Considering People CMM for Managing Factors that Affect Software Process Improvement

In the literature about software process improvement there are a number of papers that identify success factors and barriers to such initiatives, but those works do not analyze or propose possible organizational actions to manage them. The implementation of improvements to software practices and processes is a particular case of organizational change, and as in any proposed change, human resources are usually the key parameter for its successful implementation. On its side, the People CMM model is a roadmap for implementing management practices of human resources that contributes to continuously improve the capacity of the workforce of an organization. From a systematic literature review a long list of success factors, barriers, motivators and de-motivator was obtained, which were grouped into 23 categories based on the similarity of the concepts underlying each factor. Eleven of these categories can be related to process areas of People CMM, according to the criteria that, given a category of factors, there exists one or more process areas of People CMM that, for its purposes and objectives, the implementation of its associated practices can help to strengthen the success factors and motivators, and to mitigate the resistance factors, barriers and de-motivators associated with that category. Based on this analysis, this article proposes to consider the People CMM model as a framework around which to implement organizational actions to manage the success factors and barriers that influence a software process improvement initiative.