LAPPI: A light‐weight technique to practical process modeling and improvement target identification

Abstract

Understanding the current state of the software processes and their problem points is important. Without this understanding, software process improvement (SPI) resources may be allocated to less meaningful targets. SPI work can be challenging to initiate especially in small companies where resources and knowledge of SPI are often limited. The aim of the developed technique, LAPPI (A Light-weight Technique to Practical Process Modeling and Improvement Target Identification), is to provide an easy to use, lightweight tool for process modeling and improvement target identification. The technique provides a suitable method that integrates with various SPI initiatives. The method used in the development of LAPPI is a nonformal variation of constructive research. LAPPI has been incrementally developed in multiple academia-industry collaboration projects and by industry actors themselves. Our evaluation of the LAPPI technique in 42 studies conducted in 31 companies indicates that the technique is suitable for modeling the current process and identifying the points of improvement in the process. Practical experience shows that LAPPI provides a cost-effective technique for process modeling and improvement target identification especially in small and medium-sized enterprises. It is most useful in the diagnosing phase of SPI. It helps the company to understand the current processes and the organizational interactions, and to create a process description baseline. benefits tends to erode managerial commitment and often demotivates employees [6,7]. Therefore, it becomes vital that companies achieve fast results and, moreover, allow staff members to gain hands-on experience in SPI initiatives. Motivation of the employees and committing them to the process improvement work can be challenging and many motivation factors should be taken into account [6][7][8]. In addition, lack of tangible results can lead to half-hearted and detrimental commitment from the management [9]. The availability of skilled and suitable staff members may also present a challenge, for example, the lack of SPI knowledge [10,11], and it may not be easy to find the right approach for the improvement initiative [12].Small companies often have problems initiating SPI projects. Small companies are troubled by the resource consumption and consider the SPI standards and approaches like CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) [13] and ISO/IEC 15504 [14] too heavyweight for their purposes [15][16][17]. To enable SPI in smaller software companies, many lightweight process improvement approaches have been developed (see, e.g., [18,19]). In addition, the ISO/IEC 29110 [3] standard has been developed for very small enterprises (with less than 25 employees) to help them apply the international standards, for example, ISO/IEC 15504 [19]. The majority of these approaches are process assessment methods based on the previously mentioned standards. However, small companies have problems with process assessments because of their often heavy resource requirements to pro...

Suppliers’ software development project start-up practices

“…We applied the process modelling technique LAPPI which started to evolve almost two decades ago 1999 (Raninen, Ahonen et al 2013). The LAPPI technique has been developed through dozens of industrial cases, mainly in different IT organizations (Raninen, Ahonen et al 2013). Nowadays, the LAPPI is in active use in different software supplier firms (Raninen, Ahonen et al 2013).…”

Exploring software maintenance process characteristics by using inductive thematic analysis

“…By having in mind the well known constraints of small software companies [22,16], the method for identifying and systematizing knowledge was developed as a bottom-up. This means that the identification of knowledge starts with the investigation of the real state of the practice in the company, without attempting to fit the research process and findings to any prescribed strategy, directive, standard or guideline.…”

Artifact-based software process improvement and management: a method proposal

“…Discussion on their strengths and weaknesses are the subject of much research, e.g., from [3,5,15]. Light-weight SPI models, such as PRO-CESSUS [8], LAPPI [14], COMPETISOFT [7], or BG-SPI [2] usually address small-to-medium sized companies and provide detailed guideline regarding the approach to conduct SPI. However, if these models define artifacts they usually just name the artifacts and give examples, but omit detailed structure and dependencies.…”

“…reliability. A number of standardized SPI approaches exist to support process engineers in managing SPI, e.g., reference models such as CMMI [4] or ISO 15504 [9], as well as more specific and light-weight SPI models, e.g., LAPPI [14], or BG-SPI [2]. However, process engineers and process consumers often complain about approaches that are too generic, too comprehensive, or that are inappropriate for the actual project or company context [15].…”