The Role of Feedback in Software Process Assessment

Abstract

Processes encapsulate the way organizations are doing business. However, in many cases organization processes are not well defined, which leads to poor and unsystematic implementation. An organization that uses weak or misdirected processes will have weak products or services, and unpredictable outcomes of business activities. Process assessment can help software organizations to improve themselves through identification of critical problems and establishment of improvement priorities. Software process assessment includes feedback as a core activity that aims at feeding data back to relevant individuals or groups in an organization. Feedback is also used as a method for learning in software organizations based on the previous experience and identified issues in the assessment process. In addition, information included in the feedback can be used as the basis for decision making related to revealing the next activities in assessment and improvement project.