Software Process Improvement via ISO 9000? Results of Two Surveys Among European Software Houses

Much has been said andpublished about the advantages and disadvantages of the IS0 9000 family for the sofMare industry. However, there is very little empirical evidence to what extent software process improvements have really been achieved via IS0 9000. This paper presents results of two surveys among European software houses. One of the targets of the studies was to find out whether software companies have actually achieved software process improvements via IS0 9000, The first survey was conducted among twenty German software houses that have received an IS0 9001 certificate. The study focuses on five elements of an IS0 9000 quality system: code reviews and inspections, software testing, product and process measurements, measurement of quality costs, and demonstration of quality improvements. Many software houses included in our first survey have not carried out any modfications of the Jive elements. Thus, it seemed that IS0 9000 had not led to significant improvements. Nevertheless, nearly 100% of the companies would decide in favor of implementing an IS0 9000 quality system once again. We decided to conduct a second study to gain a better understanding of the software process improvements achieved via IS0 9000, We analyzed experience reports and conducted interviews with quality managers ffom a total of 36 European software houses. It turned out that software houses have indeed achieved process improvements. Unfortunately, most sofnvare houses are not able to quantt$ the bene$ts of implementing an IS0 9000 quality system. We identtfted ten key success factors that the respondents of our studies considered to be the most helpful when implementing an IS0 9000 quality system. Astonishingly, only two of the ten factors are explicit requirements of IS0 9001. This shows that it is necessary to implement a more comprehensive approach to achieve substantial software process improvements.