Software Process Capability Self-Assessment Support System Based on Task and Work Product Characteristics: A Case Study of ISO/IEC 29110 Standard

Abstract

A key driver of software business growth in developing countries is the survival of software small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Quality of products is a critical factor that can indicate the future of the business by building customer confidence. Software development agencies need to be aware of meeting international standards in software development process. In practice, consultants and assessors are usually employed as the primary solution, which can impact the budget in case of small businesses. Self-assessment tools for software development process can potentially reduce time and cost of formal assessment for software SMEs. However, the existing support methods and tools are largely insufficient in terms of process coverage and semi-automated evaluation. This paper proposes to apply a knowledge-based approach in development of a self-assessment and gap analysis support system for the ISO/IEC 29110 standard. The approach has an advantage that insights from domain experts and the standard are captured in the knowledge base in form of decision tables that can be flexibly managed. Our knowledge base is unique in that task lists and work products defined in the standard are broken down into task and work product characteristics, respectively. Their relation provides the links between Task List and Work Product which make users more understand and influence self-assessment. A prototype support system was developed to assess the level of software development capability of the agencies based on the ISO/IEC 29110 standard. A preliminary evaluation study showed that the system can improve performance of users who are inexperienced in applying ISO/IEC 29110 standard in terms of task coverage and user's time and effort compared to the traditional self-assessment method.

Support system of self-assessment and gap analysis for new normal tourism standards

“…In this section, the researchers examine self-assessment models and methods in the areas of environmental management [16], [20] to conceptualize the study framework involved. The researchers also propose an ontology approach to building a knowledge base, which has been proven to be an effective method for presenting knowledge in the specific area studied [17], [21], [22] enabling software sharing among users.…”

“…A semantic network is a graph whose nodes represent concepts of an entity and whose arcs represent relations between these concepts [21]- [23], [28], [29]. The ontology also outlines the conceptual structure of a particular area of knowledge that is used to build the knowledge base of assessment and self-assessment systems [20], [22], [30]. The knowledge model in this research is, therefore, created in the ontology form.…”

“…A score of 71-80% is Silver, meaning the national park has passed the silver level assessment criteria, and a score of more than 80% or more is Gold meaning that the national park has passed the assessment criteria at the gold level. Calculate the score of each WL in the GNP standards [20]…”

Apoyando a las Mipymes en la Evaluación Interna de Procesos y Proyectos para la Certificación en la Norma ISO/IEC 29110

“…Hoy en día, las Mipymes en la industria del desarrollo de software representan mas del 92% en varios países. Además, la producción de productos y servicios de software de estás tienen un impacto en empresas medianas y grandes, ya que son uno de sus principales proveedores (Meathawachananont et al, 2020;Galván-Cruz et al, 2020). En el contexto de México, de acuerdo al informe publicado por la Encuesta Nacional de Productividad y Competitividad de la Micro, Pequeña y Mediana Empresa (ENAPROCE) en (INEGI, 2018), existían alrededor de 4 millones de empresas en México de las cuales el 97.3% de ellas son Mipymes.…”

“…En este contexto, se ha creado la norma ISO/IEC 29110 (Meathawachananont, 2020) que se ajusta al tamaño de este tipo de organizaciones con hasta 25 personas en la implementación de procesos relacionados a la Gestión de Proyectos (GP) e Implementación del Software (IS). Esta norma, define una serie de elementos de proceso como lo son actividades, tareas y productos de trabajo para gestionar y desarrollar un proyecto de desarrollo de software (ISO/IEC 29110, 2011).…”