Continuous software process
improvement (SPI) practices have been extensively prescribed to improve
performance of software projects. However, SPI implementation mechanisms have
received little scholarly attention, especially in the context of distributed
software product development. We took an action research approach to study the
SPI journey of a large multinational enterprise that adopted a distributed
product development strategy. We describe the interventions and action research
cycles enacted over a period of five years in collaboration with the firm,
which resulted in a custom SPI framework that catered to both the social and
technical needs of the firm's distributed teams. Institutionalizing the process
maturity framework got stalled initially because the SPI initiatives were
perceived by product line managers as a mechanism for exercising wider controls
by the firm's top management. The implementation mechanism was subsequently
altered to co-opt product line managers, which contributed to a wider adoption
of the SPI framework. Insights that emerge from our analysis of the firm's SPI
journey pertain to the integration of the technical and social views of
software development, preserving process diversity through the use of a
multi-tiered, non-blueprint approach to SPI, the linkage between key process
areas and project control modes, and the role of SPI in aiding organizational
learning.
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