Critical success factors for conducting Software Process Improvement in Very Small Entities

Sammanfattning: Background. It is significant to constantly change and improve the software process to thrive in the software market with rapidly changing requirement and situation. However, very small entities(VSEs) have difficulties to adopt software process improvement that have played an important role in software market, because they usually have some unique characteristics, such as informal and fewer documents, tight budget, and less human resources. Therefore, we believe it is necessary to study factors that are crucial to successful conducting SPI, to help inexperienced VSEs with limited resource implement SPI with reasonable cost. Objectives. The overall aim of our research is to analyse critical success factors about successfully conduct software process improvement for Very Small Entities. The objectives are based on the aim as following: 1) Identifying the special characteristics of VSEs which related to conducting SPI, 2) Identifying the state-of-the-art critical success factors when VSEs conducting SPI both in literature and practice: verifying and prioritizing the factors, and 3) Investigating the strategies that VSEs can take in order to successfully implement SPI. Methods. In order to investigate the critical factors and barriers need to focus and avoid during the improvement, we implemented a systematic literature review as the first phase. Then a survey questionnaire as the second phase to validate the results gained from the systematic literature review through consulting industrial software engineers. Results. The final result includes 80 success factors which have been mentioned at least once in the primary studies, a few characteristics of VSEs and strategies for SPI in VSEs. Among the 80 factors, we chose 29 factors as CSFs that were mentioned more than three times, then selected the first 15 CSFs as survey questions material. Through the survey, we gathered the evaluation of all factors from two areas and some suggestion or opinion of SPI in VSEs, explained the 29 CSFs and two ranking tables about top factors from the SLR and the survey, discussed 14 CSFs from both ranking tables, then provided specific strategies for each of the common 8 factors. Conclusions. For helping VSEs that intend to conduct SPI with limited resources, we answered our research questions through SLR and Survey, found 29 state-of-the-art success factors of SPI in VSEs, ranked 15 of them and provided a description, discussion, and strategies. Selected and prioritised success factors would be supportive for VSEs to ration their budget. Furthermore, we hope we can inspire VSEs who are having trouble to implement SPI by providing strategies.