Applying process mining techniques in software process appraisals

• Published in: Information and software technology 2017-07, Vol.87, p.19-31
• Main Authors: M. Valle, Arthur, A.P. Santos, Eduardo, R. Loures, Eduardo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Data collection and analysis; Process mining; Process Mining Extension to SCAMPI; SCAMPI; Software process assessment
• ISSN: 0950-5849; 1873-6025
• DOI: 10.1016/j.infsof.2017.01.004

Process assessments are performed to identify the current maturity of organizations in relation to best practices. Existing process assessment methods, although widely used, have limitations such as: dependence on the competencies of appraisers; high amount of effort and resources required; subjectivity to analyze data and to judge on the implementation of practices; low confidence in sampling and its representativeness. Currently, due to the increasing use of information systems to support process execution, detailed information on the implementation of processes are recorded as event logs, transaction logs, etc. This fact enables the usage of process mining techniques as a powerful tool for process analysis. It allows using a significant amount of data with agility and reliability for process assessments. The objective of this paper is to present the development and application of a feasible, usable and useful method, which reduces the limitations of current SCAMPI method and defines how to apply process mining techniques in SCAMPI-based process appraisals. Research method comprises nine steps that were performed in a manner that raised questions in the first four steps were answered by the last four steps of the research design. The method “Process Mining Extension to SCAMPI” was designed, developed, applied in two cases and submitted for review by experts who judged it viable, usable, and useful. As per this research, process mining techniques are suitable to be applied in software process assessments since they are aligned with the purposes of data collection and analysis tasks. In addition to that, the resulting method was judged by experts as something that reduces identified limitations of one of the most used process assessment method.