Skip to main content
Log in

Product Focused Software Process Improvement: Concepts and Experiences from Industry

  • Published:
Software Quality Journal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Management problems in the development of software have been addressed over the last years by a strong focus on the improvement of the development processes. Software process improvement (SPI) activities are characterized by an internal focus on a software development department and its procedures. However, the quality of the product is hardly addressed in software process improvement programs. This paper presents the application of a model for product focused SPI (P-SPI) and describes experiences with this model in practice. The main conclusions are that P-SPI puts products to be developed in a central position in improvement programs, results in fulfilling specific quality goals of a company and project, and industrial experiments show interesting benefits. Applying the approach in industrial projects showed that P-SPI is relatively cheap and gives fast results and high benefits.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Basili, V.R. and Rombach, H.D. 1988. The TAME project: Towards improvement oriented software environments, IEEE Trans. Software Eng. 14(6): 758-773.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bach, J. 1994. The immaturity of the CMM, The American Programmer, September.

  • Boegh, J. 1999. Quality evaluation of software products, Software Quality Professional 1: 26-37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, B.W. 1981. Software Engineering Economics, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brinkemper, S. 1996. Method engineering: Engineering of information systems development methods and tools, Information of Software Technology 38: 275-280.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fenton, N.E. and Pfleeger, S.L. 1996. Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach, Thomson Computer Press.

  • Humphery, W.S. 1989. Managing the Software Process, Addison Wesley Publishing Company.

  • ISO/IEC. 1996. ISO 9126: Information Technology—Software Quality Characteristics and Metrics, ISO/IEC.

  • ISO 14598-1. 1999. Information Technology—Software Product Evaluation, Part 1—General Overview, Genève, ISO/IEC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kusters, R.J., van Solingen, R., and Trienekens, J.J.M. 1997. User-perceptions of embedded software quality. Proc. Eighth Int. Workshop on Software Technology and Engineering Practice (STEP'97), London, July 14–18. pp. 184-197.

  • van Latum, F., van Solingen, R., Oivo, M., Hoisl, B., Rombach, D., and Ruhe, G. 1998. Adopting GQMbased measurement in an industrial environment, IEEE Software, January.

  • van Solingen, R. and Berghout, E. 1999. The Goal/Question/Metric Method: A Practical Guide for Quality Improvement of Software Development, McGraw-Hill Publishers, http://www.gqm.nl/.

  • van Solingen, R. and van Uijtregt, S. 1997. Field-testing of embedded software products: Handling paradoxesin practice. Proc. 3rd ENCRESS Conference, Chapman and Hall, ISBN 0412802805.

  • van Solingen, R. 1999. Product focused software process improvement. Thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thayer, R.H. and Dorfman, M. 1997. Software requirementsengineering, IEEE Computer Society.

  • Trienekens, J. 1994. Time for quality: Working towards better information systems (in Dutch), Ph.D. Thesis Eindhoven University of Technology, Thesis Publishers, Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trienekens, J. and Veenendaal, E. 1997. Software Quality from a Business Perspective: Directions and Advanced Approaches, Kluwer Bedrijfsinformatie.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Trienekens, J., Kusters, R. & Van Solingen, R. Product Focused Software Process Improvement: Concepts and Experiences from Industry. Software Quality Journal 9, 269–281 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013715203889

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013715203889

Navigation