criatividade e Inovação nas Organizações”. Para isto, realizou-se uma revisão da literatura a fim de identificar de que forma o QFD tem sido aplicado em softwares. Por fim, uma porposta da aplicação do QFD para melhorias do ambiente computacional é apresentada ao final deste trabalho

Reporting framework-based software process improvement : A quantitative and qualitative review of 71 experience reports of CMM-based SPI

Software development projects have a notoriously high failure rate. Software process improvement (SPI) frameworks have since the early 1990-ies been a suggested remedy for this. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is such a framework, but the actual process of implementing the CMM has proven difficult for many software organizations. Another problem is that documentation of the actual benefits of CMM-based SPI (CBS) is vague. In a pursuit of rectifying the situation we present a quantitative and qualitative review of 71 published case stories of CBS. With the data collected we set out to examine several issues: first, the potential for software organizations for learning from and reproducing the almost non-exclusively positive results of CBS reported in case stories, second, to what degree the calculations of Return On Investment (ROI) present believable numbers, and last, if CBS is something that is beneficial for the software industry as a whole. We found that, first, because case stories are largely reported by companies that are unrepresentative for the industry as a whole, the average company will have problems learning from and reproducing the results reported. Secondly, we found that calculations of ROI in general in the literature are of doubtful quality, but with a few prominent and notable exceptions which indicate that viable calculations of ROI for CBS are possible. Finally, we present a reasoning that indicates that CBS probably is beneficial for the software industry as a whole. Drawing on a tradition in the SPI literature of collecting "success factors" for CBS in assisting implementation, we also present a list of all explicitly reported "success" and "non-success"-factors found in the case stories

An Empirical investigation of software project schedule behavior.

Two intensive, longitudinal case studies were conducted at IBM Hursley Park. There were several objectives to these case studies: first, to investigate the actual behaviour of the two projects in depth; second, to develop conceptual structures relating the lower-level processes of each project to the higher-level processes; third, to relate the lower-level and higher-level processes to project duration; fourth, to test a conjecture forwarded by Bradac et al i. e. that waiting is more prevalent during the end of a project than during the middle of a project. A large volume of qualitative and quantitative evidence was collected and analysed for each project. This evidence included minutes of status meetings, interviews, project schedules, and information from feedback workshops (which were conducted several months after the completion of the projects). The analysis generated three models and numerous insights into software project behaviour. The models concerned software project schedule behaviour, capability and an integration of schedule behaviour and capability. The insights concerned characteristics of a project (i. e. the actual progress of phases and milestones, the amount of workload on the project, the degree of capability of the project, tactics of management, and the sociotechnical aspects of a project) and characteristics of process areas within a project (i. e. waiting, poor progress and outstanding work). Support for the models and the insights was sought, with some success, from previous research. Despite the approach taken in this investigation (i. e. the collection of a large volume of evidence and the analyses of a wide variety of factors using a very broad perspective), this investigation has been unable to pinpoint definite causes to explain why a project will or will not complete according to its original plan. One `hint' of an explanation are the differences between the socio-technical contexts of the two projects and, related to this, the fact that tactics of management may be constrained by a project's socio-technical context. Furthermore, while the concept of a project as a distinct entity seems reasonable, the actual boundaries of a project in an organisation's `space-time' are ambiguous and very difficult to properly define. Therefore, it may be that those things that make a project difficult to distinguish from its surrounding organisation are interwoven with the socio-technical contexts of a project, and may be precisely those things that explain the progress of that project. Recommendations, based on the models, the insights and the conclusions, are provided for industry and research

A requirements-based software process maturity model

The requirements phase of software development is an on-going problem for the software engineering community. The many disparate recommendations and best practices found in the literature make it difficult for software organisations to recognise which practices apply to their individual needs. The aim of this thesis is to pull together key solutions into a framework that allows practitioners to assess where their requirements process needs strengthening and to provide a means in which improvements can be achieved. In this thesis I show how I design, develop and validate a model of requirements engineering processes. This requirements capability maturity model (R-CMM) adheres to the characteristics of the Software Engineering Institute's Software Capability Maturity Model (SW-CMM) and is designed to take practitioners from an immature process capability through to an advanced capability. I contribute to the body of knowledge in both software process improvement and requirements engineering (RE) by providing rigorous detail of how a process maturity framework is developed to support RE practices. The model is generic and should apply to many software development organisations. The R-CMM guides users towards a view of RE that is based on goals and is problem driven. The SW-CMM framework is transformed into a simplified model that relates goals and problems to individual RE practises

Developing a catalogue of errors and evaluating its impact on software development

The development of quality software is of paramount importance, yet this has been and continues to be an elusive goal for software engineers. Delivered software often fails due to errors that are injected during its development. Correcting these errors early in the development or preventing them altogether can, therefore, be considered as one way to improve software quality. In this thesis, the development of a Catalogue of Errors is described. Field studies with senior software engineering students are used to confirm that developers using the Catalogue of Errors commit fewer errors in their development artifacts. The impact of the Catalogue of Errors on productivity is also examined