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SUMMARYToday, many micro-sized and small-sized software enterprises (MSEs) have initiated a software process improvement (SPI) initiative to be more competitive in the software market. SPI initiatives in MSEs have not been entirely successful; in general, MSEs consider them a long, expensive, and difficult activity. One of the reasons of these results is that a large number of human, social, technical, and organizational factors influence these initiatives. MSEs require to control, mitigate, or solve these factors to succeed in their initiatives. However, because there is a lack of information regarding the characteristics and behavior of these factors in the context of the MSEs, SPI managers have limited information to design strategies to control these factors. This work proposes a framework of factors that influence SPI initiatives in MSEs and a methodology to evaluate and control these factors. This framework includes 132 factors grouped in six categories. Additionally, we specify their properties, their value scales, and the property values for each factor. SPI managers could use this framework to evaluate and control potential threats to SPI initiatives and to propose better SPI strategies.

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Traditional software teams that implement agile methodologies frequently experience difficulty working efficiently as agile teams. While agile methodologies support and promote social activities and behaviors, the understanding of the social phenomena and challenges that arise during the transformation of traditional teams into agile teams is limited. We conducted an extensive 10‐month case study in a software enterprise to analyze the changes in the communication and social interactions of employees during the transformation process, and to delineate the social challenges that arise during this process. Using social interaction registers, we collected data on the communication and social interactions of employees, first when they worked as a traditional team and then as an agile team. Then, we processed the data using social network analysis methods to identify the differences between these 2 types of teams and to create graphs of communication and social interaction networks. We identified that the transformation process influences formal, informal, oral, and written communication and increases conjunctive and disjunctive social interactions. Further, from the results of interviews conducted with all the enterprise members, we identified 5 social challenges to transforming a traditional team into an agile one. The results of this research suggest that the transformation process requires broad changes in the relationships and interactions among employees.