The purpose of this exploratory survey is to understand how software process descriptions are developed and used by software practitioners. A software process description is a representation of a software process created to facilitate process enactment and evaluation, and to serve as a medium for communicating software process information.

In this exploratory survey, we asked participants to answer seven questions related to software process descriptions in their organisation.

Five questions are about how software practitioners develop and use process descriptions in their organizations, one question is specifically on the factors that make process descriptions usable and the last questions is about the willingness of the respondents to involve and contribute to our research.

The questionnaire survey have been distributed at the Fifth Australia Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) Conference, 28-31 August 2007.

The questions and the answers of the survey are:

 1. Does your organisation use software process descriptions?

Yes (93%), No (7%)

 2.  Did your organisation develop the software process descriptions internally?

Yes (86%), No (14%)

 3.  Did your organization refer to any software process metamodels (e.g. SPEM) as a reference? 

Yes (64%), No (29%), No Answer (7%)

• Some respondents use their company’s metamodel.

• Some respondents misunderstood this question by naming their metamodel as CMMI, RUP, or ISO 9000.

4.  Does your organisation use software process descriptions provided by a vendor?

Yes (7%), No (93%)

5.  If your organisation does not use any software process descriptions, how do you convey process information?

     The methods to convey process information are:

• By using process descriptions provided by external consultants.

• By using verbal communication and email to convey process information.

• By using tool workflow diagram.

• By using a requirement capturing template developed in-house based on best practices from CMMI, PMBOK, ITIL etc.

• By using meetings, brown bag sessions and browsing company sites to convey process information.

6.  In your opinion, what key factors make a software process description usable?  

    The factors listed by the respondents were:

• Minimal information

• Content – needs to be clear - explain to team on how to use and their purpose.

• Immediately available – accessable in work environment.

• Multiple versions for different project types (e.g. safety critical, small, customer-driven, embedded).

• Customizable – able to suit process to the project.

• Can be changed by practitioners over time

• Repeatable

• Reusable

• Simple

• Not complex

• Easy to understand

• Realization

• Clear and unambiguous

• Easy to implement

• Easy to administration

• Reporting

• Relevant

• Consider local situation by taking input from software engineers

• Software engineers have same understanding

• Own by the whole organization – not limited to process group only

• Use understandable terminology

• Perform audit review /assessment to process description from time to time

• Metrics to measure

• Tailorable – to any project and to any existing methodology in organisation.

• Provide help desk

• Provide feedback mechanism