Towards Software Excellence - Informal Self-Assessment for Software Developers

“Towards Software Excellence” (TSE) is a web-based process assessment facility established by the UK’s National Computing Centre (NCC). TSE provides software developers with a simple and easy-to-use means of self-assessing the capability of their development processes. They can understand the “good practice” expected by TSE, compare their processes against TSE’s process model, identify their "strengths and weaknesses" and then use this knowledge to improve. TSE is especially suited to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), also to development teams or groups within larger organisations. It can provide a first step towards more formal CMM or SPICEbased assessments. Since 2003, over 1500 TSE assessments have been performed. The database of TSE assessments has been analysed to identify the overall strengths and weaknesses of its users’ processes, as well as which processes and practices are of most interest to them. Good performing processes include Problem Resolution and Project Management, while low performing processes include Measurement and Process Improvement. TSE’s users are most interested in assessing the performance of their “customer-facing” development and acquisition practices and least interested in assessing their improvement and legal practices. Index Terms — Process metrics, Process implementation and change, Process measurement, Qualitative process analysis, Software process models —————————— —————————— 1 BACKGROUND TO THE TSE SCHEME 1.1 Origins Achievement of good practice and effective processes for software development especially by smaller organizations lies at the heart of the Towards Software Excellence (TSE) initiative. Established in 2001 by the UK’s National Computing Centre (NCC), with support from government and industry bodies, TSE provides an informal but systematic process selfassessment tool, as well as related advice and support for process improvement. Accessible over the internet, it is aimed at helping software developers and IT enterprises to understand and assess the capability (“strengths and weaknesses”) of their processes and practices and hence encourage them to improve them further. The process model used by TSE can be traced to the ISO15504 (SPICE) standard [1] or the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) [2], which increasingly are used as the basis of formal software process assessment. Its practices are also consistent with ISO9001 standard [3] as interpreted by the TickIT Guide [4], although the scope is somewhat different. Established in the 1960’s by government, the UK’s National Computing Centre (NCC) is an independent not-forprofit organisation dedicated to improving software and IT practice. QAI Europe Ltd is a small specialist provider of expertise in the application of software process capability models and methods, and helped to define the TSE model. 1.2 What is TSE? TSE comprises two key components, both web-based: • a route map through best practice, based on international software process standards • a self-assessment tool, by which a project, team or group can evaluate and record the capability of its software/IT practice By repeated use of TSE, users can subsequently monitor their progress towards improved process capability and ultimately achieve software excellence. Users can evaluate separate projects, teams or groups to compare performance or highlight differences in effectiveness. Assessments entered by users are held on a central database, from which the tool can creates benchmarks for assessment reports, and analyse the overall performance of TSE users. Individual assessments are confidential and are not available to other TSE users or third parties. 1.3 The Benefits The intended benefits for companies using TSE include: • better understanding of the capability of processes and practices, especially their “strengths and weaknesses” • comparison of their performance with equivalent developers or sectors, by means of TSE’s good practice definitions and benchmarks created from other TSE assessments • provision of an intermediate step towards adopting more formal process capability assessment, in particular the ISO15504 (SPICE) or CMM approaches • a flexible, low cost method of understanding process capability and supporting process improvement, e.g. in demonstrating the “before and after” levels of practice ———————————————— • Dr Kevin Daily is Technical Director of QAI Europe Ltd, PO Box 38, Disley, Cheshire, England SK12 2FR [email protected] • Daniel Dresner is Standards Manager at the National Computing Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester, England M1 7ED. [email protected]. 2 QUATIC’2004 PROCEEDINGS TSE is free from the pressures of certification, and should be seen as complementing existing schemes such as ISO9001/TickIT and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) – it is hoped that TSE will encourage its users to take up such schemes when they feel the time is right and they have the resources available. 1.4 Take-up of TSE The take-up of TSE has been good over 1500 assessments since its release. This is believed to be due to the recognition by software companies of the need to understand and improve their processes and practices, supported by the ease of use of the TSE web site and the low cost of access. Software engineers, project managers, quality specialists and others can “road test” it informally and without needing to obtain approval for the time and resources normally needed to start along the route to formal process assessment.