Software process improvement and assessment

Software process improvement (SPI) started in the 1990s from the process based approach to software development. The main problem of product-centred development was the ignoring of activities that had no visible results and regarding them as unimportant. Process-based approach in software development puts emphasis on organisation development and the reaching of business goals. A similar understanding of software processes creates a feeling of unity among the developers in a company and a continuity in the development, that in turn guarantee higher production capability and quality of the results.

As the first promoter of software process improvement Watts Humphrey said, the main problems in software development are not caused by insufficient skills, but by unawareness of how to use the best available methods and inability to efficiently solve detailed problems related to the process and product. The result of software process improvement will be the following of a detailed description of activities in every situation of development.

Software process improvement begins with an assessment of software processes. Different process models and standards have been created for software process assessment. We employ the two most widely used models CMMI or Capability Maturity Model Integration and ISO/IEC 15504 (SPICE – Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination). The processes related to development are assessed on the basis of a benchmark model, i.e. each specific process to be assessed in relation to the development will be compared to the requirements described in the benchmark model, at the same time taking into account also the unique character of the development company or a project. Process assessment is project-based – a recently ended project is chosen and the activities related to its development will be evaluated.

Assessment starts with a meeting for developers that introduces software process improvement and assessment and in the course of which the project as well as the processes are chosen that are considered by developers to be the most important for assessment. Often these tend to be the processes that the developers consider to have been insufficient in several projects. The detailed assessment of the chosen project and processes will be done during an interview with the developers who took part in the project. Software process assessment also ends with a development team meeting, where the capabilities of the assessed processes are described according to process models, as well as the shortcomings of the processes and a process improvement plan is put together. Despite the fact that the processes are assessed in a specific project, the development processes will be improved in each of the following development projects. It is only constant improvement that leads to the software productivity growth in a company.