Software engineering standards and guides for very small entities: implementation in two start-ups

Very small entities, enterprises, organizations, projects or departments with up to 25 people, are very important to the worldwide economy. However it has ben established that such entities often do not utilize existing standards and frameworks. To address the needs of Very Small Entities (VSEs), a set of international standards and guides known as ISO/IEC 29110 has been developed. In this paper we present the results of early trials of this standard in two IT start-ups VSEs. A Peruvian VSE was recently audited and issued an ISO/IEC 29110 certificate of conformity

An innovative approach in developing standard professionals by involving software engineering students in implementing and improving international standards

Today, the ability of organizations to compete, adapt, and survive depends increasingly on software. Some cellular phones, for example, contain over twenty million lines of code, and top of the line automobiles may have up to 100 million lines of code.1 Manufacturers depend increasingly on the components produced by their suppliers. A manufacturing chain of large mass-market products often has a pyramidal structure, as illustrated in Figure 1, adapted from Shintani. For example, a large mass product manufacturer integrated into one of its products a part with an unknown software error that was produced by one of its 6,000 lower-level producers. This defective part resulted in a loss of over $200 million by the mass product manufacturer. A vast majority of these low level suppliers are very small entities

Software process improvement in graduate software engineering programs

At the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), software process improvement (SPI) is taught in lecture format and with a 10-week implementation project in an organization by teams of students of the graduate software engineering curriculum. The SPI course is taught using a ‘problem- goal-solution’ approach where students learn that any process improvement initiative must be based on issues preventing an organization in achieving its organizational goals whether the organization is a company or a not-for- profit organization. An important aspect of this course is the management of technological change where students learn and put in practice in their project the ‘soft’ issues which are part of most SPI organizational initiatives

Developments in Aerospace Software Engineering practices for VSEs: An overview of the process requirements and practicesof integrated Maturity models and Standards

As part of the evolution of the Space market in the last years – globally referred to as Space 2.0 - small companies are playing an increasingly relevant role in different aerospace projects. Business incubators established by European Space Agency (ESA) and similar entities are evidence of the need of moving initiatives to small companies characterized by greater flexibility to develop specific activities. Software is a key component in most aerospace projects, and the success of the initiatives and projects usually depends on the capability of developing reliable software following well-defined standards. But small entities face some difficulties when adopting software development standards that have been conceived thinking on larger organizations and big programs. The need of defining software development standards tailored to small companies and groups is a permanent subject of discussion not only in the aerospace field, and has led in recent years to the publication of the ISO/IEC 29110 series of systems and software engineering standards and guides, aimed to solve the issues that Very Small Entities (VSEs) () – settings having up to twenty-five people -, found with other standards like CMMI or SPICE. This paper discusses the tailoring defined by different aerospace organizations for VSEs in the aerospace industry, and presents a conceptual arrangement of the standard based on meta-modeling languages that allow the extension and full customization with the incorporation of specific software engineering requirements and practices from ECSS (European Cooperation for Space Standardization)

Software development process standards for very small companies

In recent times quality orientated process approaches and standards have matured and gained acceptance in many software development organizations. Standards emphasize communication and shared understanding more than anything. There are many potential benefits of using standards. In particular for small and very small companies, the benefits that certification can provide include: increased competitiveness, greater customer confidence and satisfaction, greater software product quality, increased sponsorship for process improvement, decreased development risk, facilitation of marketing, and higher potential to export. While good internal software management might help meet the first five claims; the last two can only be the benefits of using a widely recognized standard

The Evolution of the ISO/IEC 29110 Set of Standards and Guides

While the quality of products is a competitive advantage for very small software development organizations, the usage of Software and Systems Engineering standards amongst such very small organizations is extremely low. A key factor in the literature explaining this lack of quality standards adoption is the perception by small and very small organizations that such standards have been developed for large multi-national companies and not with small and very small organizations in mind. The ISO/IEC 29110 standard is unique amongst software and systems engineering standards, in that the working group (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 WG 24) mandated to develop a new standard approached industry to conduct a needs assessment and gather actual requirements for a new standard as part of the standards development process. This paper presents a historical perspective behind the development of the ISO/IEC 29110 systems and software engineering standard and its constituent components, including the rationale behind its development and the innovative design of implementation guides to assist very small companies in adopting the standards. Further this paper will present an overview of the various parts of the ISO/IEC 29110 family and briefly present the plans for the future evolution of this series of standards

Proceedings of the 1st international workshop on software process education, training and professionalism (SPETP 2015)

These Proceedings contain the papers accepted for publication and presentation at the first 1st International Workshop on Software Process Education, Training and Professionalism (SPETP 2015) held in conjunction with the 15th International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE 2015), Gothenburg, Sweden, during June 15-17, 2015. During the 14th International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE 2014) held in Vilnius, Lithuania, at a post conference dinner, a group of key individuals from education and industry started to discuss the challenges faced for software process education, training and professionalism, especially with the background of the new modes of learning and teaching in higher education. Further discussions held post conference with key players in the relevant professional and personal certification fields led to a consensus that it is time for the industry to rise to the new challenges and set out in a manifesto a common vision for educators and trainers together with a set of recommendations to address the challenges faced. It was therefore agreed co-located the 1st International Workshop on Software Process Education, Training and Professionalism with the 15th International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination. This workshop focused on the new challenges for and best practices in software process education, training and professionalism. The foundation for learning of software process should be part of a university or college education however software process is often treated as ‘add one’ module to the core curriculum. In a professional context, whilst there have been a number of initiatives focused on the certification related to the software process professional these have had little success for numerous reasons. Cooperation in education between industry, academia and professional bodies is paramount, together with the recognition of how the education world is changing and how education is resourced, delivered (with online and open learning) and taken up. Over the next 10 years on-line learning is projected to grow fifteen fold, accounting for 30% of all education provision, according to the recent report to the European Commission on New modes of learning and teaching in higher education. It is a great pleasure to see the varied contributions to this 1st International Workshop on Software Process Education, Training and Professionalism and we hope that our joint dedication, passion and innovation will lead to success for the profession through the publication of the manifesto as a key outcome from the workshop. On behalf of the SPETP 2015 conference Organizing Committee, we would like to thank all participants. Firstly all the authors, whose quality work is the essence of the conference, and the members of the Program Committee, who helped us with their expertise and diligence in reviewing all of the submissions. As we all know, organizing a conference requires the effort of many individuals. We wish to thank also all the members of our Organizing Committee, whose work and commitment were invaluable

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc