Making the software factory work: lessons from a decade of experience

At the heart of proposals to use process-oriented techniques for creating organizations that are capable of creating high-quality software at low cost is a focus on software process maturity, organizational learning to foster continuous improvement, and contractual arrangements that support an exclusive focus on software construction activities, as opposed to a broader focus on end-to-end development of an entire product. We study an organization that was to provide fast, low-cost, high-quality software development services to product teams within Lucent Technologies. The vision called for an organization with a culture that is distinct and isolated from the rest of Lucent, characterized by a commitment to a well-defined software development process, use of state-of-the-art technology that fits into the process, and use of various forms of feedback to recognize and take advantage of opportunities for process improvement. The organization has operated for nearly a decade now, and has evolved over the years as the basic principles have been put to the test in actual product development work. We use a rich collection of data from interviews, questionnaires, software metrics and software process assessments to advance our knowledge of how to create and sustain an effective, medium-size process-centered software development organization