Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Process improvement has been a growing activity in the field of software development. However, the smaller setting IS/IT services, such as small software maintenance activities, lack specific process improvement models, assessment methods and training tools. The software maintenance capability maturity model (SMCMM), developed by the applicant during the course of his doctoral studies, was designed to address some of these issues. The objective of the proposed research program is twofold:(1) to develop an assessment method for the SMCMM that will make it possible to be used in industry; and (2) to develop assesssment and training support tools such as an assessor support tool and a decision support system so as to train specialized software maintenance assessors, end users, maintainers and students in charge of improving software maintenance processes in Canadian organisations. Both analytical and experimental research will be carried out so as to meet our objectives. Analytical research will be required to complement the SMCMM maturity model with: - An assessment method to make it possible to use the SMCMM maturity model to assess maintenance organisations; - Training tools, such as an assessor support tool and a decision support system. Experimental research, using case studies, will also be carried out to assess: 1) the effectiveness of the developed training tools; 2) the strenghts/weaknesses of the assessment method developed in the framework of this research program. Feedback from experimental research will be analyzed to improve the SMCMM maturity model practices, its new assessment method, as well as the new training and support tools.