This thesis states the tasks of the analyst: communicating with commercial customer to establish their requirements; reframing those requirements by negotiation in order that programmers can understand it to write the codes efficiently. Soft System Methodology (SSM) is an effective approach to identify the situation of the problem. In my thesis, I will improve a new business – oriented method that is called Process Improvement for Strategic Objectives (PISO) with SSM to make PISO have more efficiency and more quality. My first scientific contribution is to find the relationship between SSM and information system, explore how to adopt Soft System Methodology into a commercial information system analysis. Then I will do detailed research regarding how to improve PISO method with SSM.

Test efficiency measures the cost-effectiveness of a test organisation and it is measured by dividing the number of defects found in a test by the effort needed to perform the test. This thesis project investigated whether the Mobile Positioning Centre (MPC) site at Ericsson AB could improve their test efficiency or not. The purpose of the project was to identify areas that could increase the test efficiency by investigating state of the art literature and evaluating the test process at MPC. The evaluation identified unit testing and debugging as the areas at MPC where the test efficiency could be increased the most. The project work resulted in an implementation proposal containing a number of actions that would increase the test efficiency at MPC. Primarily, the actions comprised an improved test tool environment; both enhancements for the existing tools and design suggestions for new test tools. The implementation proposal also included suggestions for how to integrate the test tool improvements with the organisation and processes at MPC. / Uppsatsen utvärderar testprocessen på en Ericsson site (the Mobile Positioning Centre).

La investigación se desarrolló en una empresa productora y comercializadora de todo tipo de conservas a base de diversos pescados, dentro de su oferta tienen diversas presentaciones, una de ellas son las conservas de caballa. Precisamente en esta línea de producción se presentaba el problema a resolver: excesivo tiempo muerto en el traslado manual del producto, mediante coches, de la línea a la autoclave. Este proyecto se enfocó específicamente en mejorar el proceso productivo, reduciendo tiempos en la producción de la elaboración de la caballa, implementando una paletizadora y modificando el coche a estibar que pasa a la autoclave. Con esta mejora, se ha logrado reducir en un 93% el llenado de coche de autoclave. The research was conducted at a producer and marketer of all kinds of canned fish using diverse within its range they have different presentations, one of which is canned mackerel. Precisely in this production line was presented the problem to solve: excessive downtime in the manual transfer of the product by car, line the autoclave. This project is specifically focused on improving the production process, reducing time in the production of mackerel developing, implementing and modifying palletizing stow the car passing the autoclave. With this improvement, it has been reduced by 93% the car filled autoclave.

Software Process Improvement initiatives have been implemented by many companies in order to achieve quality of products and practices. Many models like CMMI and IDEAL have been adopted as a means to gain competitive advantages among competitors and trustworthiness of customers. Although these models have proved successful results, the inherent characteristics of SMEs make it difficult and in many cases unfeasible to implement such models, without meaning that those companies are less capable of producing quality products or adopting well-defined practices. This research presents a model to guide Software Process Improvement (SPI) according to the context of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) using the Open Maturity Model (OMM) elaborated by the QualiPSo consortium. Different literature reviews, a survey and a focus group were done in order to build the theoretical foundations that support the structure of the proposed SPI model, validate the findings and evaluate the resulting SPI model. SPI in SMEs, CMMI implementations in SMEs, issues affecting SPI programs, and Knowledge Management approaches supporting improvement of software processes and practices are the four main pillars of the theoretical background supporting the design of the proposed SPI model, which is the major outcome of this thesis project and is aimed to guide SPI programs considering OMM assessment results. The proposed SPI model was subject of a preliminary evaluation with researchers and a validation with practitioners. The results have confirmed that SPI outcomes are more valuable when business requirements and SPI objectives are chosen to drive the improvement actions. The importance of organizational awareness and the value of knowledge management strategies to mitigate potential problems faced when implementing SPI has also been highlighted when evaluating the model.

Software process improvement (SPI) is generally associated with large organizations. Large organizations have the possibilities to fund software process improvement programs as large scale activities. Often these improvement programs do not show progress until some time has elapsed. The Capability Maturity Model can take one year to implement and not until then can measures be made to see how much quality increased. Small organizations do not have the same funding opportunities but are still in need of software process improvement programs. Generally it is better to initiate a software process improvement program as early as possible, no matter what size of organization. Although the funding capabilities for small organizations are less compared to large organizations, the total required funding will still be smaller than in large organizations. The small organization will grow and overtime become a midsized or large organization, so by starting an improvement program at an early stage the funding overall should be minimized. This becomes more visible when the organization has grown large. This master thesis presents the idea of implementing a software process improvement program, or at least parts of it, by evaluating the software project. By evaluating a project the specific needs that are most critical are implemented in the next project. This process is iterated for each concluded project. The master thesis introduces the Iterating Evaluation Model based on an interview survey. This model is compared to an already existing model, the Experience Factory.

Avoidable rework constitutes a large part of development projects, i.e. 20-80 percent depending on the maturity of the organization and the complexity of the products. High amounts of avoidable rework commonly occur when having many faults left to correct in late stages of a project. In fact, research studies indicate that the cost of rework could be decreased by up to 30-50 percent by finding more faults earlier. However, since larger software systems have an almost infinite number of usage scenarios, trying to find most faults early through for example formal specifications and extensive inspections is very time-consuming. Therefore, such an approach is not cost-effective in products that do not have extremely high quality requirements. For example, in market-driven development, time-to-market is at least as important as quality. Further, some areas such as hardware dependent aspects of a product might not be possible to verify early through for example code reviews or unit tests. Therefore, in such environments, rework reduction is primarily about finding faults earlier to the extent it is cost-effective, i.e. find the right faults in the right phase. Through a set of case studies at a department at Ericsson AB, this thesis investigates how to achieve early and cost-effective fault detection through improvements in the test process. The case studies include investigations on how to identify which improvements that are most beneficial to implement, possible solutions to the identified improvement areas, and approaches for how to follow-up implemented improvements. The contributions of the thesis include a framework for component-level test automation and test-driven development. Additionally, the thesis provides methods for how to use fault statistics for identifying and monitoring test process improvements. In particular, we present results from applying methods that can quantify unnecessary fault costs and pinpointing which phases and activities to focus improvements on in order to achieve earlier and more cost-effective fault detection. The goal of the methods is to make organizations strive towards finding the right fault in the right test phase, which commonly is in early test phases. The developed methods were also used for evaluating the results of implementing the above-mentioned test framework at Ericsson AB. Finally, the thesis demonstrates how the implementation of such improvements can be continuously monitored to obtain rapid feedback on the status of defined goals. This was achieved through enhancements of previously applied fault analysis methods. / Avhandlingen handlar om hur en mjukvaruutvecklingsorganisation kan hitta fel tidigare i utvecklingsprocessen. Fokus ligger på att hitta rätt fel i rätt fas, d.v.s. när det är som mest kostnadseffektivt. Avhandlingen presenterar en samling fallstudier utförda inom detta området på Ericsson AB. Nyckelord: processförbättring, felanalys, tidig feldetektering

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a crucial part of any product management and product development activity, and as such deficiencies in the RE process may have severe consequences. There are reports from industry that point towards inadequate requirements being one of the leading sources for project failure. Software Process Improvement (SPI) is generally seen as the main tool to address process deficiencies in general and within RE. Assessments lead to establishing plans for improvements that are subsequently implemented and evaluated, and then the SPI cycle starts again, in an optimal case being incremental and continuous. Most well known SPI frameworks, e.g. CMM, CMMI, SPICE and QIP, are based on these general principles. There are however several factors that can have a negative impact on SPI efforts in general, and in the case of SPI targeted at RE in particular. Time and cost are two fundamental factors that can effectively “raise the bar” for SPI efforts being initiated at all. This is the particular case for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) with limited resources, and a limited ability to wait for the return on their investment. Other issues include commitment and involvement in the SPI work by the ones affected by the changes, coverage of the RE area in SPI frameworks, and the ability to focus improvements to areas where they are needed the most. The research presented in this thesis is based on actual needs identified in industry, and all of the proposed solutions have also been validated in industry to address issues of applicability and usability. In general, the goal of the research is to “lower the bar”, i.e. enabling SMEs to initiate and perform SPI activities. It is accomplished through the presentation and validation of two assessment methods that targets RE, one aimed at both fast and low-cost benchmarking of current practices, and the other designed to produce tangible improvement proposals that can be used as input to an improvement activity, i.e. producing a relatively accurate assessment but taking limited time and resources into account. Further, to offer a structured way in which SMEs can focus their SPI efforts, a framework is introduced that can be used to package improvement proposals with regards to their relative priority taking dependencies into account. This enables SMEs to choose what to do first based on their needs, as well as a way to control time to return on their investment by controlling the size of the undertaking. As a result of industry validation of the assessment method and packaging framework, several improvement proposals were identified and prioritized/packaged. As a part of a process improvement effort (based on an improvement proposal package) an RE model was developed that was appropriate for SMEs faced with a market-driven product centered development situation. The model, called Requirements Abstraction Model (RAM), addresses the structuring and specification of requirements. The main feature of the model is that it not only offers a structured way in which requirements can be specified, but it also takes a requirement’s abstraction level into account, using abstraction for the work-up instead of putting all requirements in one repository independent of abstraction level. The RAM was developed to support primarily the product management effort, recognizing that RE from this perspective is not project initiated but rather project initiating. The model assists product managers to take requirements on varying abstraction levels and refining them to the point of being good-enough to offer decision support for management, and at the same time being good-enough for project initiation. The main contribution of the thesis is to present SMEs with “tools” that help them commit to and perform SPI activities. Moreover, the thesis introduces the RAM model that was developed based on needs identified in industry, and subsequently piloted in industry to assure usability.

Software process improvements are required to increase the productivity of software companies. Generally, it is the aim to increase the quality of the produced software and to keep budget and time. Quality models for software process improvements were developed in context of large organisations and multi-national companies. In this study I investigated how software process improvements are done in a small software company. Ethnography was used as research method. It was the aim of this study to build up an understanding of how software process improvements are done and enabled in a small organisation. Fieldnotes were taken and later analysed using template analysis. Ethnography as the chosen research strategy proved to be applicable and feasible in software engineering research. The qualitative research strategy resulted in a detailed description of how one software company did software process improvements from a bottom-up perspective. Despite the learning potential of "how real world contingencies and possibilities interact and shape software process improvement efforts", such descriptions are rare in software engineering literature. Based on the field experiences and the analysed fieldnotes, the following results were identified: In the studied small software organisation, software process improvement efforts were pushed by the initiative of single employees. The studied company did not have enough resources to implement a complete quality model. In addition, management was heavily involved in daily work and therefore had not enough time to initiate and lead software process improvement efforts. For small software companies in a similar situation, the following guidelines can be given: First, a bottom-up approach with delegating responsibility from management to selected employees is needed. Second, management must ensure to be available if decisions must be taken. Third, improvements must be visible and feedback must be provided contemporary to gain momentum in the whole improvement effort. In some cases it might be important to create awareness of possible improvements. Here, employees should create internal lobbies by involving and convincing other employees of the improvement's importance. A joined effort will help to create enough pressure for change, so that improvement efforts get started. / Please review the chosen subjects! I'm not sure, if I have done this correctly. My thesis touches all those parts, still it is not a complete sociological study. Besides email you can reach me by phone (Germany, mobile): +49 163 4016393

Business process improvement for increased product quality is of continuous importance in the software industry. Quality managers in this sector need effective, hands-on tools for decision-making in engineering projects and for rapidly spotting key improvement areas. Measurement programs are a widespread approach for introducing quality improvement in software processes, yet employing all-embracing state-of-the art quality assurance models is labor intensive. Unfortunately, these do not primarily focus on measures, revealing a need for an instant and straightforward technique for identifying and defining measures in projects without resources or need for entire measurement programs. This thesis explores and compares prevailing quality assurance models using measures, rendering the Measurement Discovery Process constructed from selected parts of the PSM and GQM techniques. The composed process is applied to an industrial project with the given prerequisites, providing a set of measures that are subsequently evaluated. In addition, the application gives foundation for analysis of the Measurement Discovery Process. The application and analysis of the process show its general applicability to projects with similar constraints as well as the importance of formal target processes and exhaustive project domain knowledge among measurement implementers. Even though the Measurement Discovery Process is subject to future refinement, it is clearly a step towards rapid delivery of tangible business performance indicators for process improvement. / Vikten av förbättringar i affärsprocesser i syfte att öka produktkvaliteten i mjukvaruindustrin ökar stadigt. Kvalitetsansvariga i industrin behöver effektiva och påtagliga verktyg för beslutsfattande i utvecklingsprojekt och för lokalisering av förbättringsområden. Mätningsprogram är en utbredd ansats för kvalitetsförbättring i mjukvaruprocesser men användning av heltäckande kvalitetsmodeller är resurskrävande. Dessa fokuserar inte primärt på mätpunkter vilket blottar behovet av en snabb och direkt teknik för identifiering och definiering av mätpunkter i projekt som saknar resurser eller behov av heltäckande mätningsprogram. Denna uppsats undersöker och jämför rådande kvalitetssäkringsmodeller med mätpunkter, vilket resulterar i Measurement Discovery Process utifrån valda delar av PSM- och GQM-modellerna. Processen appliceras på ett industriellt projekt med nämnda förutsättningar, vilket skapar en uppsättning mätpunkter som sedan utvärderas. Detta ligger även till grund för utvärdering av Measurement Discovery Process. Appliceringen och utvärderingen av processen synliggör dess generella applicerbarhet på projekt med liknande begränsningar såväl som vikten av formella processer i målprojektet och omfattande domänkunskap hos de som implementerar mätningarna. Measurement Discovery Process är föremål för framtida förbättringar men samtidigt ett tydligt steg mot snabbt framtagande av konkreta prestandamått för kvalitetsförbättring i affärsprocesser. / Mattias Axelsson: +46 708 67 53 81 Johan Sonesson: +46 709 72 74 30 / +46 40 12 48 03

Abstract Software has become an important part of our everyday life in the form of various information processing intensive products and services. The number of companies producing software has risen considerably and at the same time competition between software businesses has greatly intensified. During the last decades software process improvement (SPI) has been recognized as a usable possibility to increase the quality of software development. Implemented SPI investments have often indicated increased process capabilities as well. Recently more attention has been focused on the costs of SPI as well as on the cost-effectiveness and productivity of software development, although the roots of economic-driven software engineering originate from the very early days of software engineering research. This research tries to advance the concepts, principles and practical methods of economic-driven software engineering by associating them with SPI concepts, theories and software process assessment methods, in particular, capability-maturity -based assessment methods. This is done in part by presenting an analysis of the economic-driven view of software development and in part by discussing the SPI context and cost-efficiency characteristics. As a result of this analysis work, a value-based approach is adopted in the study, involving definition of the essential concepts of value, cost and worth in software development. These definitions originate from the Value Engineering (VE) method, originally applied and developed for the needs of the production industry. Therefore, for the purposes of this study these concepts are firstly justified and secondly defined. In order to study and evaluate the value-based approach, a method called value assessment is developed and later on also combined with capability-maturity -based assessment and called the Value Enhanced Assessment (VEA) method. The combination is seen to respond even better to the overall challenges of software development and SPI. Although VEA is used here only for research purposes, it is a rational outcome of the value-based approach and developed in the context of the BOOTSRAP software process assessment method. The results show that even though there is still much to do in making the economic-driven view complete in software engineering, the value-based approach outlines a way towards a more comprehensive understanding of it. In addition, value-based methods are most likely to be needed to complete existing capability-maturity -based assessment methods, such as BOOTSTRAP.