A Case Study In Balanced Software Process Development

This report is about the development of software processes at a relatively small Finnish industrial organisation. The first aim of the work underlying this report was to find out how the people work within the software group and determine whether the activities and resulting artefacts are adequate. This goal was reached by performing a process assessment based on an international standard, ISO 15504. The effort involved a questionnaire, interviews and observation of project documentation archives. The current process was defined as a set of inputs, activities and work products in consecutive phases. Also, the capability levels of each selected process category were computed. Next, a process improvement attempt was made. This action was initialised by shaping a balance between the amount of agile and plandriven features needed in the new process. Instead of pushing the practices towards an existing model, the actual needs, environment and nature of the company were used to establish the approach. On the basis of the results of this balancing, a new process was created and tailored to suit the development staff. Some effort is also made to explain how the process should be installed in practice.