Persuading developers to buy into software process improvement: a local opinion and empirical evidence

This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.---- Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.In order to investigate practitioners’ opinions of software process and software process improvement, we have collected a large volume of qualitative evidence from 13 companies. At the same time, other researchers have reported investigations of practitioners, and we are interested in how their reports may relate to our evidence. Thus, other research publications can also be treated as a form of qualitative data. In this paper, we review advice on a method, content analysis, that is used to analyse qualitative data. We use content analysis to describe and analyse discussions on software process and software process improvement. We report preliminary findings from an analysis of both the focus group evidence and four publications

Organizational Change Perspectives on Software Process Improvement

Many software organizations have engaged in Software Process Improvement (SPI) and experienced the challenges related to managing such complex organizational change efforts. As a result, there is an increasing body of research investigating change management in SPI. To provide an overview of what we know and don’t know about SPI as organizational change, this paper addresses the following question: What are the dominant perspectives on SPI as organizational change in the literature and how is this knowledge presented and published? All journals on the AIS ranking list were screened to identify relevant articles and Gareth Morgan’s organizational metaphors (1996) were used to analyze this literature considering the following dimensions of each article: organizational perspective (metaphor), knowledge orientation (normative versus descriptive), theoretical emphasis (high versus low), main audience (practitioner versus academic), geographical origin (Scandinavia, the Americas, Europe, or the Asia-Pacific), and publication level (high versus low ranked journal). The review demonstrates that the literature on SPI as organizational change is firmly grounded in both theory and practice, and Scandinavia and the Americas are the main contributors to this research. The distribution of articles across Morgan’s metaphors is uneven and reveals knowledge gaps that present new avenues for research. The current literature offers important insights into organizational change in SPI from machine, organism, and brain perspectives. Practitioners may use these articles as a guide to SPI insights relevant to their improvement initiatives. In contrast, the impact of culture, dominance, psychic prison, flux and transformation, and politics in SPI have only received scant attention. We argue that these perspectives offer important insights into the challenges involved in managing change in SPI. Researchers are therefore advised to engage in new SPI research based on one or more of these perspectives. Overall, the paper provides a roadmap to help identify insights and specific articles related to SPI as organizational change.Software Process Improvement; Organizational Change; Organizational Metaphors; Images of Organization; Literature Review

Motivators and de-motivators in software process improvement : an empirical study

Software quality problems are a concern for the software engineering community. Software Process Improvement (SPI) is the most recent and most popular approach adopted to address this problem. SPI focuses on the processes that develop software in order to deliver improvements to the product. Despite this popularity of SPI there is insufficient evidence of its successful impact on software quality. Quality problems in software continue. This has led to some concern in the industry about the effectiveness of SPI in tackling the problem of software quality. There is evidence to suggest that SPI does improve software quality. However, there is also evidence to suggest that SPI is not sufficiently supported by software practitioners. This lack of support may be one of the reasons why SPI appears to be failing at tackling the problem of software quality. In this research it is argued that this lack of support for SPI is caused by companies' inability to manage software practitioners' motivation for SPI properly. Companies may not be managing software practitioners' motivation for SPI properly because they may not understand them. There is therefore a need to better understand what software practitioners'motivations for supporting SPI are. A review of the literature suggests a set of guidelines that can improve software practitioners' support for SPI. The literature also suggests four themes that underpin software practitioners' motivation for SPI. The four themes are SPI managers' perception of the motivators and demotivators for SPI, software practitioners' motivators, software practitioners' de-motivators and the differences in software practitioners' motivators and de-motivators. The basis of this research is that exploring the four themes that underpin software practitioners' motivation for SPI improves understanding of the factors that influence support for SPI. This knowledge of the factors that influence support for SPI can then be used to validate and provide an empirical basis for the literature-suggested guidelines. Thereby improving confidence in the "-IL iidelines. The four themes underpinning software practitioners' motivation for SPI are examined through empirical studies. Findings from these studies suggest that SPI managers perceive senior managers as not supportive of SPI. They also perceive developers as not enthusiastic about SPI. The findings also suggest that the key motivators of software practitioners for SPI are visible support and commitment from senior management and empowerment of practitioners, whereas the key de-motivators are related to constraints on resources and a failure to secure practitioners' buy-in for SPI. There are also differences in what motivates and de-motivates different practitioner groups for SPI and these differences are related to the jobs that practitioners do. Finally, software practitioners have different perceptions of their role in SPI, which are related to their software development roles. This suggests that the objectives of SPI should be tailored to the software development objectives of practitioners in order to improve their support for SPI. Overall, findinas from these studies confirm most of the guidelines suggested by the t:, literature. The confirmed guidelines are offered as insight to improving support for SPI, which can in turn help to improve the impact of SPI on software quality

A hierarchy of SPI activities for software SMEs: results from ISO/IEC 12207-based SPI assessments

In an assessment of software process improvement (SPI) in 15 software small- and –medium-sized enterprises (software SMEs), we applied the broad spectrum of software specific and system context processes in ISO/IEC 12207 to the task of examining SPI in practice. Using the data collected in the study, we developed a four-tiered pyramidal hierarchy of SPI for software SMEs, with processes in the higher tiers undergoing SPI in more companies than processes on lower level tiers. The development of the hierarchy of SPI activities for software SMEs can facilitate future evolutions of process maturity reference frameworks, such as ISO/IEC 15504, in better supporting software development in software SMEs. Furthermore, the findings extend our body of knowledge concerning the practice of SPI in software SMEs, a large and vital sector of the software development community that has largely avoided the implementation of established process maturity and software quality management standards

The precursor to an industrial software metrics program

A common reason for why software metric programs dasiafailpsila is through lack of participant support and commitment. In this paper, we describe the results of a study which examined the knowledge that subjects had and the opinions they had formed of previous metrics initiatives in the same organization. The research was undertaken by one of the authors as a precursor to a planned metrics initiative in the same large, UK-based company. The study attempted to understand the likely issues that would have to be addressed by that planned metrics program. A key theme to emerge from the analysis was the importance of all participants being aware of the program objectives, and the purpose and use of the data being collected. As part of the analysis, the study also draws on the role that "timely" involvement plays within a metrics program and how that can influence its associated practicalities

Persuading developers to buy into software process improvement: an exploratory analysis

In order to investigate practitioners' opinions of software process and software process improvement, we have collected information from 13 companies, in a variety of ways i.e. the use of Repertory Grid Technique, survey and focus group discussions. Both the Repertory Grid Technique and the focus group discussions (43 discussions occurred, in total) produced a large volume of qualitative data. At the same time, other researchers have reported--investigations of practitioners, and we are interested in how their reports may relate to our own. Thus, other research publications can also be treated as a form of qualitative data. In this paper, we review advice on a method, content analysis, that is used to analyse qualitative data. Content analysis is a method for identifying and classifying words and phrases used in--ordinary language. We use content analysis to describe and analyse discussions on software--process and software process improvement. We report preliminary findings from an analysis--of both the focus group evidence and some publications. Our main finding is that there is an--apparent contradiction between developers saying that they want evidence for software process improvement, and what developers will accept as evidence. This presents a serious problem for research: even if researchers could demonstrate a strong, reliable relationship between software process improvement and improved organisational performance, there would still be the problem of convincing practitioners that the evidence applies to their particular situation

The influence of managerial experience and style on software development process

This paper presents the results of a study of how software process and software process improvement is applied in actual practice in the software industry using the indigenous Irish software product industry as a test-bed. This study focuses on the role and influence of both the Company Founder and the Software Development Manager on the initial formation of software development process practices. The results of this study contain useful lessons for software entrepreneurs who need to make decisions about process and process change within their organisations as they grow

Critical sucess factors in software process improvement

The aim of the thesis project was to identify Software Process Improvement (SPI) success factors through a deeply literature review. Objectives: • Identify the models of SPI • To identify SPI success factors through literature review. • To identify the most important SPI success factors based on the frequency of occurrence in published research. • To identify the variety of definitions or explanations of the most important SPI success factors in published research

Critical sucess factors in software process improvement

The aim of the thesis project was to identify Software Process Improvement (SPI) success factors through a deeply literature review. Objectives: • Identify the models of SPI • To identify SPI success factors through literature review. • To identify the most important SPI success factors based on the frequency of occurrence in published research. • To identify the variety of definitions or explanations of the most important SPI success factors in published research