Blockchain-Based Software Process Improvement (BBSPI): An Approach for SMEs to Perform Process Improvement

Progressively, Software development organizations are investing their resources, time and, money on Software Process Improvement (SPI) since it is beneficial in the enhancement of product quality, reduction in development time, and cost of software projects. However, the existing methodologies and approaches are time-consuming and costly and their major focus is on the SPI of Large Scale Enterprises (LSEs) therefore, we are introducing blockchain in SPI to overcome its major issues such as reliance on a central body of standardization for certification, knowledge management, high cost, resource management and change in organizational culture, etc. We have performed an exploratory case study to identify the different barriers of traditional SPI approaches. To overcome the identified issues, we have proposed and implemented a new approach by performing two case studies. The first case study was performed to identify the barriers in traditional SPI approaches and the second case study was performed to validate our proposed approach. We have performed our experiments on 55 representatives of 50 organizations. According to the results of proposed approach 56.4% of the population agreed that the SPI cost will decrease, 61.8% agreed that time of SPI will decrease and 60.3% of the population agreed that BBSPI will decrease resource utilization. Moreover, 69.1% of the population agreed with the fact that proposed BBSPI will make effective knowledge management and 83.3% of the population said that an organization can mature its processes equaliant to the central certification (CMMI, ISO) body by employing proposed BBSPI. Our results affirm that the BBSPI can reduce the time, cost, resources and helps to manage knowledge used to perform SPI. Moreover, results also depict that the BBSPI can be an efficient substitute of central bodies that could help small and medium-sized organizations to conform to common process improvement models by spending less money, time, and resources with effective knowledge management.