A recent trend in the computer field has been the recognition of software
development as a process that can be documented, controlled, and improved.
Industry, in general, has seen the introduction of process improvement models,
such as TQM and ISO 9000, that provide guidelines for improving the product
development process in order to enhance product quality and increase customer
satisfaction. The software industry has not been immune to the improvement trend,
and several models specific to the software process have been introduced in the US
and abroad. One of these models is the Software Engineering Institutes (SEI)
Capability Maturity ModelSM for Software, or CMMSM. The CMM is now being used
worldwide by both industry and government agencies and has become a de-factor
standard in the software engineering community.
Ms. Johnson and Ms. Brodman will briefly discuss the CMM and then present
results of the research that they performed on organizations using the CMM as a
model for their software process improvement efforts. The organizations with
which they worked included software organizations that were small of had small
projects and that were encountering difficulties applying the CMM because of
their size. Ms. Johnson and Ms. Brodman will discuss both the issues that these
small groups face when using the CMM and the tailoring that they performed on the
CMM to meet the needs of these groups.
Ms. Johnson and Ms. Brodman will also discuss their investigation into the
return-on-investment (ROI) for software process improvements based on the
CMM. Little data has been published on the returns for the significant
investments that software organizations are making in their improvement
programs. Ms. Johnson and Ms. Brodman not only uncovered data that exists on
the benefits of software process improvement, but they also characterized
process improvement trends that provide valuable guidance to organizations
initiating improvement programs.
Ms. Johnson and Ms. Brodman work with software organizations that are
experiencing problems introducing software process improvement initiatives
into their organizations. Their unique expertise was gained through their
research, performed for the US Air Force, on the return-on-investment (ROI)
from software process improvement initiatives and on the issues facing
organizations in their improvement efforts.
Ms. Johnson and Ms. Brodman are in the process of publishing The LOGOS
Tailored CMM and are working on two additional books which address
documentation shortcuts and process improvement aids. They have published
articles and presented at conferences world-wide on small organization and
small project software process improvement issues and on the ROI for
CMM-based process improvement.
Ms. Johnson and Ms. Brodman are President and CEO, respectively, of LOGOS
International, Inc. Ms. Johnson is Chair of the Boston SPIN and Ms. Brodman
is the author of the Dear SPIN Doctor column in the Boston SPIN Newsletter.
Ms. Johnson has a B.A. in Mathematics and an M.S. in Applied Mathematics; Ms.
Brodman has a B.S. in Mathematics and an M.S. in Computer Engineering.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CREST home page | News | Research | Seminar Series | Publications | Feedback |