The Personal Software ProcessSM (PSPSM): An Empirical Study of the Impact of PSP on Individual Engineers

This report documents the results of a study that is important to everyone who manages or develops software. The study examines the impact of the Personal Software ProcessSM (PSPSM) on the performance of 298 software engineers.1 The report describes the effect of PSP on key performance dimensions of these engineers, including their ability to estimate and plan their work, the quality of the software they produced, the quality of their work process, and their productivity. The report also discusses how improvements in personal capability also improve organizational performance in several areas: cost and schedule management, delivered product quality, and product cycle time.