Expected Requirements in Support Tools for Software Process Improvement in SMEs

Nowadays being competitive is an important challenge for software development organizations. In order to achieve this, since last years, software process improvement has been an obvious and logical way. Unfortunately, even when many organizations are motivated to implement software process initiatives, not all know how best to do so, especially in Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs) where due to its especial features, they have to be carefully in how to manage its resources to assure their market survival. Besides, even when there has been developed models which pretend to helps SMEs in the implementation of software process improvements, one of the main barrier that stopping SME's to implement software process improvements are the lack of knowledge and support of software process improvement. This paper presents an analysis of software process improvement at SMEs focusing on identifying on the one hand, SMEs features and success factors in the implementation of SPI initiatives. On the other hand, the expected requirements in a software tool focus on providing support for SMEs in the implementation of software process improvements initiatives (SPI).