Critical Factors Affecting Personal Software Processes

0 7 4 0 7 4 5 9 / 0 0 / $ 1 0 . 0 0 © 2 0 0 0 I E E E For an organization to improve the quality of its software products and processes, it is important that individual developers have disciplined personal processes.2 We can observe the performance of an individual’s software process through particular attributes, such as lines of code developed per hour (LOC/hour) or number of defects per thousand lines of code. Clearly, to better understand an individual’s processes and therefore control and improve such processes, knowing the specific attributes of personal software processes should interest the individual and the organization alike. For example, what factors in an individual’s process are likely to impact his or her productivity? With such knowledge, we can then focus on relevant factors during personal process improvement, instead of floundering on a multitude of fuzzy factors. This article discusses the results of an experiment we conducted at McGill University to study the critical factors affecting personal processes.