Software process standardization for distributed working groups

Continuous software process improvement corresponds to one of the major goals of software organizations. Standardization is a necessary prerequisite for software process improvement, but first, it is necessary to understand the restrictions of the development environment. In geographically distributed environments, working groups usually have different characteristics. It is very hard to define a unique and suitable software process. We propose a model to standardize software processes and to support their continuous improvement. An initial software process is defined according to the restrictions of the environment. Then, four other software processes are specialized, each corresponding to a different maturity level. An evaluating process defines the maturity level of each group and verifies whether the working group correctly used its software process. Then, an action list determines activities to be done to continuously improve the software process of each single working group.