Slide 1 SPI Approaches and their Research Methods, ISERN, Hawaii, 8-10 Oct SPI Approaches and their Research Methods ISERN Meeting, Hawaii, 8-10 Oct Reidar Conradi Software Engineering Group Dept. of Computer and Information Science (IDI) NTNU

Slide 2 SPI Approaches and their Research Methods, ISERN, Hawaii, 8-10 Oct Motivation [Rifkin99]: process refinement (classic telecom) vs. product innovation (Web- companies). Have we given industry the “wrong” SPI paradigms and methods? Cannot apply the same methods in small and large projects / companies. Recent trends on incremental / component- based development -- unfit to “classic” SPI?

Slide 3 SPI Approaches and their Research Methods, ISERN, Hawaii, 8-10 Oct Disciplined vs. Creative work Disciplined: following a preplanned / prescribed formal process (“military” way). Positivist/objective: hard data, data analysis. Creative: cooperation, negotiation w/ customers and managers, not all preplanned, much improvisation (“Italian” way). Constructionist/subjective: influence, find out what really happens, action research. “Odd couple” [Glass95] must be combined.

Slide 4 SPI Approaches and their Research Methods, ISERN, Hawaii, 8-10 Oct Procurer-oriented vs. Customer-oriented Procurer: minimize risk -- so certification à la ISO-9000, CMM etc. Same procedure fits all, disciplined process? => Internal and formalistic, top-down? Customer/user: want quality -- needed functionality at optimal time/price. Specific to need, creative process? =>External gains, quality chain, bottom up? How to combine internal/external view?