Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
5 Case Studies
In COMPETISOFT the
researchers
carried out the intervention with the new propos-
als in the
critical reference group
, using the empirical variant for the execution of the
action activity of A-R. That is, the
improvement framework
developed was applied by
the
researchers
in the small companies (
critical reference group
) by means of the use
of the case study research method. To apply the proposed framework, we have con-
ducted eight case studies by following the protocol template for case studies presented
in [26]. Lack of space means that we will then give just an overview of the case stud-
ies in terms of design, subjects, analysis unit, field procedures, data collection and
limitations.
5.1 Design, Subjects and Analysis Unit
Taking into account the focus presented by [27], the
design type
of the case study in
this work is multiple cases - holistic, since the strategy has been applied in the con-
text of eight small companies. The
object of study
is a new integrated
improvement
framework
through which to guide SPI in VSEs.
The
main research question
addressed by this study is: Is the
improvement frame-
work
suitable (useful and practical) for leading Software Process Improvement efforts
in small software enterprises? We identified an
additional research question
and
various
sub-questions
(derived from each research question) for each component of
the
improvement framework
. By means of these questions we seek to know whether
these components have a useful function, if they are of practical use and whether they
conform to the reality of small companies. For each component we asked about: (i)
the effort of carrying out the activities associated with the
improvement framework
's
processes (related to the use practice and the reality of companies), and (ii) the capa-
bility level of the processes under analysis (the ones which need to be improved) of
each company (related to useful function). In this vein, the
measures
used to investi-
gate the research question are: (i) the effort and (ii) the process capability level. Fur-
thermore, we also took into account the benefits described by the VSEs.
Several Latin American small software organizations have applied the Methodologi-
cal Framework of COMPETISOFT for the implementation of an SPI initiative. The
participating companies
in the case studies are from Argentina, Chile, Spain and Co-
lombia (see Table 1). The
analysis units
are the
improvement framework
's components
and the processes to be improved within each company. All of these organizations
started their SPI initiative with the support of an adviser in improvement processes (who
is part of the
researchers group
). In this SPI initiative we suggested to the companies
that they should incorporate the processes related to Profile 1 (
Software development
-
SD,
Software maintenance
- MS, and
Specific project administration
- SPA) from the
Process Reference Model of COMPETISOFT.
5.2 Field Procedure, Data Collection and Limitations
The
improvement framework
was used to perform the improvement activities in each
organization. That is, the procedure governing
field procedure
and the
data collection
of the case studies is closely related to the strategies, activities, roles and work prod-
ucts described in each of the processes defined by the
improvement framework
of
