LV Thạc sỹ_Software depvelopment process at FSOFT

3.1 Introduction of FSOFT...353.2 Software Development Process at FSOFT...39 3.3 Requirements of FSOFT Process...47 3.4 Project Organization and Management...49 3.5 Advantages and disadv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4

ABBREVIATIONS 6

CHAPTER 1 8

INTRODUCTION 8

1.1 Rationale 8

1.2 Research Objective 9

1.3 Research Methodology 10

1.4 Scope of research 12

1.5 Structure of the thesis 12

CHAPTER 2 13

LITERATURE REVIEW 13

2.1 Literature Review 13

2.2 Theoretical Background of the product development process 15

2.2.1 Overview of Product Development Process 15

2.2.2 Software Development Processes 21

CHAPTER 3 35

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AT FSOFT 35

3.1 Introduction of FSOFT 35

3.2 Software Development Process at FSOFT 39

3.3 Requirements of FSOFT Process 47

3.4 Project Organization and Management 49

3.5 Advantages and disadvantage of FSOFT software development process 54

Advantages 56

Disadvantages 61

CHAPTER 4 64

SUGGESTIONS ON IMPROVEMENT OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AT FSOFT 64

4.1Improving the mechanism of transfer of personnel between projects 64

4.2 Improving the capacity and working conditions for employees 65

4.3 Strengthening the employees’ participation in designing product development process 67

4.4 Adjusting the current frame product designing process 68

CONCLUSION 71

REFERENCES 73

APPENDICES 74

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Research Process 1

Figure 2: Generic Product Development Processes 20

Figure 3: Organization level 36

Figure 4: Software Development Process 39

Figure 5: General process 41

Figure 6: Project Planning 1

Figure 7: Project Monitoring 1

Figure 8: Project Closing 1

Figure 9: Project life cycle 47

Figure 10: Experience required 1

Figure 11: Study effort 1

Figure 12: Performance 1

Figure 13: Complexity 1

Figure 14: Implementation Time 1

Figure 15: Quality 1

Figure 16: Process information 60

Figure 17: Process notice 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Software engineering and software process improvement standards are gaining moreand more attention Standards are recognized by the software industry as a way fortransferring good practice into industrial use Standards are used as the basis againstwhich organizations and/or software products are certified If two organizations followthe same standards, they will be considerably simplified A software developmentprocess defines who is doing what, when and how to reach the goal Usually, threedifferent categories of processes are identified: Primary life cycle processes areconducted by prime parties, supporting life cycle processes, and organizational lifecycle that is practiced by an organization to establish and implement the underlyingstructure of the life cycle

FSOFT is a leading software company in Vietnam From the beginning, FSOFTrecognized the important of process-oriented method in software development Processorientation could significantly reduce administration effort, discover and meet thecustomer requirements faster and easier, can automate operations, and enabled an inter-organizational Increased Cooperation So, FSOFT developed a standard process systemwhich could help them compete and integrate with other company in area The mainaim of this research study is to analyses the current Software Development Process atFSOFT and finds the way to improve this process

Nowadays, FSOFT has built a software development process system, which included

12 processes: six primary processes, four supporting processes and two organizationalprocesses Software Development Process at FSOFT is considered a most standard andprofessional system in Vietnam However, there are some weaknesses such as: lowflexibility in implementing the product development process, poor involvement ofemployees in designing new product development process, inappropriate working

conditions for technical staff, etc Based on the real conditions of FSOFT, somesolutions for improving the software development process system at the Company areproposed, including the improvement of the mechanism of transfer of personnelbetween projects, improvement of the capacity and working conditions for employees.

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AN Acceptance Note

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

For over 15 years of development, FSOFT grown with over 3,000 employees and about

10 offices around the world Currently, the Company has many customers fromdeveloped countries such as Japan, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia Keystrategic customers come mostly from Japan, which often require high quality productsand services

Because the softwares are service/ product, which are often not able to be standardized,the best way to ensure their quality is the application of process management Thus, inorder to guarantee the quality of services and meet the requirements of global clients,FSOFT identifies technological advancement and standardized management process astop priorities Using process in product development has many advantages as:

- Increase business performance

- Quality is guaranteed

- Management is easier

- Improve customer satisfaction and customer confidence

Currently, FSOFT has built a standard software development process that is widelyapplied in its Business Unit This process system has contributed in making FSOFTbecome professional out-sourcing company in software industry After many yearsimprovement, this system is still applied in all Subsidiary Company of FSOFT

However, in latest report (end of 2011) of Company, Customer Satisfaction Point gotimproved compare to 2010 but not reached the target with main causes are: Customerslowly appreciated the product quality and indicated lot of unsatisfied points in otheractivities

In addition, as observed, a number of customers, who requests to ignore the process ofFSOFT service provide is increasing in comparison with the last year The reason isthat the process does not match the characteristic of the project and customerrequirements

The questions here are: How effective is the process of software development FSOFTreally? How could the service providing process meet customers demands under theconditions of changing of business environment, increasing competition andincreasingly diverse of customers demands? In order to answer these questions, the

research on Software Development Process at FSOFT is proposed, which aims to

figure out the current status of this process and offer innovative solutions Based onsurvey with managers and staff in organization, this report examines advantages anddisadvantages of those processes and shows some of the suggestions to improve thesoftware development process at FSOFT

1.2 Research Objective

The first, this research aim to clarify the requirement of software development process

at FSOFT FSOFT has built a system of process for software development So what are

the requirements that one software company needed to satisfy when they want to applythis system? This report has figured out some critical points to answer that question

Second, another main objective of this research is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of software development process at FSOFT and help them to enhance the strengths and improve the weaknesses.

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And the last, this research gives suggesting solutions/ actions, which FSOFT should take in order to improve software development process.

1.3 Research Methodology

A literature study was used to gather relevant information about existing softwaredevelopment processes and previous research results in the same field Some of theinformation about FSOFT comes from personal experiences, since the author of thisresearch was an employee of Company

A survey was conducted to collect primary data for quantitative analysis.Questionnaires were sent via email to related people in order to collect quantitativedata from employees to evaluate advantages and disadvantages when applyingsoftware development process The sample was a group of 60 staffs in operationdepartment, who were directly involved in the software development, such as SeniorManager, Project Manager, Developer, Tester, Quality Assurance officer

For quantitative data, the researcher used in-depth interview method The questionswere designed to gather comments about process in general, organization of humanresource and infrastructure and the management of resource The interviewees are MsNguyen Thi Kim Chung – Quality Assurance Leader; Ms Phan Thi Hanh Le – ProjectManager; Mr Trinh Van Trong – Vice Business Unit Leader and Mr Ngo Quang Huy–Developer

Current situation of FSOFT process

Advantages and disadvantages

of FSOFT process.

Recommendation

In-depth

1.4 Scope of research

The research was finished after 9 months The location of research is Hanoi branch ofFSOFT Company The duration of collected information is 5 years (from 2006 to2011) Time for data collection and analysis was 5 months

The solutions and actions were proposed for next period between 2013 and 2015

1.5 Structure of the thesis

An exhaustive review of relevant literature was carried out on various aspect ofProduct and software product development process, relevant to this study The reviewstarts from the basic concepts and requirements of development product The literaturereview provided a product/software development process knowledge base for theresearch study

The Software Development Process at FSOFT is described in Chapter III Organization

of Company was to be reviewed with the aim of showing that the general informationand the structure of FSOFT company After that, the system of development processwas also reviewed and presented The need to apply FSOFT process and the currentstatus of the implementation also were identified clearly from this chapter

The analysis of ability of Software Development Process was to be carried out Therelative strengths and weaknesses of this system are highlighted

Conclusions and Recommendations are described in chapter 4 respectively Referencesand Appendices are set out afterward

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In a research, Erik Perjons (2002) pointed out four reasons why companies shouldfocus on process orientation: Firstly, it could significantly reduce administration effort.Secondly, it allows a company to discover and meet the customer requirements fasterand easier Thirdly, the company can automate operations Fourthly, the growth ofInternet has enabled an inter-organizational Increased Cooperation.

A software development process defines who is doing what, when and how to reach thegoal: a new software product or a change in an existing one In this research, a widelyaccepted definition is adopted from Capability Maturity Model (Paulk et al., 1991):

“Software process is a set of activities, methods, practices and transformations that people use to develop and maintain software and the associated products”

In a research conducted in 2006, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI, 2006) hasfound several dimensions that an organization can focus on to improve its business:People, Procedures/methods, and Tools/equipment However, the Institute indicated

especially the role of the process applied in each organization: “Processes allow you to

to incorporate knowledge of how to do things better Processes allow you to leverage your resources and to examine business trends”

Modeling methods in the past were not very formal affairs But for developmentprojects of increased complexities and huge size, informalities proved to be the majorreasons of failures When the work was distributed in multiple teams, they could notinterrelate and integrate their individual work because of uncommon assumptions andbases of developments Not following standards of work and strategically themes threwthem into pits of failures and crisis Slowly, the developing industries realized the need

of formal processes of development and they developed these processes as per theirexperiences in their fields (Deepak Jain, 2007)

Another research (Unicom, 2007) pointed out that the process oriented management,also known as horizontal approach, is very widely used According to this principle, allthe company's activities are considered as the components in a certain process Theadvantages of this process are the high level of interaction between departments,shortened customer service time Process oriented approach helps the quality control

system strictly “Process-oriented approach of quality control makes system more

closely to ensure all processes are monitored and subject to the control of the system This aims to improve quality to meet customer needs in the best way This is the core of the issue”.

The four classic management processes of analysis, planning, realization andcontrolling can be recovered in process-oriented quality management Qualitymanagement serves to achieve the organizational objectives and to support themanagement Thus, a process- oriented standard cycle was introduced analogous to thefour management processes The four phases of the standard cycle of qualitymanagement picked up in many variations are: Plan, Do, Check, Act (M Stracke,2006)

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According to (Yack, 2005), “Software Process describes the phases of the software

cycle and the order in which those phases are executed Each phase produces deliverables required by the next phase in the life cycle Requirements are translated into design Code is produced during implementation that is driven by the design Testing verifies the deliverable of the implementation phase against requirements”.

Yack summarized the traditional software development process models with thefollowing models:

- Waterfall Model

- V-Shaped Model

- Incremental Model

- Spiral Model

2.2 Theoretical Background of the product development process

2.2.1 Overview of Product Development Process

Products and requirements on the product development

In general, the product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result

of an act or a process" In economics and commerce, products belong to a broadercategory of goods

In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market and could satisfy awant or need In retailing, products are called merchandise In manufacturing, productsare produced from different inputs, such as raw materials, labor, etc and sold

as finished goods In project management, products are deliverables that make up orcontribute to delivering the objectives of the project

Product development process enhances quality and reduces both costs and time tomarket demand and thus contributing to increasing the competitiveness of enterprises.However, it is important to note that the process must be properly implemented: faulty

implementation can render them practically ineffective This is not surprising, as thesame is true whenever advanced technological systems are used to improvecompetitiveness and the proper company framework and environment do not exist Theintroduction and use of these methodologies require the following on the part of thecompany:

1 A long – term commitment, to improving products and production processes

2 The integration of design methodologies and technologies in production processesand the implementation of new production methods

3 The establishment of methods for developing new products in a manner thatoptimizes design systems To do this, the design process, as a whole must be studied,the proper techniques must be used at each phase of the process, and the differenttechniques and tools must be implemented interactively

4 The adaptation of the company’s structure to the information flow that thesetechniques require, in order to obtain maximum effectiveness Moreover, the design ofnew products must be undertaken in accordance with the companies with thecompany’s capacities, so that the effort required is coherent with its competitivestrategy, and may thus be assumed by the company

Basic Considerations on the product development process

A product development process (PDP) is the overall process that occurs in industry

when a product is engineered and brought to market It is not simply an academicmethod that is followed, as from text books, that guarantees an acceptable result APDP is the series of phases that are commonly executed each time a new product isdeveloped or an existing product is modified Engineering design is one aspect of aPDP; some other aspects are manufacturing, business, management, research &

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development, industrial design, quality assurance, and innovation However, of all theaspects of PDPs, engineering design is the most fundamental Design is the foundation

of the technical side of product development It also impacts directly upon all the otheraspects of product development

Synthesis Synthesis involves the bringing together of things to make something new

and greater Synthesis is the “creative” part of designing, but it is not just creativity.Creativity is unconstrained and extremely unpredictable Synthesis is somewhat more

structured and a little more predictable That is, synthesis can be thought of a creatively

rational thinking, or conversely, as tempered creativity There are many methods to

stimulate tempered creativity in design engineers

Balance A balanced design is one that finds the ideal trade-off between all the major

drivers of the design Balanced designs are relatively easy to identify in hindsight: theoriginal Apple Macintosh, the Studebaker, the original VW Beetle, the Boeing 747, theAeron Chair, the Apple iPod None of these products were of particularly high quality,

or low cost, or especially light or functional; but all of them found a balance that wasideally suited to the context, times, and environment into which they were introduced.

Implementable A design is in many ways a plan for the manufacture or, more

generally, an implementation If a design cannot be realized, then what is the point indesigning it? It is important to note, however, that design engineers often lack theexpertise to ensure that their designs are implementable It is important, therefore, tokeep manufacturing experts and other implementation specialists intimately involved inthe design process

Artifact Literally, something “made by hand”; something man-made (as opposed to

something that occurs naturally)

Poorly understood problem While it is usually easy to specify a design problem

superficially (e.g a new commuter train is needed between Union Station and PearsonInternational Airport), it can be extremely difficult to gain an understanding of theproblem that is deep and broad enough, that designers can design a solution easily.What’s more, customers/clients/users rarely understand the problem themselves It isthrough consultation with clients and users that designers finally gain a sufficientunderstanding of the problem, to start designing a solution

Context The context of a design is more than just the environment into which the

designed product will be introduced It includes the companies involved in theproduct’s development, the people who will work on the project, government agenciesand regulatory bodies, economic factors, legal and ethical factors, and othercircumstances It is virtually impossible to track every possible contextual factor in adesign problem, but there is tremendous corporate knowledge available, depending onthe product class and industry, about which factors are the most crucial

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Promote There are few guarantees in design engineering, because design is partly

about predicting the future Companies and managers who insist on success are only

setting themselves up for failure and will build companies that are brittle – that cannot

handle product or engineering failures Instead, successful companies are adaptable tofailure; they realize the best they can do is work generally towards what they hope arebetter situations

Preferred situation We can never reach the 100% perfect solution, but it is important

to have such ideals With ideals, one knows “where to aim” to achieve success So long

as new products move an environment towards the ideal we have improved the generalquality of life, and that is the best we can expect

Generic Product Development Processes

A generic product development process showing the five major stages and the rolesplayed by different disciplines in each stage:

Figure 2: Generic Product Development Processes

The stages and gates indicated on the horizontal axis are taken from the STAGE-GATEmethod1

Horizontally, the figure identifies five stages of product development (One should imagine time on the horizontal axis.) Each stage is separated from the next by a gate.

Gates are checkpoints at which the status of a product is reviewed carefully; onlyprojects that meet the requirements of a gate are allowed to proceed to the next stage

1 Trademark in Canada, The Product Development Institute, Inc See: http://www.prod-dev.com

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Vertically, down the left side of the figure, the principal sectors of product development

are listed Each sector covers an area of expertise, and is involved with a variety oftasks throughout the PDP Some of the typical tasks undertaken by each sector aregiven, running across the five stages

2.2.2 Software Development Processes

Software engineering and software process improvement standards are gaining moreand more attention Why is this? First, standards are recognized by the softwareindustry as a way for transferring good practice into industrial use Agencies procuringsoftware are focusing on standards as they want to be sure that a certain level ofquality, associated with the standard, has been followed during the development of thesoftware and hence has improved the quality of the software itself Moreover, standardsare used as the basis against which organizations and/or software products are certified.Finally, if two organizations that enter cooperation for the development of a softwareproduct follow the same standards, the cooperation will be considerably simplified

In the last few years there have been a number of standardization initiatives fromwhich software development organizations benefit Three different directions can bedistinguished:

a) Definition of standard processes These focus on the key points to beaddressed to provide an effective and well defined quality manual ISO 9000 [ISO91],the ESA process standard PSS-05 [MFM+94], and ISO 12207 [ISO95] are someexamples

b) Definition of assessment method These provide guidelines to evaluate thematurity of the process carried out by an organization The Software EngineeringInstitute’s Capability Maturity Model (CMM) [Hum89], the European BootstrapMethod [KSK+94], and ISO 15504 [ISO97b] are examples of these They are all based

on some model of maturity These models identify different maturity levels, and anassessment method, which collocates an organization in one of the maturity levels.

c) Definition of methods supporting the improvement of an existing process Forinstance, the Quality Improvement Paradigm [Bas93] is based on the idea that processimprovement can be accomplished only if the organization is able to learn fromprevious experiences During the execution of a project some suitable measures areperformed, and the collected data are analyzed and packaged for future uses Someassessment methods also provide improvement guidelines

a) Auditing the projects to ensure that quality controls are respected,

b) Improving the quality system itself, and

c) Providing input to the development group, such as new notations, procedures,and standards; producing reports to the high-level management

The details of the quality system are contained in a quality manual It containsstandards for the quality and the development activities

When a new project is planned, the project manager identifies the quality issuesrelevant for the project and extracts them All procedures and standards need to ensure

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that the defined quality levels are extracted from the quality manual and that a qualityplan is written that identifies the means for quality control.

ISO 9000 has been specialized for software production because it has been recognized

as different from general purpose production processes The result of thiscustomization is ISO 9000 The basic ideas are the following:

a) Quality control should be performed during all phases of software production,procurement and maintenance

b) The purchaser should always strictly cooperate with the software productsupplier

c) The supplier should define its quality system and ensure its entireorganization understands and implements the system

ISO 9000 does not impose a specific life-cycle model It also does not provide specificmethods for the evaluation of quality ensurance capabilities of organization It,therefore, can be coupled with more specific approaches, such as The CapabilityMaturity model

ISO 9000 can be used in contractual situations, when the purchaser and the supplierestablish that some quality elements will be part of the suppliers quality system, andthe supplier commits to follow the quality principles defined in the standard Moreover,

it can be exploited in non-contractual situations, when the supplier voluntarily appliesthe quality standard in order to be competitive and to ensure a good quality of itsproducts

2 PSS-05

The European Space Agency (ESA) adopted PSS-05 as a software engineering

by ESA The standard takes two different perspectives; it contains standards, guidelinesand recommendations concerning the software to be defined, implemented, operatedand maintained; it also determines procedures that are to be used to manage a softwareproject.

The standard is based on the concept of practices Practices in PSS-05 are mandatory,recommended or guiding A mandatory practice must be followed without exception inall software projects Recommended practices may or may not be followed However, ajustification has to provide if a recommended practice is abandoned Guidelinepractices are less crucial; no justification is needed if they are not followed

PSS-05 does not prescribe a particular lifecycle model However, any lifecycle modeladopted for a project must be defined in a software project management plan and mustinclude the following mandatory phases:

a) Definition of user requirements,

b) Definition of software requirements,

c) Definition of architectural design,

d) Detailed design and production of code,

e) Transfer of the software to operations, and

f) Operations and maintenance

Practices related to management procedures are of concern throughout the differentphases identified earlier The purpose of these is to ensure that projects are managed insuch a way that the product is built within budget, according to schedule and with therequired quality

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The standard recommends the mandatory definition of plans for:

a) Software project management,

b) Software configuration management,

c) Software verification and validation, and

d) Software quality assurance

To date, the use of PSS-05 is not confined to ESA and its contractors It is being used

in the automobile industry and for procurements in various European defense projects.Currently, PSS-05 is being used as one basis for the ISO 15288, a new systemengineering standard

3 ISO-12207

ISO 9000 is a standard for quality management and improvement, but it provides littleconcrete guidance as to how software engineering processes should be performed TheISO standard 12207 “software life cycle processes is more concrete in that it identifiesmandatory processes, tasks and activities for software life cycles Unlike PSS-05,which has been explicitly defined for one particular domain, ISO-12207 is intended to

be applicable to software development in a broad range of application domains and avariety of different software systems

Any ISO standard contains a normative and an informative component The normativecomponent in ISO-12207 determines mandatory practices that ought to be followed for

a particular development effort to be compliant to the standard The informativecomponent of the standard identifies rationales for the practices required by thestandard and explains their application

ISO-12207 covers the entire lifecycle from “conceptualization of ideas throughretirement”.

It considers the software life cycle from different levels of abstraction At the highestlevel, it identifies a number of processes Three different categories of processes areidentified:

a) Primary life cycle processes are conducted by prime parties, i.e those thatinitiate or perform the development, operation or maintenance,

b) Supporting life cycle processes, for instance configuration management,support primary processes in order to contribute to the success and quality of theproject, and

c) Organizational life cycle that is practised by an organization to establish andimplement the underlying structure of the life cycle, such as management and

process improvement

Processes are decomposed into activities The acquisition process, for instance, isdecomposed into activities for initiation, request for tender, contract preparation,supplier monitoring, and acceptance and completion Activities are further decomposedinto tasks The request for tender preparation activity, for instance encompasses tasksdetermining system requirements, scope of the system, instructions for bidders, list ofsoftware products, terms and conditions, control of subcontracts and technicalconstraints

As the standard is meant to be applicable in many different domains it covers a variety

of processes, activities and tasks In order to define customizations of the standard to aparticular domain, organization or individual project, the normative part of the standardincludes a ’tailoring process’ It defines how the standard is to be adapted and indicates

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those processes, activities and tasks that might be omitted Moreover, it allowsprocesses, activities and tasks to be added, provided that they are specified in a waycompliant to the standard.

The ability to tailor the standard allows its application in a number of different settings,such as waterfall, evolutionary, incremental and spiral process models

Hence, the overall process model defined by ISO-12207 is decomposed in a functionalway into a three level hierarchy consisting of processes, activities and tasks Aweakness of the process definition is that it only implicitly identifies the products thatare to be produced during processes, activities and tasks Moreover, coordination anddependencies between tasks are only implicitly defined Finally, tasks, such as systemsrequirements, that are considered as atomic in the decomposition are still rather coarse-grained

In the late 80s, the Software Engineering Institute has started to work on softwareprocess assessment The work is motivated by the observation that the first step forconsolidating and improving processes is to assess them The SEI supplies twodifferent programs

a) Software-process Assessment Program It is directed to those organizationsthat want to evaluate their process in order to improve it

b) Software Capability Evaluation Program It can be used by customers (inparticular, US government agencies) to assess the processes and maturity levels of theircontractors

These two programs share, to a great extent, the same assessment method In the firstcase, the result of the assessment program is a document that provides the organization

with some suggestions on how to conduct process improvement In the second case, agrade ranging on an ordinal scale from 1 to 5 is calculated This grade quantifies thematurity level of the organization In general, in the first case the assessment is self-performed by the organization, possibly under the assistance of the SEI, while in thesecond case, the assessment is performed by an external independent team from thegovernment or the customer.

In order to assess the maturity of the organization and to identify the issues to beaddressed for improving the process, the SEI defined a maturity model, called theCapability Maturity Model (CMM) This model defines five levels of maturity for thesoftware industries It then identifies a set of characteristics organizations at each levelare considered to have Moreover, a set of goals is defined that organizations shouldpursue for reaching the next level

a) The lowest level is the initial level Success of organizations at this maturitylevel depends on the skills and individual efforts of developers rather than on properlydefined and managed processes

b) At the second level processes are repeatable At this level of maturity,organizations establish project management policies and procedures to carry out aproject A quality assurance function controls that the policies and the procedures arebeing practiced This discipline ensures repeatability of earlier success on similarprojects

c) At the third level (the defined level) a standard software process is defined Itdefines project management and software engineering processes, and it is tailored toeach project An organization adopting and tailoring, for instance PSS-05 or ISO

12207, would be at this level

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d) At the fourth level (the managed level) the process and product quality ismeasured, predictable and quantifiable By using these measures, the managers canidentify the causes of exceptional events and can correct the situation.

e) At the fifth level (the optimizing level) the process is continuously improved

on the basis of quantitative feedback from earlier instantiations of the process Processimprovement is obtained by introducing new methods and new technologies, and it isplanned like the ordinary management activities

The Software-process Assessment Program starts with training the assessment team.After that, the assessment team selects some representative project of the organization

to be assessed The members of the selected projects will complete the SEIquestionnaire, and will be interviewed by the assessment team The team uses thequestionnaire and the interview to prepare a report, which identifies weaknesses of theorganization The solution and guidelines for its implementation are traced To obtain agood result from the assessment, high-level management needs to endorse theassessment In this way, people participating in the assessment will be encouraged bythe fact that their suggestions will be taken into account and will influence the actualimprovement of the development process

The main drawback of the Software Capability Evaluation program is that it tends tooversimplify an organization by constraining it into a five level classification Theclassification itself is based on common sense, but does not have a scientificfoundation The algorithm used to evaluate the scores is based on the idea that anorganization, which holds some characteristics of a higher level, cannot profit fromthese characteristics if it does not have all the characteristics of the lower levels.However, even in its simplicity, the CMM constitutes the most interesting attempt toanalyze software processes that has been developed so far

Software Engineering Institute (SEI, 2006) defined 22 process areas, presented here inalphabetical order by acronym:

• Causal Analysis and Resolution (CAR)

The purpose of Causal Analysis and Resolution (CAR) is to identify causes of defectsand other problems and take action to prevent them from occurring in the future

• Configuration Management (CM)

The purpose of Configuration Management (CM) is to establish and maintain theintegrity of work products using configuration identification, configuration control,configuration status accounting, and configuration audits

• Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR)

The purpose of Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR) is to analyze possibledecisions using a formal evaluation process that evaluates identified alternativesagainst established criteria

• Integrated Project Management +IPPD (IPM+IPPD)

The purpose of Integrated Project Management (IPM) is to establish and manage theproject and the involvement of the relevant stakeholders according to an integrated anddefined process that is tailored from the organization’s set of standard processes

• Measurement and Analysis (MA)

The purpose of Measurement and Analysis (MA) is to develop and sustain ameasurement capability that is used to support management information needs

• Organizational Innovation and Deployment (OID)

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The purpose of Organizational Innovation and Deployment (OID) is to select anddeploy incremental and innovative improvements that measurably improve theorganization’s processes and technologies The improvements support theorganization’s quality and process performance objectives as derived from theorganization’s business objectives.

• Organizational Process Definition +IPPD (OPD+IPPD)

The purpose of Organizational Process Definition (OPD) is to establish and maintain ausable set of organizational process assets and work environment standards

• Organizational Process Focus (OPF)

The purpose of Organizational Process Focus (OPF) is to plan, implement, and deployorganizational process improvements based on a thorough understanding of the currentstrengths and weaknesses of the organization’s processes and process assets

• Organizational Process Performance (OPP)

The purpose of Organizational Process Performance (OPP) is to establish and maintain

a quantitative understanding of the performance of the organization’s set of standardprocesses in support of quality and process-performance objectives, and to provide theprocess performance data, baselines, and models to quantitatively manage theorganization’s projects

• Organizational Training (OT)

The purpose of Organizational Training (OT) is to develop the skills and knowledge ofpeople so they can perform their roles effectively and efficiently

• Product Integration (PI)

The purpose of Product Integration (PI) is to assemble the product from the productcomponents, ensure that the product, as integrated, functions properly, and deliver theproduct.

• Project Monitoring and Control (PMC)

The purpose of Project Monitoring and Control (PMC) is to provide an understanding

of the project’s progress so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken when theproject’s performance deviates significantly from the plan

• Project Planning (PP)

The purpose of Project Planning (PP) is to establish and maintain plans that defineproject activities

• Process and Product Quality Assurance (PPQA)

The purpose of Process and Product Quality Assurance (PPQA) is to provide staff andmanagement with objective insight into processes and associated work products

• Quantitative Project Management (QPM)

The purpose of Quantitative Project Management (QPM) is to quantitatively managethe project’s defined process to achieve the project’s established quality and process-performance objectives

The purpose of Requirements Management (REQM) is to manage the requirements ofthe project’s products and product components and to identify inconsistencies betweenthose requirements and the project’s plans and work products.

• Risk Management (RSKM)

The purpose of Risk Management (RSKM) is to identify potential problems beforethey occur so that risk-handling activities can be planned and invoked as needed acrossthe life of the product or project to mitigate adverse impacts on achieving objectives

• Supplier Agreement Management (SAM)

The purpose of Supplier Agreement Management (SAM) is to manage the acquisition

of products from suppliers

• Technical Solution (TS)

The purpose of Technical Solution (TS) is to design, develop, and implement solutions

to requirements Solutions, designs, and implementations encompass products, productcomponents, and product-related lifecycle processes either singly or in combination asappropriate

To guarantee the quality of its services and meet the requirements of global clients,FSOFT identifies technological advancement and standardized management process asour top priorities As a result, FSOFT has been granted the very prestigiouscertifications of CMMI level 5, ISO 27001:2005 (BS 7799-2:2002), and ISO9001:2000.

Started in 1988 as a division of FPT Corporation, the biggest ICT Company inVietnam, FSOFT has developed rapidly and become a company of internationalstature The Company have presence in 3 biggest cities of Vietnam (Ha Noi, Da Nang,

Ho Chi Minh City) and in all major IT markets including Japan (Tokyo, Osaka), SouthEast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines), Europe (France), UnitedStates and Australia

FPT Vision: FPT strives to be a company guided by technological innovations,committed to the highest level of customer satisfaction, contributing to nationalprosperity and providing its employees with the most favorable work environment

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possible, enabling them to reach their full potential in their professional careers as well

as their spiritual life

Practical operations and management processes at FSOFT will be mapped onto theFSOFT organizational structure This organizational structure chart will help FSOFT toreach its objectives, improve internal communication channels and its responsiveness

to internal customers, and eliminate overlaps, interest conflicts and dis-function within

or across units and departments

Figure 3: Organization level

This organizational structure is regarded as scalable in order to address when andwhere roles and function units can be combined for small assembly or when and wherethey probably need to be expanded for larger ones Therefore, the chart is intended togive generic descriptions of organizational management principles Please note, there