Organization and Process Together

Position The role of humans in the software development process must be studied in the context of their organizational connguration. The organizational structure within which the process executes has a profound effect on its outcome. The communication and interaction problems associated with human involvement in development cannot be addressed by process improvement alone. The solution must include organizational improvement as well. Because organizational factors are complex, their analysis is a non-trivial task. Methods are needed for improving both organizations and processes, as well as the relationships between them. The aim of the OPT approach is the improvement of software development through improvement of organizational structures and processes. The approach is an iterative improvement method. The steps include mod-eling the relationship between the organization and the process, measuring various properties of this relationship , and choosing organizational and process changes to be implemented. 1 The OPT Approach Some eeorts in the study of software development processes have incorporated basic elements of organizational structure in their modeling formalisms 2]. As well, some researchers have examined the role of organizational structure in the management of software development 6]. However, none of these have viewed organizational structure as an object for improvement or as a factor in the eeectiveness of the process. Our position is that the eeect that an organizational structure can have on a development process is of suucient magnitude to justify considering these two elements together , as equal parts of a single system. The OPT approach is based on the combined improvement of organizational structure and development process. The approach is an iterative improvement method based on the Quality Improvement Paradigm 1]. Like the QIP, the OPT approach is a closed-loop improvement cycle. The steps are outlined below: 1. Model the initial relationship between the organization and the process 2. Set high-level project goals, as well as speciic organizational and process improvement goals 3. Deene constraints which represent management policies and which limit the possible changes 4. Using the model, measure various attributes of the organization/process relationship 5. Based on these measurements, select candidate changes to the organization and process which will contribute to the satisfaction of the stated goals 6. Simulate these changes by applying them to the model, or experiment by applying the changes to some subset of the organization and/or process 7. Re-measure and evaluate the results of the simulation or experimentation 8. Decide which candidate changes …