Software Process Improvement in Geant4

Applying a Software Process Improvement (SPI) program to GEANT4 [1] represents a rather challenging task, both in terms of software development and organisational matters. The complexity of the software involved, the wide areas of application of the software product, the huge amount of code and Category complexity, and the size and distributed nature of the Collaboration itself are all ingredients which involve and correlate together many aspects of SPI. In addition, different levels of application of an SPI program must be considered, according to the status of each Category Domain component. Although in production and available to the public since December 1998, the GEANT4 software product includes some Category Domains which are still under active development. Therefore they require different treatment in terms of improvement of the development cycle, system testing and user support. This document summarises the current status of the SPI program applied to GEANT4 and initiated last year, as part of the project’s milestones for years 2000 and 2001.