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In today's global competitive environment, organizations are always trying to improve their practices aiming to achieve higher levels of productivity, quality and competitiveness. Software process improvement (SPIdex) is one of the most used approaches to achieve these goals. However, this kind of initiative is not easy, and usually great investments are necessary. Therefore, determining the return on these investments is very important to justify them and keep high‐level management and project teams motivated for continuous improvement. In this article, we present quantitative results of return on investment (ROI) at BL Informática, a Brazilian small‐sized organization which is improving its processes since 2003 and is experiencing great success. We present the benefits regarding schedule, costs, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction and also financial benefits. Results show that investments in SPIdex really can pay off, as happened at BL Informática. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Abstract. Deployment of software processes based on reference models is a knowledge-intensive task, i.e., a great amount of technical knowledge must be applied in order to guarantee conformance and adherence of processes deployed to the reference models adopted. Moreover, software process deployers have to deal with organizational and individual cultural problems on a regular basis, for instance, resistances to organizational changes. Therefore, the success of software process deployment within an organization or organizational unit depends on both technical and social aspects of the software process deployment strategy definition and execution. This paper presents the Taba Workstation, an enterprise-oriented Process-centered Software Engineering Environment (PSEE) constituted of an integrated set of tools to support software process deployment based on the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and the Reference Model for Brazilian Software Process Improvement (MR-MPS.BR). Software process appraisals demonstrated that the Taba Workstation constitutes one of the most important organizational assets to facilitate the success of software process deployment initiatives and to overcome the inherent difficulties.

Software Process Consulting Organizations (SPCOs) support other organizations to define, deploy, and improve their software processes. Usually they are requested to define similar processes to different organizations, leading to some process reuse opportunities. Software Process Lines (SPLs) are reusable process architectures that model similarities and variabilities among processes, and could be of great value for SPCOs to derive multiple processes based on the same original SPL. This paper presents a reuse-based software process definition approach that aims at making it easier for consulting organizations to define reusable processes. We describe the main concepts related to a SPL, and how to define and use them in this context. We also present a supporting tool to define SPLs and derive defined processes. Finally, we present a usage experience of the approach in the context of a SPCO in Brazil.