MANAGING RISK IN SOFTWARE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT: AN ACTION RESEARCH APPROACH1

Software process improvement (SPI) was studied in its organizational context through collaborative practice research (CPR), a particular form of action research. The CPR program involved close collaboration between practitioners and researchers over a three-year period to understand and improve SPI...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:MIS quarterly 2004-09, Vol.28 (3), p.395
Main Authors: Iversen, Jakob H, Mathiassen, Lars, Nielsen, Peter Axel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action research
Collaboration
Information systems
Knowledge
Methods
Organizational behavior
Practice research
Risk management
Software engineering
Software industry
Software quality
Studies
Teams
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Summary:Software process improvement (SPI) was studied in its organizational context through collaborative practice research (CPR), a particular form of action research. The CPR program involved close collaboration between practitioners and researchers over a three-year period to understand and improve SPI initiatives in four Danish software organizations. The problem of understanding and managing risks in SPI teams emerged in one of the participating organizations and led to this research. This research offers two contributions. First, it contributes to knowledge on SPI by proposing an approach to understand and manage risks in SPI teams. This risk management approach consists of a framework for understanding risk areas and risk resolution strategies within SPI and a related process for managing SPI risks. Second, it contributes to knowledge on risk management within the information systems and software engineering disciplines. An approach is proposed to tailor risk management to specific contexts.
ISSN:0276-7783
2162-9730