Piloting Software Engineering Institute's Software Process Improvement in Information Systems Groups

Although the capability maturity model has become an accepted basis for software process improvement in software organizations, its diffusion in IS organizations continues to be slow. This paper describes the experience of piloting the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) process improvement with six different information systems (IS) groups. It brings out the perceptions and reactions of IS developers and the assessment team regarding the SEI approach. This case study shows that the typical organization structure of IS organizations seems to impede the successful implementation of CMM-like improvement effort. More significantly, it appears that the CMM-based production process view of software does not match the product development view of IS work.