Study on acceptance of customised Software Process Improvement (SPI) model for Malaysia's SME

Currently, a number of specific international standards are made available within software engineering discipline to support Software Process Improvement (SPI) such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), ISO/IEC 15504, ISO/IEC 90003 and ISO/IEC 12207. Some suggest on integrating and harmonizing these standards to reduce risks and enhance practicality, however there is no official initiative being made to date to implement this reality. Integrated Software Process Assessment (iSPA) is a proposed initiative being developed on the premise to harmonize and integrate a number of existing software process assessments and practices including improvement standards, models and benchmarks. A survey was conducted on thirty software practitioners to measure the strength and weaknesses of their organization's current software process. The survey also attempts to evaluate the acceptance and needs of implementation of a customized SPI model for Malaysia's SME.

I Introduction

Most of software development companies face problems in their software projects due to lack of implementation of best practices and standards. According to a study by Gartner [1], 50% of all application fails to meet business objectives while 40% of IT projects fail to deliver intended return due to lack of best practices. Without proper software engineering disciplines and practices, the process capability and maturity would not be anticipated and inconsistent across project development and maintenance.