Journals Proceedings

Abstract

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 using ethnography. 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. 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.