Overview of Software Process Improvement

CHAPTER 1:OVERVIEW OF SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

 MOTIVATION FOR SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

Software is at the heart of modern businesses and is existing in or spreading throughout society. New technologies such as World Wide Web and mobile phones have transformed our lives and software is an integral part of these technologies. Companies have changed their way of doing business to take advantage of new technologies and major changes have been made to the business processes in banks, insurance companies and travel industry. Modern automobiles use software to enhance the driving experience and the software is used to fly planes safely around the world. Software is used to control nuclear power stations as well as missiles and defense systems; it is used to control manufacturing plants, and every item including televisions, washing machines. The success of a business today is highly influenced by the functionality and quality of software that is being used. The software used should be safe, reliable, and of high quality for it to be used. Software process improvement (SPI) has received much attention in both academia and industry. SPI aims to improve the effectiveness of the software development process. Several different approaches have been developed for SPI, including the SEI's Capability Maturity Model (CMM), more recently the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and ISO's SPICE. Research shows that the effort put into these approaches can assist in producing high quality software.

 DEFINITON OF SOTWARE PROCESS AND SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

A software development process is a structure imposed on the development of a software product. Synonyms include software life cycle and software process. There are several models for such processes, each describing approaches to a variety of tasks or activities that take place during the process OR a set of partially ordered process steps, with sets of related products, human and computerized resources, organizational structures and constraints, intended to produce and maintain the requested software products. WHILE SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination) is an international framework for assessment of software processes developed jointly by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission). SPICE is specified in ISO/IEC 15504, it is also known as a set of technical standards documents for the computer software development process and related business management functions. It is another joint International Organization for Standardization and International Electrotechnical Commission standard.

 BENEFITS OF SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

• Process improvement is intended to reduce and eliminate