Applying the Psychometric Theory to Questionnaire-Based Appraisals for Software Process Improvement

Software Process Assessments is a key factor within organizations to determine their current capability/maturity level and to adopt a Software Process Improvement initiative. Their chance of success using a standard model is determined by a reliable assessment of their current processes and in determining which processes need to be improved. However, the current existing automated tools for process assessments, can not verify the authenticity of answers, and are therefore limited in their reliability level depending only on the employees’ responses. This paper presents our research in psychometric theory applied to questionnaire-based appraisals, to determine the feasibility of combining them together in order to develop a reliable assessment mechanism providing more reliable evidence about the organizations’ current maturity/capability level. We have found that current existing tools implicity include some elements of psychometric theory but more can be included. Thus, this paper presents a first attempt to formally integrate the psychometric theory into the questionnaire-based appraisals.