Investigating software process in practice: A grounded theory perspective

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents the results of a study of how software process and software process improvement (SPI) is applied in actual practice in the software industry using the indigenous Irish software product industry as a test-bed. The study used the grounded theory methodology to produce a theory, grounded in the field data, that explains how software processes are formed and evolve and when and why SPI is undertaken. Our research found that SPI programmes are implemented reactively and many software managers are reluctant to implement SPI best practice models because of the associated costs.

An Approach to Evaluating Software Process Adaptation

“…While the benefits of process maturity frameworks and other software development models have been demonstrated, they are not widely adopted in practice [1][2][3], [17], [18]. Furthermore, some research suggests that temporal contextual factors are critical in identifying the most appropriate process [10], [19], [20], especially in SMEs [21].…”

“…Process maturity reference frameworks such as ISO/IEC 15504 and the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) seek to assist software process improvement (SPI) efforts by prescribing a roadmap for improving the capability of the development process. However, such frameworks are not widely adopted in the practice [1], [2], especially in smaller software development organisations where the development process is often modified based on business events [3]. Such modification of the development process represents an attempt to harmonise the process with the changing needs of the business, which is a dynamic capability.…”

Exploring Managerial Commitment towards SPI in Small and Very Small Enterprises

“…There is evidence [1,2,3] that the majority of small and very small software organisations are not adopting existing standards / best practice models because they perceive the standards as being orientated towards large organizations, thus provoking the debate the in terms of number of employees, size does actually matter.…”

Harnessing ISO/IEC 12207 to Examine the Extent of SPI Activity in an Organisation

“…For SMEs in the software development sector, there is an acknowledged lack of adoption of process maturity reference models [9,10,11,12]. However, even if SMEs did implement these models, they might struggle to achieve the highest process rating, and consequently they would be at risk of not realising the benefits of dynamic process capability.…”

“…Although the successful management of the software development process is important for business success, there is a lack of adoption of published models to support the development of software [9,10,11,12], with some research suggesting that temporal contextual factors are critical in identifying the most appropriate process [13,14], especially in SMEs [15]. It should also be acknowledged that even if SMEs did implement SPI models such as ISO/IEC 15504 [1] and CMMI [2], they might struggle to consistently achieve the highest, optimising level.…”