RECENT FINDINGS IN SOFTWARE PROCESS MATURITY

After several years of using the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) software process maturity framework, preliminary data is now available. This paper provides an overview of the SEI methods, summarizes the current data, and discusses the trends and implications of this work. The paper opens with a brief summary of the importance of software to modern society. It then discusses the software process and software process maturity. The principles of software process assessments are next described along with the various assessment types introduced by the SEI. The general state of software practice is then covered, including data on U.S and Japanese software organizations. The paper concludes with some observations on the state of software practice and comments on the rates of organizational improvement.