ABSTRACT
This paper reports on the experience of the authors in quantitatively assessing the development process of an Eastern European software SME (Small or Medium Size Enterprise). The company produces a very successful workflow and documentation tool, features about 30 full time developers and has a customer base of about 40 major organizations. It has hired the authors as consultants to address quality and productivity issues raised by the upper management and customers. The adopted approach is based on systemic analysis, and starts with a comprehensive GQM session with the top managers of the company, to fully define the scope of work, and progresses analysing the documentation, interviewing the manager and the lead developers, and quantitatively analysing the issue tracking system in place. Specific attention is placed in identifying "schismogenesis", situations that may lead to unresolvable conflicts. The approach has been proven successful in providing a result in short forecasted timeframe, and systemic analysis has been effective in spotting the most critical situations present in the company. The result has been a set of prioritized recommendations, centered first in eliminating the schismogenetic situations and then ranging from adopting a more quantitative process control, to streamline the activities, to organize a line of product.
- Aleksandar Aleksić, Miladin Stefanović, Slavko Arsovski, and Danijela Tadić. An assessment of organizational resilience potential in SMEs of the process industry, a fuzzy approach. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 26(6):1238--1245, 2013.Google ScholarCross Ref
- MD Ashrafuzzaman, Mohammad Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury, MD Akhtaruzzaman, and Hasan Sarwar. An assessment of software development practices of SMEs in Bangladesh. In International Conference on Advances in Computer Science and Electronics Engineering - CSEE 2014, 2014.Google Scholar
- Yirsaw Ayalew and Kris Motlhala. An ISO/IEC 15504 based software process assessment in small software companies. International Journal of Software Engineering & Its Applications, 8(6), 2014.Google Scholar
- Robert Bamford, William J Deibler, et al. ISO 9001: 2000 for software and systems providers: an engineering approach. CRC Press, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Victor R Basili, Gianluigi Caldiera, and H Dieter Rombach. Experience factory. Encyclopedia of software engineering, 1994. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gregory Bateson. Steps to an ecology of mind: Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. University of Chicago Press, 1972.Google Scholar
- Carlos Guillermo Bigliani, Rodolfo Moguillansky, and Carlos E Sluzki. Shame and Humiliation: A Dialogue Between Psychoanalytic and Systemic Approaches. Karnac Books, 2013.Google Scholar
- William J Brown. Raphael C. Malveau, III Hays W., McCormick, and Thomas J. Mowbray. AntiPatterns: refactoring software, architectures, and projects in crisis, 1998. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ernesto Damiani, Fabio Mulazzani, Barbara Russo, and Giancarlo Succi. SAF: Strategic alignment framework for monitoring organizations. In Business Information Systems, pages 213--226. Springer, 2008.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Susanne Durst and Michael Leyer. How can SMEs assess the risk of organisational knowledge? 2014.Google Scholar
- Khaled El Emam, Walcelio Melo, and Jean-Normand Drouin. SPICE: The theory and practice of software process improvement and capability determination. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Vassilis Gerogiannis, George Kakarontzas, Leonidas Anthopoulos, Stamatia Bibi, and Ioannis Stamelos. The SPRINT-SMEs approach for software process improvement in small-medium sized software development enterprises.Google Scholar
- Andrea Janes and Giancarlo Succi. Lean Software Development in Action. Springer, 2014. Google Scholar
- Charles B Keating, Paul Kauffmann, and David Dryer. A framework for systemic analysis of complex issues. Journal of Management Development, 20(9):772--784, 2001.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Deepti Mishra and Alok Mishra. Software process improvement in SMEs: A comparative view. Computer Science and Information Systems, 6(1):111--140, 2009.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Patrice Muller, Dimitri Gagliardi, Cecilia Caliandro, Nuray Unlu Bohn, and Demetrius Klitou. Annual report on European SMEs 2013/2014-a partial and fragile recovery. Brussel: European Commission, 2014.Google Scholar
- Mara Selvini Palazzoli. The hidden games of organizations. Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
- Mark C Paulk. Using the software CMM in small organizations. Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, 1998.Google Scholar
- Alberto Simboli, Andrea Raggi, and Pietro Rosica. Life Cycle Assessment of Process Eco-Innovations in an SME Automotive Supply Network. Sustainability, 7(10):13761--13776, 2015.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Giancarlo Succi, Witold Pedrycz, Milorad Stefanovic, and Barbara Russo. An investigation on the occurrence of service requests in commercial software applications. Empirical Software Engineering, 8(2):197--215, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- CMMI Product Team. Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI SM), version 1.1. CMMI for Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, Integrated Product and Process Development, and Supplier Sourcing (CMMI-SE/SW/IPPD/SS, V1. 1), 2002.Google Scholar
- Bjørn Thomassen. Schismogenesis and schismogenetic processes: Gregory Bateson reconsidered. 2010.Google Scholar
- Ashutosh Tiwari, Chris J Turner, and Basim Majeed. A review of business process mining: state-of-the-art and future trends. Business Process Management Journal, 14(1):5--22, 2008.Google ScholarCross Ref
- WN Venables, DM Smith, et al. An introduction to R: notes on R: a programming environment for data analysis and graphics, version 3.2.2. 2015.Google Scholar
- Henk W Volberda. Building the flexible firm: How to remain competitive. Oxford University Press, 1999.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Alan Wood. Predicting software reliability. Computer, 29(11):69--77, 1996. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
Assessing the process of an Eastern European software SME using systemic analysis, GQM, and reliability growth models: a case study
Recommendations
"Leagile" software development
In recent years there has been a noticeable shift in attention from those who use agile software development toward lean software development, often labelled as a shift "from agile to lean". However, the reality may not be as simple or linear as this ...
Identifying Findings for Software Process Improvement in SMEs: An Experience
CERMA '12: Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE Ninth Electronics, Robotics and Automotive Mechanics ConferenceEven when many organizations are motivated to implement software process initiatives (SPI), not all know how best to do so, especially in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) where due to its especial features, they have to be carefully in how to manage ...
Gamification for software process improvement: a practical approach
Gamification is a research field that is intended to increase motivation, so it is especially indicated in human capital intensive environments such as the software industry. Within Software Engineering, one of the main issues regarding software process ...
Comments