The Impact of Situational Context on the Software Development Process – A Case Study of a Highly Innovative Start-up Organization

Abstract

Over the past six years, we have examined the impact of situational context of the software development process. Our early work involved the systematic development of a comprehensive situational factors reference framework. More recently, our efforts have focused on the application of this reference framework to different types of situational context. In this latest in a series of case studies, we examine the case of a small start-up organization, exploring in detail the process adopted. We also undertook a detailed evaluation of the situational context, carefully identifying the situational factors of greatest importance and how these factors have influenced the process design. The outcome of our case study confirms our earlier finding that a software development process is highly dependent on the organizational context. We also discovered some interesting new themes in this start-up environment, including the difficulty associated with prioritizing situational factors and the complexity that surrounds software process design. The role of organizational learning and feedback into improved development processes is also presented as a critical feature.