An experience: a small software company attempting to improve its process

The Capability Maturity Model for software (CMM/sup SM/) has been used by many organizations as a framework for improving the software development process. However, small organizations have encountered difficulties applying the CMM, since some of its key practices are inappropriate to their software projects. Thus, LOGOS/sup 2/ international has derived a tailored version of the CMM for small businesses, organizations, and projects. This study presents the practices of a small organization (Winapp) attempting to improve its software process. The improvement practices were implemented on a needs basis, and business priorities, without using any proven framework. In this paper we compare the practices before and after the improvements based on developers perceptions of team performance. The results from this study suggest that Winapp has obtained substantial gains from its process improvement, since it has improved the perceived quality of the product delivered for projects of larger size, with greater complexity and constraints.