Entrepreneurial Approach to Software Production

Researchers: 

Prof. P. Schönsleben, Dr. A. Specker, R. Cruz, A. Fähndrich

Partners: 

Ascom, Audatex, Credit Suisse IT, Lynx Software Research

Motivation:

During the 1960s and 1970s, software development was analyzed especially in terms of methodologies. On the basis of Systems Engineering, new procedures have been adopted in Software Engineering. But the main focus on quality and costs as well as project management remained constant. In the 1980s and 1990s, the software industry has been growing rapidly worldwide. The capability of developing and marketing software commercially has become a matter of political economy especially as a key factor in future success.

The objectives of the project are:

The commercial success of software depends not only on a correct Software Engineering process. All relevant processes of the software company have to be handled in a professional and integrated way, including Marketing, Management of Partnerships, Support, and Human Resources, among others. As Software Production as an industrial sector is quite young and has its own processes, knowledge of the management of these processes is not well known. Therefore, the objectives of the project have been to investigate thoroughly the processes of four different software companies. Additionally, the four process models should be consolidated to a meta-model of software production processes in order to support similar companies in the near future. In a next phase, the methodology of analyzing the processes will be refined, and benchmarks will be developed.

The following activities have already been completed:

The process model has been completed on a high level and has published in (Schönsleben, P., Specker A., Cruz R., Fähndrich, A.; io Management 1999)