Blending Scrum practices and CMMI project management process areas

Software development organizations that have been employing capability maturity models, such as SW-CMM or CMMI for improving their processes are now increasingly interested in the possibility of adopting agile development methods. In the context of project management, what can we say about Scrum’s alignment with CMMI? The aim of our paper is to present the mapping between CMMI and the agile method Scrum, showing major gaps between them and identifying how organizations are adopting complementary practices in their projects to make these two approaches more compliant. This is useful for organizations that have a plan-driven process based on the CMMI model and are planning to improve the agility of processes or to help organizations to define a new project management framework based on both CMMI and Scrum practices.     

PEM: The small company-dedicated software process quality evaluation method combining CMMISM and ISO/IEC 14598

Many small software organizations have recognized the need to improve their software product. Evaluating the software product alone seems insufficient since it is known that its quality is largely dependant on the process that is used to create it. Thus, small organizations are asking for evaluation of their software processes and products. The ISO/IEC 14598-5 standard is already used as a methodology basis for evaluating software products. This article explores how it can be combined with the CMMI to produce a methodology that can be tailored for process evaluation in order to improve their software processes. ^SM: CMMI is a service mark of Carnegie-Mellon University. Sylvie Trudel has over 20 years of experience in software. She worked for more than 10 years in development and implementation of management information systems and embedded real-time systems. Since 1996, she works as a process improvement specialist, implementing best practices into organizations processes from CMM and CMMI models. She performed several CMM and CMMI assessments and participated in many other CMM assessments such as CBA IPI, SCE, and other proprietary methods. She obtained a bachelors degree in computer science in 1986 from Laval University in Québec City and a Masters degree in Software Engineering at école de Technologie Supérieure (éTS) in Montréal. Sylvie is currently working as a software engineering advisor at the Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montréal (CRIM). Jean-Marc Lavoie has been working in software development for over 10 years. He performed and published a comparative study between the guide to the SWEBOK and the CMMI in 2003. Jean-Marc obtained a bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering. He is pursuing a Masters degree in Software Engineering at école de Technologie Supérieure (éTS) in Montréal while working as a software architect at Trisotech. Marie-Claude Pare has been working in software development for 7 years. Marie-Claude obtained a bachelor degree in Software Engineering from école Polytechnique in Montréal. She is pursuing a Masters degree in Software Engineering at école de Technologie Supérieure (éTS) in Montréal while working as a software engineer at Motorola GSG Canada. Dr Witold Suryn is a Professor at the école de technologie supérieure, Montreal, Canada (engineering school of the Université du Québec network of institutions) where he teaches graduate and undergraduate software engineering courses and conducts research in the domain of software quality engineering, software engineering body of knowledge and software engineering fundamental principles. Dr Suryn is also the principal researcher and the director of GELOG : IQUAL, the Software Quality Engineering Research Group at école de technologie supérieure. From October 2003 Dr. Suryn holds the position of the International Secretary of ISO/IEC SC7 – System and Software Engineering.     

Using Process Tailoring to Manage Software Development Challenges

To ensure high-quality software processes and leverage best practices, project managers strive to tailor standard processes such as the rational unified process or those developed within their own organizations. Software process tailoring is the activity of tuning a process to meet the needs of a specific project. Despite the critical role that tailoring software processes plays in ensuring project success, few guidelines on it are available for practitioners. The authors conducted an empirical study in two organizations and developed a framework to guide process tailoring.     

Identifying high perceived value practices of CMMI level 2: An empirical study

ObjectiveIn this paper, we present findings from an empirical study that was aimed at identifying the relative “perceived value” of CMMI level 2 specific practices based on the perceptions and experiences of practitioners of small and medium size companies. The objective of this study is to identify the extent to which a particular CMMI practice is used in order to develop a finer-grained framework, which encompasses the notion of perceived value within specific practices.MethodWe used face-to-face questionnaire based survey sessions as the main approach to collecting data from 46 software development practitioners from Malaysia and Vietnam. We asked practitioners to choose and rank CMMI level 2 practices against the five types of assessments (high, medium, low, zero or do not know). From this, we have proposed the notion of ‘perceived value’ associated with each practice.ResultsWe have identified three ‘requirements management’ practices as having a ‘high perceived value’. The results also reveal the similarities and differences in the perceptions of Malaysian and Vietnamese practitioners with regard to the relative values of different practices of CMMI level 2 process areas.ConclusionsSmall and medium size companies should not be seen as being “at fault” for not adopting CMMI – instead the Software Process Improvement (SPI) implementation approaches and its transition mechanisms should be improved. We argue that research into “tailoring” existing process capability maturity models may address some of the issues of small and medium size companies.     

Unifying software engineering and systems engineering

The author describes CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) and the emerging project methods which demonstrate the opportunities for process improvement gains open to organizations. The organization that changes from separated software and system engineering processes to a more unified approach will find itself far more suited to developing dynamically changing, software-intensive systems. Culture change is never easy, but the alternative is even less palatable     

Using CMMI together with agile software development: A systematic review

BackgroundThe search for adherence to maturity levels by using lightweight processes that require low levels of effort is regarded as a challenge for software development organizations.ObjectiveThis study seeks to evaluate, synthesize, and present results on the use of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) in combination with agile software development, and thereafter to give an overview of the topics researched, which includes a discussion of their benefits and limitations, the strength of the findings, and the implications for research and practice.MethodsThe method applied was a Systematic Literature Review on studies published up to (and including) 2011.ResultsThe search strategy identified 3193 results, of which 81 included studies on the use of CMMI together with agile methodologies. The benefits found were grouped into two main categories: those related to the organization in general and those related to the development process, and were organized into subcategories, according to the area to which they refer. The limitations were also grouped into these categories. Using the criteria defined, the strength of the evidence found was considered low. The implications of the results for research and practice are discussed.ConclusionAgile methodologies can be used by companies to reduce efforts in getting to levels 2 and 3 of CMMI, there even being reports of applying agile practices that led to achieving level 5. However, agile methodologies alone, according to the studies, were not sufficient to obtain a rating at a given level, it being necessary to resort to additional practices to do so.     

基于CMMI的软件质量保证

软件的质量保证是软件业最关注的一个问题。结合软件质量保证体系的国内外现状,以CMMI标准体系的优点与5级成熟度模型为依据,分析出过程是软件项目质量保证的制约因素以及基于CMMI的软件质量保证的具体内容。详细探讨了CMMI模型下项目计划开展与开发流程的问题。最后得出通过过程改进达到管理提高的目的,最终使得软件质量有所保证,结果减低企业的工程成本。该方法不仅适用于规模较大的组织和较大型的项目,而且也可以广泛应用于相当多的小型组织。     

Evaluating logistic regression models to estimate software project outcomes

ContextSoftware has been developed since the 1960s but the success rate of software development projects is still low. During the development of software, the probability of success is affected by various practices or aspects. To date, it is not clear which of these aspects are more important in influencing project outcome.ObjectiveIn this research, we identify aspects which could influence project success, build prediction models based on the aspects using data collected from multiple companies, and then test their performance on data from a single organization.MethodA survey-based empirical investigation was used to examine variables and factors that contribute to project outcome. Variables that were highly correlated to project success were selected and the set of variables was reduced to three factors by using principal components analysis. A logistic regression model was built for both the set of variables and the set of factors, using heterogeneous data collected from two different countries and a variety of organizations. We tested these models by using a homogeneous hold-out dataset from one organization. We used the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to compare the performance of the variable and factor-based models when applied to the homogeneous dataset.ResultsWe found that using raw variables or factors in the logistic regression models did not make any significant difference in predictive capability. The prediction accuracy of these models is more balanced when the cut-off is set to the ratio of success to failures in the datasets used to build the models. We found that the raw variable and factor-based models predict significantly better than random chance.ConclusionWe conclude that an organization wishing to estimate whether a project will succeed or fail may use a model created from heterogeneous data derived from multiple organizations.     

Harmonization of ISO/IEC 9001:2000 and CMMI-DEV: from a theoretical comparison to a real case application

In the past years, both industrial and research communities in Software Engineering have shown special interest in Software Process Improvement—SPI. This is evidenced by the growing number of publications on the topic. The literature offers numerous quality frameworks for addressing SPI practices, which may be classified into two groups: ones that describe “what” should be done (ISO 9001, CMMI) and ones that describe “how” it should be done (Six Sigma, Goal Question Metrics-GQM). When organizations decide to adopt improvement initiatives, many models may be implied, each leveraging the best practices provided, in the quest to address the improvement challenges as well as possible. This may at the same time, however, generate confusion and overlapping activities, as well as extra effort and cost. That, in turn, risks generating a series of inefficiencies and redundancies that end up leading to losses rather than to effective process improvement. Consequently, it is important to move toward a harmonization of quality frameworks, aiming to identify intersections and overlapping parts, as well as to create a multi-model improvement solution. Our aim in this work is twofold: first of all, we propose a theoretical harmonization process that supports organizations interested in introducing quality management and software development practices or concerned about improving those they already have. This is done with specific reference to CMMI-DEV and ISO 9001 models in the direction “ISO to CMMI-DEV”, showing how GQM is used to define operational goals that address ISO 9001 statements, reusable in CMMI appraisals. Secondly, we apply the theoretical comparison process to a real case, i.e., a Small Enterprise certified ISO 9001.     

Understanding agile software development practices using shared mental models theory

ContextAgile software development is an alternative software development methodology that originated from practice to encourage collaboration between developers and users, to leverage rapid development cycles, and to respond to changes in a dynamic environment. Although agile practices are widely used in organizations, academics call for more theoretical research to understand the value of agile software development methodologies.ObjectiveThis study uses shared mental models theory as a lens to examine practices from agile software methodologies to understand how agile practices enable software development teams to work together to complete tasks and work together effectively as a team.MethodA conceptual analysis of specific agile practices was conducted using the lens of shared mental models theory. Three agile practices from Xtreme Programming and Scrum are examined in detail, system metaphor, stand-up meeting, and on-site customer, using shared mental models theory.ResultsExamining agile practices using shared mental models theory elucidates how agile practices improve collaboration during the software development process. The results explain how agile practices contribute toward a shared understanding and enhanced collaboration within the software development team.ConclusionsThis conceptual analysis demonstrates the value of agile practices in developing shared mental models (i.e. shared understanding) among developers and customers in software development teams. Some agile practices are useful in developing a shared understanding about the tasks to be completed, while other agile practices create shared mental models about team processes and team interactions. To elicit the desired outcomes of agile software development methods, software development teams should consider whether or not agile practices are used in a manner that enhances the team’s shared understanding. Using three specific agile practices as examples, this research demonstrates how theory, such as shared mental models theory, can enhance our understanding regarding how agile practices are useful in enhancing collaboration in the workplace.     

Fuzzy Logic Based Group Maturity Rating for Software Performance Prediction

Driven by market requirements,software services organizations have adopted various software engineering process models (such as capability maturity model (CMM),capability maturity model integration (CMMI),ISO 9001:2000,etc.) and practice of the project management concepts defined in the project management body of knowledge.While this has definitely helped organizations to bring some methods into the software development madness,there always exists a demand for comparing various groups within the organization in terms of the practice of these defined process models.Even though there exist many metrics for comparison,considering the variety of projects in terms of technology,life cycle,etc.,finding a single metric that caters to this is a difficult task.This paper proposes a model for arriving at a rating on group maturity within the organization.Considering the linguistic or imprecise and uncertain nature of software measurements,fuzzy logic approach is used for the proposed model.Without the barriers like technology or life cycle difference,the proposed model helps the organization to compare different groups within it with reasonable precision.     

Systematic analyses and comparison of development performance and product quality of Incremental Process and Agile Process

ContextAlthough Agile software development models have been widely used as a base for the software project life-cycle since 1990s, the number of studies that follow a sound empirical method and quantitatively reveal the effect of using these models over Traditional models is scarce.ObjectiveThis article explains the empirical method of and the results from systematic analyses and comparison of development performance and product quality of Incremental Process and Agile Process adapted in two projects of a middle-size, telecommunication software development company. The Incremental Process is an adaption of the Waterfall Model whereas the newly introduced Agile Process is a combination of the Unified Software Development Process, Extreme Programming, and Scrum.MethodThe method followed to perform the analyses and comparison is benefited from the combined use of qualitative and quantitative methods. It utilizes; GQM Approach to set measurement objectives, CMMI as the reference model to map the activities of the software development processes, and a pre-defined assessment approach to verify consistency of process executions and evaluate measure characteristics prior to quantitative analysis.ResultsThe results of the comparison showed that the Agile Process had performed better than the Incremental Process in terms of productivity (79%), defect density (57%), defect resolution effort ratio (26%), Test Execution V&V Effectiveness (21%), and effort prediction capability (4%). These results indicate that development performance and product quality achieved by following the Agile Process was superior to those achieved by following the Incremental Process in the projects compared.ConclusionThe acts of measurement, analysis, and comparison enabled comprehensive review of the two development processes, and resulted in understanding their strengths and weaknesses. The comparison results constituted objective evidence for organization-wide deployment of the Agile Process in the company.     

Assessment methodology for software process improvement in small organizations

ContextDiagnosing processes in a small company requires process assessment practices which give qualitative and quantitative results; these should offer an overall view of the process capability. The purpose is to obtain relevant information about the running of processes, for use in their control and improvement. However, small organizations have some problems in running process assessment, due to their specific characteristics and limitations.ObjectiveThis paper presents a methodology for assessing software processes which assist the activity of software process diagnosis in small organizations. There is an attempt to address issues such as the fact that: (i) process assessment is expensive and typically requires major company resources and (ii) many light assessment methods do not provide information that is detailed enough for diagnosing and improving processes.MethodTo achieve all this, the METvalCOMPETISOFT assessment methodology was developed. This methodology: (i) incorporates the strategy of internal assessments known as rapid assessment, meaning that these assessments do not take up too much time or use an excessive quantity of resources, nor are they too rigorous and (ii) meets all the requirements described in the literature for an assessment proposal which is customized to the typical features of small companies.ResultsThis paper also describes the experience of the application of this methodology in eight small software organizations that took part in the COMPETISOFT project. The results obtained show that this approach allows us to obtain reliable information about the strengths and weaknesses of software processes, along with information to companies on opportunities for improvement.ConclusionThe assessment methodology proposed sets out the elements needed to assist with diagnosing the process in small organizations step-by-step while seeking to make its application economically feasible in terms of resources and time. From the initial application it may be seen that this assessment methodology can be useful, practical and suitable for diagnosing processes in this type of organizations.     

基于CMMI的软件项目风险缓解策略优化模型研究

在基于CMMI的软件工程实践过程中，风险管理被集成在CMMI框架下的第三级，与过程管理融于同一个框架之中。因此，基于CMMI的软件项目风险管理能够得到来自组织的有效信息，使软件开发朝着有规律、可预测的方向发展。本文针对目前基于CMMI的软件项目风险管理尚缺乏有效技术支持的现状，初步探讨了风险响应计划的制定问题，并针对实际提出一种风险缓解策略优化模型，为软件项目管理人员的风险决策提供辅助手段。     

中小软件企业项目风险管理过程的分析与研究

从我国中小软件企业的软件项目管理现状出发,在分析CMMI和其他当前流行的风险管理模型的基础上,提出中小软件企业软件项目风险管理过程的设计思路,为我国中小软件企业的项目风险管理过程提供建议和参考。     

CIP-UQIM: A unified model for quality improvement in software SME's based on CMMI level 2 and 3

ContextSoftware Process Improvement (SPI) is among the most effective ways to improve the quality of software products and services. Despite many research and industrial reports, SPI planning and implementation in Multi-Model Environments (MMEs) still face various issues and difficulties which increase the risk of failure especially for Small and Medium size Enterprises (SMEs). As a popular approach, harmonization techniques are used to meet the MME's specific issues through recognizing the common or similar areas among the implemented models and developing an integrated solution for quality improvement throughout the organization.ObjectiveThis paper has two main objectives: (1) recognizing the set of most popular models used in worldwide harmonization projects and implemented or requested by Iranian software SMEs. (2) Comparing and integrating these models in Process Activity level to develop a unified quality improvement model.MethodA combination of literature review and questionnaire methods was used to identify the set of the most popular models. Then, based on harmonization techniques the common or similar areas among these models are recognized and then an initial version of the Unified Quality Improvement Model (UQIM) is developed, named CIP-UQIM. Next, this initial model was presented in a two-day workshop for SPI experts and it was refined and finalized by incorporating their feedbacks.ResultsInvestigations showed that the set {CMMI-DEV, ISO 9001, and PMBOK} was the most popular. Thus in CIP-UQIM, for the first time, the last version of these models was unified at the activity level details. Finally, the experience of using CIP-UQIM in an Iranian SME has been reported which demonstrate its applicability and advantages.ConclusionConsidering the high similarity among the three models and CIP-UQIM level of details, it can be concluded that CIP-UQIM can be beneficial to resolve or reduce SPI issues in MME's, especially in case of software SMEs.     

Estimating,planning and managing Agile Web development projects under a value-based perspective

ContextThe processes of estimating, planning and managing are crucial for software development projects, since the results must be related to several business strategies. The broad expansion of the Internet and the global and interconnected economy make Web development projects be often characterized by expressions like delivering as soon as possible, reducing time to market and adapting to undefined requirements. In this kind of environment, traditional methodologies based on predictive techniques sometimes do not offer very satisfactory results. The rise of Agile methodologies and practices has provided some useful tools that, combined with Web Engineering techniques, can help to establish a framework to estimate, manage and plan Web development projects.ObjectiveThis paper presents a proposal for estimating, planning and managing Web projects, by combining some existing Agile techniques with Web Engineering principles, presenting them as an unified framework which uses the business value to guide the delivery of features.MethodThe proposal is analyzed by means of a case study, including a real-life project, in order to obtain relevant conclusions.ResultsThe results achieved after using the framework in a development project are presented, including interesting results on project planning and estimation, as well as on team productivity throughout the project.ConclusionIt is concluded that the framework can be useful in order to better manage Web-based projects, through a continuous value-based estimation and management process.     

Selection priority of process areas based on CMMI continuous representation

An essential decision that must be made by software organizations that adopt the continuous representation of the capability maturity model integration (CMMI) for software process improvement concerns a suitable path that best meets their business objectives and mitigates the organization's risk. However, the CMMI models released by the Software Engineering Institute do not give their adopters any guidance on how to make such a decision. Thus, managers often make subjective selections of the areas in which to implement process improvement. Our study presents a decision support model that assists managers in determining the priorities of the CMMI process areas based on the characteristics of the is being developed. The proposed model was validated by using the ISBSG repository, and an example is presented to demonstrate the application of the model. Given the fact that hardly any research has yet been done on how to select the CMMI process areas to initialize process improvement, this study provides a starting point for the community in considering this important issue.     

Software SMEs’ unofficial readiness for CMMI<Superscript>®</Superscript>-based software process improvement

The goal of software process improvement (SPI) is to improve software processes and produce high-quality software, but the results of SPI efforts in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that develop software have been unsatisfactory. The objective of this study is to support the prolific and successful CMMI-based implementation of SPI in SMEs by presenting the facts related to the unofficial adoption of CMMI level 2 process area-specific practices by software SMEs. Two questionnaire surveys were performed, and 42 questionnaires were selected for data analysis. The questionnaires were filled out by experts from 42 non-CMMI-certified software SMEs based in Malaysia and Pakistan. In the case of each process area of CMMI level 2, the respondents were asked to choose from three categories, namely ‘below 50 %,’ ‘50–75 %,’ and ‘above 75 %’. The percentages indicated the extent to which process area-specific practices are routinely followed in the respondents’ respective organizations. To deal with differing standards for defining SMEs, the notion of the common range standard has been introduced. The results of the study show that a large segment of software development SMEs informally follows the specific practices of CMMI level 2 process areas and thus has true potential for rapid and effective CMMI-based SPI. The results further indicate that, in the case of four process areas of CMMI level 2, there are statistically significant differences between the readiness of small and medium software enterprises to adopt the specific practices of those process areas, and between trends on their part to do so unofficially. The findings, manifesting various degrees of unofficial readiness for CMMI-based SPI among SMEs, can be used to define criteria for the selection of SMEs that would be included in SPI initiatives funded by relevant authorities. In the interests of developing fruitful CMMI-based SPI and to enhance the success rate of CMMI-based SPI initiatives, the study suggests that ‘ready’ or ‘potential’ SMEs should be given priority for SPI initiatives.     

Evolving the Project Management Office: A Competency Continuum

Abstract

Many organizations today have recognized the need for a project management office (PMO) to achieve project management oversight, control, and support. the PMO's role is to help both the project manager and the relevant organization to not only understand and apply modern project management practices, but also to adapt and integrate business interests into the organization's project management efforts. This article describes a five-stage competency model for the PMO.