Do software process improvements lead to ISO 9126 architectural quality factor improvement

  • Authors:

  • Mathieu Lavallée;Pierre N. Robillard

  • Affiliations:

  • École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, PQ, Canada;École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, PQ, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 8th international workshop on Software quality
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

This paper presents preliminary results of a systematic review performed to determine the impacts of Software Process Improvements (SPI) on developers' activities and on architectural quality. The analysis shows that most SPI research focuses on the motivations of developers like quality of work life and participation incentives, but provides little detail on the impacts of SPI on their day-to-day tasks. The impacts on product quality are limited to defect reduction, and do not consider architectural quality factors, such as changeability and stability. This study shows a very weak link between process quality, as defined by the CMMI, and architectural quality, as defined by ISO 9126. The SPI literature found by this review is mostly concerned with requirement process improvements, which are related to problem definition quality, but not to architectural quality. Future quality-oriented SPI research should therefore focus on improving design and development processes with an eye to considering architectural quality factors, or what the ISO 9126 terms "architectural capabilities".