Perspectives on improving software maintenance

Vliet, J.C. van [Promotor

Assessing the business value of software process improvement using CMMI® in South Africa

The focus of software process improvement is on enhancing product quality and productivity to increase business competitiveness and profitability. The Capability Maturity Model Integration or CMMI® remains the dominant standard for software process improvement globally. The lack of software quality standards such as CMMI® is seen as one of the causes of the current uncompetitive state of the South African software industry and so in 2007, a pilot programme called “Bringing CMMI® to South Africa” was launched. This research focused on the experiences of the South African organisations participating in the South African CMMI® pilot study through a combination of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The aim was to assist future managerial decision making to assess the business value CMMI® can bring to South African software organisations. The research found that the adoption of CMMI® improved both the internal quality and efficiencies as well as opportunities for growth. The research also established that CMMI® cannot be regarded as a silver bullet solution and that while process improvements can cause short-term upheaval, there are longer-term tangible and intangible benefits. It is, however, key that the organisational aspects of the change be properly managed. A lack of awareness of quality standards or actual demand for CMMI® along with the relatively high implementation and support costs are further preventing its adoption in South Africa. The recommendations resulting from the research, including a model, are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided. CopyrightDissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010.Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)unrestricte

Change management capability maturity model for contractors in the Kuwaiti construction industry

This research aims to improve the implementation of project change management by contractors to secure better outcomes in construction projects. An empirically designed and tested change management capability maturity model was developed to be used as an infrastructure for boosting the change management capabilities for contractors in Kuwait. This research commenced with an extensive literature review to understand project changes and the implementation of project change management by contractors. This literature review was followed by semi-structured interviews with contractors to allow for a deeper understanding of the success criteria of change management. To validate this criteria, a quantitative questionnaire survey took place and indicated 52 change management success criteria from the perspective of contractors in Kuwait. These success criterions (represented by practices and tools) were grouped using the principal component analysis (PCA) technique and assigned weights within their designated groups using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Delphi technique to indicate their relevant significance within a successful change management process. As a result, the Change Management Capability Maturity Model (CMCMM) was constructed to evaluate the contractor’s capability to conduct a prosperous change management process according to the previously concluded success criteria. The model was reviewed by domain experts and by conducting several case studies to substantiate its fitness for purpose and practicality. The case studies also showed that CMCMM was effective in indicating the change management process gaps and successfully outlined the pathway of process improvement and Institutionalisation. The research contributes to the body of knowledge related to construction management and capability maturity models in addition to having several practical implications. This contribution is represented by the development of an empirically based capability maturity model that uses a validated and weighted criteria within each stage of project change management process to evaluate the contractor’s ability to conduct project change management process. The research also provides a step-by-step user guide to enable the proper usage of CMCMM and enhance the model’s degree of usability by new users in the organisation

An evolutionary software project management maturity model for developing countries

The evidence of project management is known for centuries as can be observed from the construction of the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. In the modern age, project-based approaches are increasingly being adopted in almost all areas of product development. Project management has emerged as a specialised discipline since the importance of completing projects within time, cost and quality constraints is crucial for organisations to continue to survive in the competitive world. Project Management, in general, has been developed under the assumption of economic, political, cultural and social rationality. Little is known about indigenous project management in developing countries. The concepts and principles put forward in Western/European countries have been applied to developing countries without much prior studies. Developing nations are struggling constantly to maintain their projects within the constraints of time, cost and quality. Software development companies have found it difficult to adopt methodologies/models/standards that have shown evidence of success in the developed world. This thesis comprises the study of software project management in developing countries. Mauritius, as an instance of developing countries, with problems related to social, economic, cultural and political conditions are discussed. However, these conditions differ from country to country. It is believed that adjustments are required in a software project management framework to fit the requirements of a country. An evolutionary software project management maturity model is proposed for managing software development in developing countries. This model adopts an evolutionary approach, whereby areas of interest (called key process areas) progressively attain maturity. Three levels of maturity are defined along with key process areas that are applicable over all the maturity levels (called the i continuous process improvement group of KPAs). The model is also applied to two software projects in Mauritius to test its effectiveness. Given the studies carried out and its successful application to the Mauritian context, this model for software project management is expected to contribute towards a higher software project success rate. Notwithstanding the application in the Mauritian context, it is plausible that other developing countries may also customise this model as similar problems occur across these countries.ComputingD.Phil. (Computer Science

Avaliação dos Processos de Software utilizando CMMI

Atualmente, as empresas distinguem-se das demais pelos produtos e serviços fornecidos com qualidade e dentro dos prazos estabelecidos. Uma empresa de desenvolvimento de software não foge a essa regra e para isso os processos envolvidos nas diversas fases de levantamento, desenvolvimento, implementação e suporte devem estar documentados, ser do conhecimento geral da Organização e colocados em prática diariamente nas diversas atividades dos colaboradores. Para isso deve contribuir uma melhoria contínua desses mesmos processos. O CMMI-DEV, Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development, possibilita a introdução de boas práticas nas diversas áreas do processo de desenvolvimento de software, mas também a avaliação dessas áreas e respetiva identificação de aspetos a necessitarem de ser melhorados ou até disseminados por toda a organização. Este trabalho envolveu efetuar uma análise teórica do CMMI-DEV e sua posterior utilização prática num ambiente de trabalho empresarial para avaliação dos processos dessa empresa. Para a concretização deste segundo aspeto, foi elaborado um questionário para avaliar os processos de uma organização, segundo o modelo CMMI-DEV 1.3, avaliada a facilidade de utilização do questionário de avaliação dos processos por parte dos inquiridos. Foi realizada ainda uma análise aos resultados obtidos nos referidos questionários.Currently, the companies are distinguished from each other by products and services provided with quality and within the deadlines. A software development company is no exception to this rule and to achieve that the processes involved in the various stages of development, implementation and support must be documented, be of general knowledge of the organization and put into daily practice in the various activities of the employees. The continuous improvement of those processes should contribute to that goal. The CMMI-DEV, Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development, enables the introduction of best practices in various areas of the software development process, but also the appraisal of these areas and respective identification of areas to be improved or even disseminated across all the organization. This work involved performing a theoretical analysis of the CMMI-DEV, as well as its practical implementation in a corporate work environment to assess its processes. To achieve this second point, it was developed an appraisal questionnaire to assess the processes of an organization, according to the CMMI-DEV 1.3, as well as a questionnaire to assess the easiness of use of the appraisal questionnaire by the respondents. An analysis of the obtained results from these questionnaires was performed

Rethinking the risk matrix

So far risk has been mostly defined as the expected value of a loss, mathematically PL (being P the probability of an adverse event and L the loss incurred as a consequence of the adverse event). The so called risk matrix follows from such definition. This definition of risk is justified in a long term “managerial” perspective, in which it is conceivable to distribute the effects of an adverse event on a large number of subjects or a large number of recurrences. In other words, this definition is mostly justified on frequentist terms. Moreover, according to this definition, in two extreme situations (high-probability/low-consequence and low-probability/high-consequence), the estimated risk is low. This logic is against the principles of sustainability and continuous improvement, which should impose instead both a continuous search for lower probabilities of adverse events (higher and higher reliability) and a continuous search for lower impact of adverse events (in accordance with the fail-safe principle). In this work a different definition of risk is proposed, which stems from the idea of safeguard: (1Risk)=(1P)(1L). According to this definition, the risk levels can be considered low only when both the probability of the adverse event and the loss are small. Such perspective, in which the calculation of safeguard is privileged to the calculation of risk, would possibly avoid exposing the Society to catastrophic consequences, sometimes due to wrong or oversimplified use of probabilistic models. Therefore, it can be seen as the citizen’s perspective to the definition of risk

The Internal Consistencies of the 1987 SEI Maturity Questionnaire and the SPICE Capability Dimension

This paper presents the results of an empirical evaluation of the reliability of two commonly used assessment instruments: the 1987 SEI maturity questionnaire and the SPICE v1 capability dimension. The type of reliability that was evaluated is internal consistency. A study of the internal consistency of the 1987 questionnaire was only briefly mentioned in a 1991 article, and the internal consistency of the SPICE v1 capability dimension has not been evaluated thus far. We used two different data sets to evaluate the internal consistency of each instrument. Our results indicate that both assessment instruments are very reliable and also have similar reliability levels. The results are encouraging for users of assessment instruments, and provide a baseline with which to compare subsequent versions of these instruments. 1. Introduction One of the recently developed class of decision making tools for software engineering management is the software process assessment. The scores from such a..

The internal consistencies of the 1987 SEI maturity questionnaire and the SPICE capability dimension

This paper presents the results of an empirical evaluation of the reliability of two commonly used assessment instruments: the 1987 SEI maturity questionnaire and the SPICE v1 capability dimension. The type of reliability that was evaluated is internal consistency. A study of the internal consistency of the 1987 questionnaire was only briefly mentioned in a 1991 article, and the internal consistency of the SPICE v1 capability dimension has not been evaluated thus far. We used two different data sets to evaluate the internal consistency of each instrument. Our results indicate that both assessment instruments are very reliable and also have similar reliability levels. The results are encouraging for users of assessment instruments, and provide a baseline with which to compare subsequent versions of these instruments

A data governance maturity evaluation model to enhance data management in Eastern Cape government departments

The governance of data assets has become a topical issue in the public sector. Government departments are faced with increasingly complex data and information arising from multiple projects, different departments, divisions and several stakeholders seeking data for divergent end uses. However, an exploratory study of the literature regarding data governance in government departments of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa suggest that there are no clear data governance processes in place within the departments. The research question “How can a data governance maturity evaluation model enhance data governance processes in the Eastern Cape government departments” was derived as a result of a perceived need for government departments of the province to manage their critical data assets in a manner which promotes accurate, verifiable and relevant fiscal and strategic planning. Following the review of current literature in the data governance domain, a conceptual data governance evaluation maturity model was developed and produced. The conceptual model was influenced by the IBM data governance maturity model (2007) and it was aimed at addressing the gaps in the reference model to suit the context of the Eastern Cape government departments and the governance of their data assets. A qualitative phase of empirical data collection was conducted to test the components of the conceptual model. A quantitative instrument, derived from the findings of the qualitative study, as well as the components of the refined model was administered to 50 participants in the same departments where qualitative data was collected, with additional participants being drawn from three other departments. Pragmatism was the guiding philosophy for the research. The Contingency and Institutional theories form the theoretical grounding for the study. Design Science guidelines by Hevner et al (2004), Peffers et al’s (2008) Six Steps in Design Science and Drechsler & Hevner’s (2016) Fourth Cycle of Design Science were employed to construct, improve, validate and evaluate the final artefact. Findings confirmed the literature that data governance is lacking in government departments. It is asserted that the implementation of this model will improve the way data assets are recorded, used, archived and disposed in government departments of the Eastern Cape. The outcome of this research was the development and production of a data governance maturity evaluation model as well as a process document which gives a roadmap of how to move from one maturity level to another