Harmonizing CMMI-DEV 1.2 and XP Method to Improve The Software Development Processes in Small Software Development Firms

Most software development organizations are small firms, and they have realized the need to manage and improve their software development and management activities. Traditional Software Process Improvement (SPI) models and standards are not realistic for these firms because of high cost, limited resources and strict project deadlines. Therefore, these firms need a lightweight software development method and an appropriate SPI model to manage and improve their software development and management processes. This study aims to construct a suitable software development process improvement framework for Small Software Development Firms (SSDFs) based on eXtreme Programming (XP) method and Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development Version 1.2 (CMMI-Dev1.2) model. Four stages are involved in developing the framework: (1) aligning XP practices to the specific goals of CMMI-Dev1.2 Key Process Areas (KPAs); (2) developing the proposed software development process improvement framework based on extending XP method by adapting the Extension-Based Approach (EBA), CMMI-Dev1.2, and generic elements of the SPI framework; (3) verifying the compatibility of the proposed framework to the KPAs of CMMI-Dev1.2 by using focus group method coupled with Delphi technique; and (4) validating the modified framework by using CMMI-Dev1.2 questionnaire as a main item to validate the suitability of the modified framework for SSDFs, and conducting two case studies to validate the applicability and effectiveness of this framework for these firms. The result of aligning XP practices to the KPAs of CMMI-Dev1.2 shows that twelve KPAs are largely supported by XP practices, eight KPAs are partially supported by XP practices, and two KPAs are not-supported by XP practices. The main contributions of this study are: software development process improvement framework for SSDFs, elicit better understanding of how to construct the framework, and quality improvement of the software development processes. There are possible avenues for extending this research to fulfil the missing specific practices of several KPAs, examining other agile practices and using CMMI-Dev1.3 to improve the framework, and conducting more case studie

Software Development Process Improvement Framework (SDPIF) for Small Software Development Firms (SSDFs)

Most of the software development organizations all over the world are Small Software Development Firms (SSDFs).These firms have realized that it is necessary to organize and improve their software development and management activities. Traditional software process improvement (SPI) models and standards are generally not possible to be implemented directly by SSDFs, as these firms are not capable of investing the cost of implementing these programs due to limited resources and strict deadlines to complete the projects.In addition, the existing regional SPI models which were developed for SSDFs are not suitable to be implemented by SSDFs all over the world.Furthermore, SSDFs also have ignored the software development practices to explain “how to do the improvement”; as they only focus on “what to do for improvement”.This paper presents a new software development process improvement framework (SDPIF) for SSDFs based on eXtreme programming (XP) as the software development method and Capability Maturity Model Integration version 1.2 for Development (CMMI-Dev1.2) as the SPI model

Software process improvement in small software development firms

Most of small software development firms use ad-hoc manner in developing their software products where it is difficult for them to achieve the requirements of the traditional software process improvement (SPI) models and standards, as these traditional models and standards were developed for large firms. As such, these firms are suffering from the lack of suitable software development methods that will enable them to follow the SPI models. This can be addressed by having a suitable software development process improvement framework to enable them in delivering high quality software products that fulfil the customer's expectation faster and cheaper. This paper presents the software development process improvement framework which was developed based on the Capability Maturity Model Integration Version 1.2 for Development (CMMI-DEV1.2) as a software improvement model and eXtreme Programming (XP) as a software development method.It discusses the development processes of this framework by highlighting the steps and stages involved