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An empirical examination of the extent of software process improvement in software SMEs

Clarke, Paul orcid logoORCID: 0000-0002-4487-627X and O'Connor, Rory orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-9253-0313 (2013) An empirical examination of the extent of software process improvement in software SMEs. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 25 (9). pp. 981-998. ISSN 2047-7481

Abstract
Although earlier studies revealed much about software process improvement (SPI) in Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises (software SMEs), no earlier research set out to determine the full extent of SPI being implemented in software SMEs. Therefore, this study was designed from the outset to elicit all instances of SPI, which we term SPI events – no matter how small or informal. We make the important new discovery that SMEs initiate a considerable amount of SPI, albeit in varying quantities in different organisations. No earlier study reported that the practice of SPI was so widespread in software SMEs, and this is perhaps related to the extensive scope of the enquiry adopted in this study. Our study also finds that the significant majority of SPI in software SMEs is minor or moderate in nature, sometimes leveraging the human capital via improvements in tacit knowledge. Software development is an intrinsically human intensive activity and it therefore follows that the maximisation of the human capital in an organisation is a source of competitive advantage. However, contemporary process maturity frameworks and quality management standards do not fully exploit the capacity of human capital and may therefore diminish rather than improve the competitive advantage of software SMEs.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:software process; software process improvement; empirical study; software SMEs
Subjects:Computer Science > Software engineering
DCU Faculties and Centres:Research Initiatives and Centres > Lero: The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre
DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Engineering and Computing > School of Computing
Publisher:Wiley
Official URL:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smr.158...
Copyright Information:© 2013 Wiley. The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.com
Use License:This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. View License
ID Code:19360
Deposited On:17 Sep 2013 15:08 by Rory O'connor . Last Modified 18 Oct 2018 10:42
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