Beyond factors that motivate the adoption of the ISO/IEC 29110 in Mexico: An exploratory study of the implementation pace of this standard and the benefits observed

Abstract

Around the world, the importance of Very Small Entities (VSEs), organisations having up to 25 people, has been constantly increasing. Worldwide, VSEs represent over 92% of the software industry. Therefore, two main needs can be highlighted: a) providing VSEs with resources to produce high-quality software, and b) training software engineering undergraduates in proven practices to produce high-quality software within the given schedule and budget. A logical way to meet these needs is transfering proven practices provided by software engineering standards. However, transferring the knowledge of software engineering standards is not always an easy task. The ISO/IEC 29110 is a series of international standards and guides that provide codified knowledge related to the software development process. The series was specifically developed to be used by VSEs. This study presents an exploratory analysis, conducted in 12 Mexican VSEs, which implemented the software Basic profile of the ISO/IEC 29110, to identify the pace at which they can adopt this standard to their environment. Besides, the benefits and difficulties encountered are provided. The results can be relevant for other VSEs interested in implementing this standard. Even if the exploratory analysis was performed in the VSEs of Mexico, this analysis can be of interest in other countries. The results obtained can help other VSEs that are interested in the adoption of this international standard to reduce the barriers to a successful implementation. K E Y W O R D Ssoftware development management, software engineering, software management, software process improvement, software quality | INTRODUCTIONThe importance to generate software products and services capable of solving problems of different domains such as industrial, agricultural, aeronautics, information, and communication technologies, among others, by providing high-performance solutions is increasing, giving software engineering researchers a great opportunity to contribute to software development organisations.In this context, Software Process Improvement (SPI) activities have been recognised as a logical way to increase the competitiveness of software organisations [1][2][3][4][5]. The implementation of SPI in software development organisations has highlighted many challenges related to time, financial support, employee effort, and particularly the capacity to understand the information contained in the international software engineering standards [6].These facts become more critical for small organisations, such as those having up to 25 people categorised as Very Small Entities (VSEs). A VSE can be defined as an organisation (e.g. public or non-profit organisation), a project, or a department having up to 25 people [1][2][3][4][5][7][8][9]. VSEs usually presentThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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