The effects of software processes on meeting targets and quality

Firms developing sojtware face increasing pressures to improve product quality, productivity, time to market, and customer satisfaction. As projects increase in size and complexity, and competition grows, firms are reengineering their sofnyare processes. They are adopting more intensive procedures for requirements management, project planning, defect tracking, configuration management, and design and code inspections, and so forth. To explore the potential eflectiveness of these efforts, we conducted a survey of senior practitioners at the 1993 Software Engineering Process Group National Meeting. The survey asked participants about the processes followed on, and the outcome of a specific software project. Certain practices, notably project planning and cross functional teams, were consistently associated with favorable outcomes. Based on the survey results, other practices may have little impact on project outcomes.