Mechanism design for total quality management: Using the bootstrap algorithm for changing the control game

When starting the software process improvement (SPI) journey, there are many SPI standards toselect from. Selecting good SPI standards can be a technical problem, from a software engineeringpoint of view, but it can also be a political problem, some standards fitting more with internal politicalagendas than others. As it is well-known that SPI without management commitment can havedisastrous effects on SPI, so can also be the consequence of selecting standards that are technicallyunfit. The dilemma on how to select SPI standards provides a picture of SPI as a political game playedout between managers, software engineers and SPI people. Starting with SPI from the viewpoint ofcontrol theory, the paper identifies different conflict situations within the control theory framework,and suggests using game theory and drama theory for finding optimal control strategies. Dramatheory is further explored through a SPI case study that illustrates how SPI standards stabilize in spiteof conflicts and social disaster. The contribution of the paper consists of introducing the concept of‘evolutionary drama theory’ (derived from evolutionary game theory, EGT) as a tool for describingand analysing how an artefact like a SPI standard evolves towards equilibrium (evolutionary stablestrategy, ESS) by looking at repeated dramas where equilibriums may not necessarily be found or, iffound, may not necessarily fit with the ESS.