Software project process management maturity and project performance: An examination of Taiwan's software companies
"
Journal of International Information Management: Vol. 11 : Iss. 1
Journal of International Information Management Software project process management maturity and project performance: An examination of Taiwan's software companies
Houn-Gee Chen
Tsing-Hua University
0 Melody Wu National Huwie Institute of Technology
1 James J. Jiang University of Central Florida , USA
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/jiim Part of the Management Information Systems Commons Recommended Citation
SoftwaraJProject
Software project process management
maturity and project performance:
An examination of Taiwan's
software companies
Melody Wu
National Huwei Institute of Technology
Hsin-Ginn Hwang
National Chung Cheng University
Houn-Gee Chen
Tsing-Hua University
James J. Jiang
University of Central Florida
Researchers and practitioners argue that an inadequate software development process is
one critical factor accounting for high project failure rates. a result, the Capability Maturity
Model (CMM) was introduced by the Software Engineering Institute as a guideline for advanc
ing project maturity and improving the odds of project success. To investigate the effectiveness
of applying the principles of the CMM, a survey was conducted of 196 Information System
managers in Taiwan. The results indicate that a more mature software development process
reduces the extent of certain risks experienced during the project development and enables
better project performance. Managerial implications regarding the CMM are described.
INTRODUCTION
Due to the high software development failure rate and low productivity in the software
industry, the Taiwan government in recent years has endeavored to strengthen organizational
software development structure. For example, in 1992, the Software Industry Five-Year Devel
opment Plan was proposed by the Industry Development Bureau (IDE) to help software develop
ment organizations in Taiwan improve their softwar e development capability. To accomplish this
goal, a series of systematic lectures, professional conferences, and technical training courses
were provided to software organizations.
57
Journal of International Information Management, Vol. 11 [2002], Iss. 1, Art. 4
Journal^UntemationajTechn^
During the past decade, software investment has grown rapidly worldwide and software
project development has become one of the most important targets for many industrial and re
search initiatives. As information technologies evolve and information system (IS) applications
grow in size, complexity, and importance, a solution for improving the software project process
has become more and more imperative. Many tools, technologies, and management methods,
such as case tools and rapid application development (RAD), have been adopted to guide the
management of the software development process over the years
(Bandinelli & Fuggetta, 1995;
Kuilboer & Ashrafi, 2000)
.
Even though significant effort and resources have been poured into system development
tools, IS project success rates are still low. In large IS development projects, more than 80 per
cent are excessively late and/or over budget. According toStandish Group International (1995),
about 15% of all IS developments never deliver a final product and budget overruns of 100 to
200% are common in IS projects. A follow-up to their study estimates that almost 80,000 projects
were cancelled in 1995 (Standish Group, 1996). IS project problems cost U. S. companies and
government agencies $145 billion annually.Clearly, there is major concern over software project
development as difficulties arecontinually being experienced despite advances in methodologies.
Faced with a high failure rate in software projects, IS managers in many organizations are
pursuing software process improvements
(Deephouse, et al., 1996; Necco. Gordon, & Tsai, 1987;
Rivichandran & Rai, 2000)
. A software process is a set of activities, methods, practices, and
transformations that people use to develop and maintain software and associated products (e.g.,
design documents, code, test cases, and user manuals). In fact, many IS projects are carried out
in an ad hoc fashion without adequate planning, with poor explication of the overall development
process, and the lack of a well-established management framework
(Rai & Al-Hindi, 2000)
.
To provide guidelines for IS management to better control the project development process,
the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), in collaboration with the U. S. Department of Defense
(DoD) and Mitre Corp., recommends a number of key software process improvement (SPI)
areas. These are formalized into an evaluative framework called the Capability Maturity Model
(CMM)
(Paulk, et al., 1993)
. Five levels of maturity are identified in the CMM maturity model.
The levels rangefrom an initial level to an optimizing level. Initially, success of software projects
relies on the skills of individual project manage (...truncated)