Using a web-based tool to define and implement software process improvement initiatives in a small industrial setting

Top-down process improvement approaches provide a high-level model of what the process of a software development organisation should be. Such models are based on the consensus of a designated working group on how software should be developed or maintained. They are very useful in that they provide general guidelines on where to start improving, and in which order, to people who do not know how to do it. However, the majority of models have only worked in scenarios within large companies. The authors aim to help small software development organisations adopt an iterative approach by providing a process improvement web-based tool. This study presents research into a proposal which states that a small organisation may use this tool to assess and improve their software process, identifying and implementing a set of agile project management practices that can be strengthened using the CMMI-DEV 1.2 model as reference.