SOFTWARE PROCESS ASSESSMENT AND CERTIFICATION: APPLICATION OF THE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS FOR PRIORITY DETERMINATION

Abstract

Software certification involves assessing and certifying the quality of the software process based on multiple evaluation criteria where each criterion has different importance values on the quality of the software. However, the different importance values of the evaluation criteria have not been addressed in the existing software process certification models. A systematic technique is needed to ensure that the certification results are consistent, accurate and not made arbitrarily. To address this issue, the Extended Software Process Certification (ESPAC) model was introduced by adopting the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique to determine the priorities of the evaluation criteria. There were three main phases in this study: (a) theoretical study, (b) expert review and (c) focus group discussion. Ultimately, a mutual agreement was achieved about the evaluation criteria and the AHP was shown to be a suitable technique to be employed in software process assessment and certification. Furthermore, the acquired priorities were used as the ideal priorities for the ESPAC model, which can be used by assessors during the assessment and certification process. The outcome of this study benefits researchers in the AHP and software process assessment fields.