Software Process Improvement: A Road to Success.

Software process improvement (SPI) has received much attention in both academia and industry. SPI aims to improve the effectiveness of the software development process. Several different approaches have been developed for SPI, including the SEI's Capability Maturity Model (CMM), more recently the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and ISO's SPICE. Research shows that the effort put into these approaches can assist in producing high quality software. This paper has a two-fold objectives: first to review and summarise the empirical evidence thus far on the costs and benefits of SPI approaches; second to establish a relationship between different approaches to SPI and to seek and identify whether these approaches fulfil all the needs for an effective SPI initiative. The aim of this review is to analyse material about SPI approach and to set the scene for future research in the area of Software Process Improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]