The Critical Success Factors in implementation of
Software Process Improvement Efforts in an Agile Environment
Abstract
The Software development and cost of software projects have become relatively very high due to
complexity of systems that make software process more complex to be managed. Thus, it is
essential to consider the SPI factors that directly affect the process and try to explore the best
solution that helps in best management of the software process which ultimately produce the
desirable result i.e. help in meeting the basic attributes of the project i.e. time, delivery and the
quality [1].
1. Introduction
A software process can be defined as "a set of activities, methods, practices, and transformations
that people use to develop and maintain software and the associated products (e.g., project plans,
design documents, code, test cases, and user manuals)" [2]. The Authors Paulk et al (1993)
thought that the software process improvement aims is to:
-down the cycle time for the development
Thus, a Software Process Improvement (SPI) aim is to produce economical, enhanced and better
quality products. Different groups of practitioners across the world use different approaches to
implement the SPI [1].
We can summarize the Process Improvement Approach like the following one.
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2. Aims of the Project
The goal of this thesis is to explore an effective and improve process to find out the critical issues
i.e. obstacles to be minimized for the development of a successful project. This model will also be
adapted with the latest state of the art agile development process.
Several research objectives can be identified and formulated as questions, which need to be
answered in this master thesis:




What are the basic critical issues used in different applications especially in Bangladesh?
What problems and difficulties are facing during the estimation of the critical issues of
project quality and budget?
Is it possible to minimize the gap between mobile applications’ development with agile
process in terms of estimation?
Is it possible to propose a new model of effort estimation to support the Bangladeshi
software firm?
3. Related Work
The numerous studies had been conducted that investigated the critical factors which influence
Software Process Improvement and its positive and negative impact on the implementation.
Rainer and Hall quoted Herbsleb & Goldenson and Pajerek studies that; practitioners look for
guidance on how to improve rather then what to improvement [5].
Brief extracts of some of the studies that suggested factors necessary for implementing successful
software process programmers are given hereafter:
3.1 Niazi et al. (2006) present finding from the empirical study conducted of the CSFs, this
include 34 SPI practitioners from 29 companies and, 5 companies is among those which have
been awarded best process achievement by IEEE Computer society. In addition to empirical
study, 47 published experienced reports, case studies and articles were analyzed. The aim of
this study is to explore the issues related to SPI implementation and provided detail
knowledge to SPI practitioners about the positive impacts of these issues and in the
implementation process [3].
3.2 Dyba (2005) presents the models from empirical investigation of key factors for success in
SPI. Companies conducted tests for conceptual model and hypothesis for the study and a
quantitative survey of 120 software and quality mangers among 55 companies. The findings
of the study reported six factors i.e. Business orientation, involved leadership, employee
participation, concern for measurement, exploitation of existing knowledge and exploration
of new knowledge. The SPI success critically depends upon these factors and is explained by
more than 50% in the outcome variables. The main contribution of this study is to provide
researchers and practitioners with important new insights regarding the critical factors for
success in SPI [4, 1].
4. Proposed Approach
The approach of our work may be divided into two parts. First part will be covered by “literature
review” and the rest part will be covered by “the investigation and selection the best case“.
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5. Expected Research Outcomes
An improved estimation model will be developed that will help software company to find out the
critical issues and find out how they will overcome properly. A set of guidelines will be proposed
that will aware the project manager to fall in problem during and after estimation.
6. Timetable for Research
We can consider the time plan according to the following table.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Literature review (15 days)
Finalize the proposed issues. (30 days)
Initial review of the thesis from supervisor (7 days)
Completion of the thesis writing and also incorporation of the feedbacks from supervisor
(60 days).
5. Final review from supervisor and make the completion of the thesis writing.
7. Conclusion
Our study investigates the factors that have positive impact in a process of SPI implementation
and offer recommendations to practitioners that promote the best practices in the software process
improvements domain. In particular we focused on critical success factors, motivators and
obstacles.
9. References
[1]
http://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/20519
[2]
Paulk, M.C., Curtis, B., Chrissis, M.B. and Weber, C.V. (1993) The Capability Maturity Model
Software, Version 1.1, Software Engineering Institute, CMU/SEI-93-TR-24 ESC-TR-93-177.
[3]
Niazi, M., Willson D. and Zowghi D. (2006) Critical Success Factors for Software Process
Improvement Implementation: An Empirical Study, Software Process: Improvement and Practice
Journal, Vol. 11, Issue. 2, pp. 193-211.
[4]
Dybå, T. (2005) An Empirical Investigation of the Key Factors for Success in Software Process
Improvement, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol. 31,No. 5.
[5]
Rainer, A. and Hall, T. Key (2001) success factors for implementing software process
improvement: a maturity-based analysis‟, Elsevier, august 2001.
[6]
Herbsleb, J.D., & Goldenson, D.R. (1996) A Systematic Survey of CMM Experience and
Results," Proc. 18th Int’l Conf. Software Eng. (ICSE 96), IEEE CS Press, Los Alamitos, Calif.,
1996, pp. 323-330. See also tech. report SEI-94-TR-13, Software Eng. Inst., Carnegie Mellon
Univ.
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Another topics can be selected :
1. Requirements Engineering in an Agile Environment
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