A Process Asset Library to support Software Process Improvement in Small Settings

A main factor to the success of any organization process improvement effort is the Process Asset Library implementation that provides a central database accessible by anyone at the organization. This repository includes any process support materials to help process deployment. Those materials are composed of organization's standard software process, software process related documentation, descriptions of the software life cycles, guidelines, examples, templates, and any artefacts that the organization considers useful to help the process improvement. This paper describe the structure and contents of the Web-based Process Asset Library for Small businesses and small groups within large organizations. This library is structured using CMMI as reference model in order to implement those Process Areas described by this model.

Outsource the software process improvement consulting service: An alternative solution for small-settings

The focus of this paper is to outline the main structure of an alternative solution to implement a Software Process Improvement program in Small-Settings using the outsourcing infrastructure. This solution takes the advantages of the traditional outsourcing models and applies its structure to propose an alternative solution to make available a Software Process Improvement program for Small-Settings. With this outsourcing solution it is possible share the resources between several Small-Settings.

A small settings case study using TSPi in a software project

This article introduces a small setting case study about the benefits of using TSPi in a software project. An adapted process from the current process based on the TSPi was defined. The pilot project had schedule and budget constraints. The process began by gathering historical data from previous projects in order to get a measurement repository. The project was launched with the following goals: increase the productivity, reduce the test time and improve the product quality. Finally, the results were analysed and the goals were verified

Benefits of TSPi in a software project under a small settings enviroment

This article presents a case study about the TSPi benefits in a software project under a Small Settings environment. An adapted process based on the TSPi was defined. The pilot project had a schedule and budget restricted. The process began collecting historical projects data in order to get a measure repository. The project was launched defining the following goals: increase the productivity, reduce the test time and improve the product quality. Finally, the results were analysed and the goals were verified.

A software process improvement solution for small and medium-size enterprises

The focus of this paper is to outline the main structure of an alternative software process improvement method for small- and medium-size enterprises. This method is based on the action package concept, which helps to institutionalize the effective practices with affordable implementation costs. This paper also presents the results and lessons learned when this method was applied to three enterprises in the requirements engineering domain.

Metamodelo para la mejora del proceso de gestión de requisitos

El vertiginoso avance de la informática y las telecomunicaciones en las últimas décadas ha incidido invariablemente en la producción y la prestación de servicios, en la educación, en la industria, en la medicina, en las comunicaciones e inclusive en las relaciones interpersonales. No obstante estos avances, y a pesar de la creciente aportación del software al mundo actual, durante su desarrollo continuamente se incurre en el mismo tipo de problemas que provocan un retraso sistemático en los plazos de entrega, se exceda en presupuesto, se entregue con una alta tasa de errores y su utilidad sea inferior a la esperada. En gran medida, esta problemática es atribuible a defectos en los procesos utilizados para recoger, documentar, acordar y modificar los requisitos del sistema. Los requisitos son los cimientos sobre los cuáles se construye un producto software, y sin embargo, la incapacidad de gestionar sus cambios es una de las principales causas por las que un producto software se entrega fuera de tiempo, se exceda en coste y no cumpla con la calidad esperada por el cliente. El presente trabajo de investigación ha identificado la necesidad de contar con metodologías que ayuden a desplegar un proceso de Gestión de Requisitos en pequeños grupos y entornos de trabajo o en pequeñas y medianas empresas. Para efectos de esta tesis llamaremos Small-Settings a este tipo de organizaciones. El objetivo de este trabajo de tesis doctoral es desarrollar un metamodelo que permita, por un lado, la implementación y despliegue del proceso de Gestión de Requisitos de forma natural y a bajo coste y, por otro lado, el desarrollo de mecanismos para la mejora continua del mismo. Este metamodelo esta soportado por el desarrollo herramientas que permiten mantener una biblioteca de activos de proceso para la Gestión de Requisitos y a su vez contar con plantillas para implementar el proceso partiendo del uso de activos previamente definidos. El metamodelo contempla el desarrollo de prácticas y actividades para guiar, paso a paso, la implementación del proceso de Gestión de Requisitos para una Small-Setting utilizando un modelo de procesos como referencia y una biblioteca de activos de proceso como principal herramienta de apoyo. El mantener los activos de proceso bien organizados, indexados, y fácilmente asequibles, facilita la introducción de las mejores prácticas al interior de una organización. ABSTRACT The fast growth of computer science and telecommunication in recent decades has invariably affected the provision of products and services in education, industry, healthcare, communications and also interpersonal relationships. In spite of such progress and the active role of the software in the world, its development and production continually incurs in the same type of problems that cause systematic delivery delays, over budget, a high error rate and consequently its use is lower than expected. These problems are largely attributed to defects in the processes used to identify, document, organize, and track all system's requirements. It is generally accepted that requirements are the foundation upon which the software process is built, however, the inability to manage changes in requirements is one of the principal factors that contribute to delays on the software development process, which in turn, may cause customer dissatisfaction. The aim of the present research work has identified the need for appropriate methodologies to help on the requirement management process for those organizations that are categorised as small and medium size enterprises, small groups within large companies, or small projects. For the purposes of this work, these organizations are named Small-Settings. The main goal of this research work is to develop a metamodel to manage the requirement process using a Process Asset Library (PAL) and to provide predefined tools and actives to help on the implementation process. The metamodel includes the development of practices and activities to guide step by step the deployment of the requirement management process in Small-Settings. Keeping assets organized, indexed, and readily available are a main factor to the success of the organization process improvement effort and facilitate the introduction of best practices within the organization. The Process Asset Library (PAL) will become a repository of information used to keep and make available all process assets that are useful to those who are defining, implementing, and managing processes in the organization.

Omnidirectional bearing-only see-and-avoid for small aerial robots:

Motivated by the growing interest in unmanned aerial system's applications in indoor and outdoor settings and the standardisation of visual sensors as vehicle payload. This work presents a collision avoidance approach based on omnidirectional cameras that does not require the estimation of range between two platforms to resolve a collision encounter. It will achieve a minimum separation between the two vehicles involved by maximising the view-angle given by the omnidirectional sensor. Only visual information is used to achieve avoidance under a bearing-only visual servoing approach. We provide theoretical problem formulation, as well as results from real flight using small quadrotors