Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
the subsequent publication of what has been called ISO/IEC 29110 Software Engi-
neering - Lifecycle Profiles for VSE [5], by the WG 24 / SC7 of ISO.
To allow mutual recognition of formal evaluations of COMPETISOFT across
Latin American countries, we suggest that each country should define its own As-
sessment Model, which must be in accordance with ISO/IEC 15504. In this sense, and
bearing in mind the new ISO/IEC 15504-7 standard [19], AENOR (Spanish Associa-
tion for Standardisation and Certification) from Spain and IRAM (Argentine Institute
for Standardisation and Certification) from Argentina are currently establishing an
organizational maturity model and a process assessment model to give the small soft-
ware companies a new strategy for certification by maturity levels.
For the definition, refinement and application of these components of the Methodo-
logical Framework of COMPETISOFT the A-R (Action-Research) and case study
research methods have been used. For the application of the A-R research method we
divided the project participants into two groups: a first one, made up of
researchers
from different universities, and a second one, called the
critical reference group
,
which included the information technology professionals from VSEs. Through the
application of A-R we obtained continual feedback between the
researchers
and the
VSEs involved, aiming to develop and refine the Methodological Framework.
4 Improvement Framework
The aim of the
improvement framework
is to provide improvement practices, strate-
gies and tools to support improvement initiatives in small companies. This framework
is influenced by the ISO/IEC 15504 (Part 2, Part 4 and Part 5), IDEAL and SCRUM
models. From these proposals we have analyzed, integrated and tailored several im-
provement practices, in order to offer a specialized and suitable framework which
meets the needs of the VSEs when leading SPI initiatives. This
improvement frame-
work
defines five components: (i) a process called PmCOMPETISOFT, (ii) a meth-
odology for software process assessment called METvalCOMPETISOFT, (iii) an
agile process for improvement introduction, (iv) a strategy for process selection and
prioritization and (v) tools to support the improvement process (see Fig. 1). All the
process of this framework are described in terms of purpose, objectives, roles, activity
diagram, activities, work products, and tools support, according to the process pattern
established by COMPETISOFT. In the following section we give a summarised de-
scription of these elements, its brevity due to restrictions on space.
4.1 Improvement Process - PmCOMPETISOFT
This process has been defined to provide the VSEs with a guide with which to man-
age and lead the SPI initiatives step-by-step. The purpose of this process is to improve
an organization's processes according to its business objectives, along with assisting
it to carry out its SPI initiatives. This process is the backbone as well as the compo-
nent integrator of the
improvement framework
. Fig. 2 shows the PmCOMPETISOFT
activity diagram, which includes roles, activities and work products. A complete de-
scription of this process is presented in [20].
