Controlling Software Process Improvement

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Controlling Software Process Improvement

• Marcello Visconti
• Departamento de Informática
• Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María
• Valparaíso, Chile

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Motivation

• Many improvement initiatives have shown a clear
  immaturity for the software process - especially
  in SQA (Software Quality Assurance) and SCM
  (Software Configuration Management)

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State of the practice (CMM)
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What happens in Chile?
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 .... 2001
ISO-9000 Certification Initiative
SQA, Doc. SCM Maturity Models
INTEC Project SPIN-CHILE
SPRIME Assessments
First 2 companies certified ISO
First 3 CMM Assessments
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• Great difficulty to move past diagnosis/planning
  into real action - there is a need to close this
  gap

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Our approach to bridge the gap

• Improve specific software practices (ex SQA, SCM
  practices) through the development and
  implantation of a set of generic tools -
  templates, checklists and guides
• Manage quantitatively the quality of the
  implantation of specific tools to assure their
  usefulness in improving the process - adaptation
  of SQUID methodology

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SQUID

• Software QUality In the Development process, aims
  to provide an integrated approach to quality
• Provides a framework to support
• different views of quality
• different quality measures
• flexible models of quality
• View controlling internal properties (software
  development) will determine external behaviour
  (end product)
• Developed as part of a European ESPRIT research
  project
• Commercially available tool set (October 1999)

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SQUID

• SQUID supports various processes needed to manage
  quality
• quality specification - specific targets for
  external characteristics (operational behaviour)
• quality planning - specific targets for internal
  characteristics (development)
• quality monitoring - tracking internal properties
  (development)
• quality evaluation - comparing target and actual
  for external properties (operational behaviour)

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SQUID adaptation

• SQUID approach requires
• integration of different types of measures
  (internal external) for software developed
• integration of different models (quality,
  development and measurement models)
• Proposal for SQUID adaptation requires
• integration of different types of measures
  (internal external) for tools implanted
• integration of different models (quality,
  implantation and measurement models)

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Pilot application

• SQUID adaptation proposed was tested at a
  medium-size software development company to
  manage (partially) the implantation of a set of
  tools related to one key SQA practice, formal
  technical reviews
• Target values were set based mainly on personnel
  experience
• Actual values were collected for the preparation
  phase (first phase)

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Preliminary findings

• Use of SQUID adaptation motivated formalization
  and stronger commitment for implantation process
• Defining target values made expectations more
  realistic
• Generic models proposed for SQUID adaptation were
  a good starting point
• Most target values were reached
• Some measurements were hard/impossible to collect

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Projections

• Proposed tools and measurement-based approach to
  manage their implantation appears interesting to
  close the gap diagnosis/planning - action
• SQUID is flexible enough to manage the quality of
  developing any product
• Adaptation of SQUID - a promising framework for
  the tool implantation context
• Generic models and measurement proposed are
  subject to review/improvement
• Preliminary results are encouraging - need to
  extend the application to other scenarios