Panel on Software Process Improvement Paradigms

Abstract

Improving software process with the objectives of improving software quality, productivity, and deliverability is a major goal of many organisations in the IT industry. Various paradigms for improvement and for process capability modeling are in use or being proposed. These approaches fall into two basic categories: top-down, such as the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM), and bottom-up, such as Prof. Victor Basili's Experience Factory (EF). At the same time, a number of software quality-related national and international standards are being promulgated and some are seeing wide spread use. These factors raise two issues that must be discussed in the software engineering community. These are the relative merits and deficiencies of the various software process improvement paradigms and their relative applicability to various organisational cultures, and relevance of the various software quality standards and process standards to actual improvements in quality or productivity. The panelists will each discuss their experiences with software process improvement models, and, as appropriate, their experiences regarding the benefit of implementation of various quality and improvement standards. Discussion regarding the merit and applicability of top-down vs. bottom-up improvement paradigms will be encouraged. The panelists represent organisations involved in CMM-type improvement, SPICE (Software Process Improvement Capability @termination) trials, or EF-type activities. Some are their organisation's software quality assurance officer and will relate their experiences regarding the relevance of standards such as IS0 9000