An approach to characterize a software process

Process improvement is a cyclic activity consisting of several phases. According to the quality improvement paradigm, the first phase is characterization. This paper presents a developed methodology for characterizing a software process. The methods include software process assessment and modeling. Using an assessment driven process modeling methodology we can create a descriptive model that characterizes the current process, and a prescriptive model containing improvement suggestions. The selected processes are reviewed and the process components are gathered according to a software engineering process meta-model. The SPICE assessment model is utilized in process reviews. In a case study the methodology is applied to characterize the software process of a small enterprise. The current process is defined and its process capability and product quality are determined. The enterprise´s process guide, the produced work products and the projects workload are analyzed. This paper reports the experiences of using the methodology and presents a way to analyze the implications caused by the differences between the existing process guidance and the actually implemented process.