Framework to evaluate software process improvement in small organizations

Abstract

Organizations of all sizes understand the benefits to consider Software Process Improvements (SPI) investments, still many of them and in particular the smaller ones are reluctant to embrace this kind of initiatives. A systemic model is presented in this article as a tool aiming aiming to provide an initial understanding over the behavior of the different organizational variables involved and their complex interactions within a SPI effort, their contribution to the improvement effort, the resulting value sensitivity to model parameters, the systemic relations at large and the limits derived from the holistic interaction of all in order to be used as a scenario analysis tool to identify the SPI strategies which best suit a given organization business context thru the maximization of the value obtained from the investment. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.