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Improving by Involving: A Case Study in a Small Software Company

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Software Process Improvement (EuroSPI 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 4257))

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Abstract

One way of implementing Software Process Improvement (SPI) is to empower employees to carry out decisions made by management. An alternative way is to invite developers and project leaders to participate in all phases of planning and implementing SPI projects. Such participation has always been a central goal and one of the pillars of organization development and change, and has also been shown to be one of the factors with the strongest influence on SPI success. However, there are few studies reporting how participation can be done in practice in software companies doing SPI. In this paper, we describe how long-term participation can be realized in various SPI initiatives using several participation techniques like search conferences, survey feedback, autonomous work groups, quality circles, and learning meetings. The research has been carried out in a small Norwegian software company called Kongsberg Spacetec, over a period of eight years.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. SINTEF ICT, NO-7465, Trondheim, Norway

    Nils Brede Moe & Tore Dybå

Authors
  1. Nils Brede Moe
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  2. Tore Dybå
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lero – the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland

    Ita Richardson

  2. Dept. of Communication Systems, Lund University, SE-221 00, LUND, Sweden

    Per Runeson

  3. EuroSPI, c/o ISCN LTD, Bray, Co., Wicklow, Ireland

    Richard Messnarz

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Moe, N.B., Dybå, T. (2006). Improving by Involving: A Case Study in a Small Software Company. In: Richardson, I., Runeson, P., Messnarz, R. (eds) Software Process Improvement. EuroSPI 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4257. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11908562_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11908562_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-47695-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47696-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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