Thesis Defense - Green

Software process improvement efforts are difficult to implement and often fail to produce positive change in an organization. The challenges faced by these organizations include costly assessments, long and/or expensive efforts, processes that remain static ("dustware"), difficulty applying improvement models to smaller organizations, and organizational culture resistance. This dissertation study investigates the use of proven configuration management techniques as applied to software and adapting them to apply to software development processes.

Our approach was deployed at four sites. Two of these sites were able to provide sufficient statistical data on the value of using a Process Change Management System to improve their software process improvement efforts. When using configuration management techniques, process improvement efforts find more management and employee support, communications issues are reduced, smaller cultural changes are needed, achieve observable results, implementation is less costly, processes are less static (no "dustware"), and in general, come under better organizational control.