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Software process improvement is an important activity which starts when an organization plans to enhance/purify the capabilities of its ongoing processes. When improvement or change is planned or started, there are a number of factors which originate and affect the effectiveness of software process improvement. If they are not identified and dealt with proper expertise, they can leave adverse effects in the form of low effectiveness, high cost, low quality etc. Such factors change the intensity or the expected results of software process improvement. It is very important to understand and highlight these factors in order to make the process improvement effective and efficient in an organization during change. This master thesis is written to answer the research questions which elaborate the understanding of software process improvement and factors affecting the software process improvement during change in an organization. Moreover, a systematic review is also performed in identifying and prioritizing the factors which affect the software process improvement activity in change. The outcomes of this research can be helpful in understanding the factors affecting SPI during change.

During the last decades, the dependency on software has increased. Many of today’s modern devices embed software to control their functions. The increasing dependency has also taken part in shaping the software development process to produce better quality software. Many researchers and practitioners have spent large investments to improve the software development process. A research area within software engineering that addresses the assessment and improvement issues in development processes is called Software Process Improvement (SPI). One of the essential aspects in software process improvement is measuring the outcome of the implemented changes. The measurement and evaluation of software process improvement provides the means for the organization to articulate the achievement level of their goals. Although the importance of measuring and evaluating the outcome of software process improvement is paramount, there exist no common guidelines or systematic methods of measuring and evaluating the improvement. This condition evokes difficulties for practitioners to implement software process improvement measurement programs. This issue has raised the challenge to develop and implement an effective framework for measuring and evaluating the outcome of software process improvement initiatives. This thesis presents a measurement and evaluation framework for software process improvement. SPI-MEF provides guidelines in the form of systematic steps to evaluate the outcome of software process improvement. The framework is based on key concepts which were elaborated in previous work. In this thesis, a validation of SPI-MEF is also conducted by involving representatives from academia and industry. The validation is aimed to judge the frameworks’ usability, applicability and usefulness. Finally, a refinement of the framework is carried out based on the input from the validation.

The composition of dairy products can have a significant impact on a dairy manufacturer’s revenue. By including more of the low-value components (water and lactose) and less of the higher value components (fat and protein) in their products, within customer specifications, higher yields and therefore higher revenue can be attained. The purpose of this project was to optimise product composition at Westland Milk Products, and develop procedures for the maintenance of yield reporting.

Project Management is the primary key to successful software development. In 1995 Caper Jones stated that the failure or cancellation rate of large software systems was over 20% in his article on patterns of large software systems. More than two thirds of the projects fail due to improper management of skills, activities, and personnel. One main reason is that software is not a tangible entity and is hard to visualize and hence to monitor. A manager has to be skilled in different CASE tools and technologies to track and manage a software development process successfully. The volume of results produced by these CASE tools is so huge that a high level manager cannot look into all the details. He has to get a high level picture of the project, to know where the project is heading, and if needed, then look into the finer level details by drilling down to locate and correct problems. The objective of this thesis is to build an Advanced Charting System (ACS), which would act as a companion to PAMPA 2 (Project Attribute Monitoring and Prediction Associate) and help a manager visualize the state of a software project over a standard World Wide Web browser. The PAMPA 2 ACS will be responsible for visualizing and tracking of resources, tasks, schedules and milestones of a software project described in the plan. PAMPA 2 ACS will have the ability to depict the status of the project through a variety of graphs and charts. PAMPA 2 ACS implements a novel charting technique called as DOT Chart to track the processes and activities of a software project. PAMPA 2 ACS provides a multilevel view of the project status. PAMPA 2 ACS will be able to track any arbitrary plan starting from a collapsed / concise view of a whole project. This can be further drilled down to the lowest level of detail. The status can be viewed at the project version level, plan and workbreakdown levels, process, sub process, and activity level. Among all the process models, the DOT charts can be applied effectively to spiral process model where each spiral represents a project version.

Production ramp up corresponds to « the period between the end of the production development and the full capacity utilization ». The manufacturing process often does not work perfectly during this early time of the new product production and some adjustments are necessary to obtain full capacity utilization. In order to assess the assembly process during this period, the train manufacturer Bombardier Transportation has created an improvement process called “VPI” (which stands for “Validation du Processus Industriel” or “Validation of the manufacturing process” in English). Its purpose is to “validate the material and the documentation for every movement independently” in order to ensure quality of final product and safety of the workers. It aims at detecting and solving rapidly safety problems and deviation from the normal process. This thesis is a case study of VPI during MI09 contract (new trains for ¨Paris subway). It aims at assessing VPI framework and identifies possible causes of the delay in validation of MI09 production process. Four main MI09 production line specificities have been identified: long assembly time, low production volume, system complexity and process variability. VPI framework meets partially these production line prerequisites. VPI is a process that allows systematizing problems detection, formalizing the improvement process and managing a high number of problems with a clear view of the VPI validation. The most important drawbacks of the VPI seem to be the lack of problems detection after the initial observation, problem definition framework and root cause analysis. Four reasons could explain the delays during the realization of VPI on MI09 contract: undetected problems, normal treatment timeframe for the improvements, inadequate objectives and lack of framework to select the best solution to solve problems. VPI may be improved by including root cause analysis, better problem definition and knowledge management between contracts. However, these methods are time consuming and a prioritization of the problem should be made. FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) methodology may help to identify the problem on which the VPI should focus on.

Project Management is the primary key to successful software development. In 1995 Caper Jones stated that the failure or cancellation rate of large software systems was over 20% in his article on patterns of large software systems. More than two thirds of the projects fail due to improper management of skills, activities, and personnel. One main reason is that software is not a tangible entity and is hard to visualize and hence to monitor. A manager has to be skilled in different CASE tools and technologies to track and manage a software development process successfully. The volume of results produced by these CASE tools is so huge that a high level manager cannot look into all the details. He has to get a high level picture of the project, to know where the project is heading, and if needed, then look into the finer level details by drilling down to locate and correct problems. The objective of this thesis is to build an Advanced Charting System (ACS), which would act as a companion to PAMPA 2 (Project Attribute Monitoring and Prediction Associate) and help a manager visualize the state of a software project over a standard World Wide Web browser. The PAMPA 2 ACS will be responsible for visualizing and tracking of resources, tasks, schedules and milestones of a software project described in the plan. PAMPA 2 ACS will have the ability to depict the status of the project through a variety of graphs and charts. PAMPA 2 ACS implements a novel charting technique called as DOT Chart to track the processes and activities of a software project. PAMPA 2 ACS provides a multilevel view of the project status. PAMPA 2 ACS will be able to track any arbitrary plan starting from a collapsed / concise view of a whole project. This can be further drilled down to the lowest level of detail. The status can be viewed at the project version level, plan and workbreakdown levels, process, sub process, and activity level. Among all the process models, the DOT charts can be applied effectively to spiral process model where each spiral represents a project version.

Lic-avh. Ronneby : Tekn. högsk.

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Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T15:53:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo1924_1.pdf: 3478481 bytes, checksum: a0f58f98b37132402ca52683d62410df (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas / As empresas de software brasileiras buscam conquistar cada vez mais o mercado nacional e internacional, os quais estão mais competitivos. A estratégia viável é investir no aumento da qualidade e produtividade. O foco desse trabalho é investigar fatores relevantes para mensurar o Return on Investment (ROI) em Melhoria de Processo de Software (MPS). Com o objetivo de propor um framework constituído por fases baseado nos conceitos da ROI Methodology, utilizando indicadores utilizados por David Rico em ROI of SPI e uma seleção de medições utilizadas para MPS. As fases são: Identificação do problema; Diagnóstico detalhado; Estimativa de ROI; Implementação e Encerramento. Para cada fase, baseados no paradigma GQM Goal-Question-Metric foram definidos indicadores de medição para monitorar o FROISPI. As quatro primeiras fases seguem o conceito clássico do PDCA, que para cada solução sugerida de melhoria, analisa seus resultados e se os mesmos forem considerados plenamente satisfatórios, seguirá para a fase de Encerramento, caso contrário o processo cíclico continua até a necessidade de melhoria ser satisfeita. Na fase de Encerramento serão apresentados à alta direção os resultados alcançados com a utilização do FROISPI. O experimento foi executado em três organizações de maturidade bem distintas, mas somente uma organização conseguiu concluir com êxito