Towards Successful Software Process Improvement Initiatives: Experiences from the Battlefield

Required) Over the past years Brazil has done significant investments in software process improvement. Among them, the long term MPS.BR program focuses on improving the software process quality of Brazilian companies. This paper describes the successful software process improvement (SPI) initiative that is being developed in Brazil, called the MPS.BR program, including its software process improvement reference model (MR-MPS-SW) and the most important results accomplished to date. Our results include the analysis of the iMPS family of surveys, and lessons learned that are valuable to the SPI community. The results and benefits presented can be useful to researchers, practitioners and decision makers in Government, University, and Industry interested in SPI and software industry competitiveness. Moreover, the benefits presented can motivate organizations to engage on MPS model SPI initiatives as a mean to improve the quality of their software.