FQMaP: Towards a Framework Quantitative Management of Processes in Small Software Development Organizations

Abstract

Software development organizations need to control and improve their practices, seeking to reduce variability when executing the necessary processes to elaborate software; therefore, these organizations implement improvement plans to identify factors that affect the processes. Quantitative Management deals with identification, tracing, and control of those incident factors, using data proactively to predict performance and the effect of possible changes in a process. Reference models in software processes development such as CMMI V2.0 and ISO/IEC 33061:2021 address Quantitative Management, but are aimed at big enterprises. Other models such as MoProSoft, COMPETISOFT, and MPS.BR are aimed at small enterprises, but do not include enough elements on Quantitative Management. Execution of a systematic literature review permitted searching for works on Quantitative Management intended for small software development enterprises, indicating necessary practices and how to perform them. This search showed that a proposal is not available that incorporates Quantitative Management practices for software processes aimed small software development enterprises. The referred aspects make it difficult to adopt a Quantitative Management culture within these organizations, it which has become a problem, consisting in that small software development enterprises that do not execute quantitative management practices will have difficulty identifying and focusing on the factors that impact the process performance and, therefore, on the results of their projects. This work sought to tackle this problem by proposing the “framework for quantitative management of processes in small software development organizations” (FQMaP), which allows incorporating practices and techniques that support Quantitative Management of software development processes in these kinds of enterprises. From the evaluation of FQMaP, carried out by following Focus Group technique guidelines, it can be demonstrated that it is a simple proposal and with elements that can serve a company to quantitatively manage software development processes. Also, it has clearly specified its components, showing that its structure is familiar with other process patterns, that would facilitate their interpretation.