Software Process Asset Management and Deployment in a Multi-Site Organization

Timo Kaltio

Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission for public examination and debate in Auditorium T2 at Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland) on the 26^th of January, 2001, at 12 o'clock noon.

Dissertation in PDF format (ISBN 951-22-5316-X)   [1122 KB]

Dissertation is also available in print (ISBN 951-666-562-4).
Publisher: Finnish Academies of Technology.
Acta Polytechnica Scandinavica, Mathemathics and Computing Series, ISSN 1456-9418, No. 112.

Abstract

During the 1990's, Software Process Improvement gained increasing popularity as a means of improving the quality and efficiency of software engineering. Huge numbers of software process improvement projects started with a successful process assessment, but many of them died during, or soon after, the action planning phase. Organizations were not ready to use the assessment findings. There has to be an existing infrastructure that is capable of carrying out the improvement actions, of packaging and managing the process knowledge, and also of reusing the knowledge through successful process deployment.

SW Process Assets represent Software Engineering Process knowledge in a reusable form. The purpose of SW Process Asset Management is to capture the existing processes, as well as the improvements and changes to these processes, into a set of assets (tools, methods, and process representations) that can be reused in future process instances, to store and maintain these assets, and to make them available for process engineering purposes. The activation of organizational learning is realized through Software Process Deployment. Without success in Process Deployment, other Software Process Improvement activities are of almost no value.

This research studies a case in which the SW Process Asset Management and Deployment system was successfully re-constructed and continuously maintained over a period of more than five years in a large multi-site telecommunications company.

This study report contains a comprehensive description of the system elements. The system consists of three process models and infrastructure elements, which are organization, people, knowledge and technology. The first of the processes is about establishing, maintaining, and managing the system itself. This was found critical for the success of continuous activities. The other two process models are Software Process Asset Management and Software Process Deployment. The activities in these processes are linked to roles in the organization, and people filling those roles need suitable abilities, standing, motivation and time allocation in order to be successful in the task in hand. They use knowledge and technology to perform their activities.

Keywords: software process improvement, process asset management, process deployment, process asset, process modeling, process definition

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© 2001 Helsinki University of Technology