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Since 2005, the Dutch Infrastructure Authority Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) has been changing the way of tendering huge infrastructure contracts away from traditional projects to public private partnership (PPP) projects. In such PPP projects, a company/ consortium has to deliver the design, build, finance, and maintenance of large infrastructural works. These projects are challenging, and they demand a mature management system. To check the maturity of these management systems, RWS asks for frequent external independent assessments using ISO/IEC 15504 Part 6, Systems Engineering, and defines tough roadmaps for process improvement. The need behind these roadmaps is clear: The contractor needs implemented management mechanisms to ensure sustainable speed from the start of the project. Nevertheless, often the roadmaps require process capabilities at the start of the project that cannot be testified due to the structure of the capability model. This article explains the problem and potential solutions of this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses structure, quality and content of the currently available agile maturity models. It presents two approaches on how to deal with such models. As a first step of the analysis, the paper contains a compilation of maturity level naming used by these agile maturity models because the variety of level naming is a sign of the variety of understanding and of definition of agile maturity. While many papers deal with agile from an inside perspective, this paper is written from the perspective of Software Process Improvement (SPI) and Capability Determination, the European Certification and Qualification Association PI Manager Certification Scheme and also the SPI Manifesto. The paper does not explicitly present its own agile maturity model. The analysis approaches presented in the paper show that the currently available agile maturity models are not fit for industrial use. The synthesis of an acceptable model seems to be feasible as the analysed models address typical organisational processes including life cycle management. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking at normal test activities such as test preparation or test execution, setting up a Process Reference Model or a Process Assessment Model seems to be quite easy, but when discussion focuses on technical issues, it becomes really challenging. This paper describes the current handling of those issues in the TestSPICE approach and also some potential pitfalls. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well‐known that process improvement change requires “tools‐processes‐people.” Engineers have spent most energy on the tools and processes, but everything is done by people, and success depends on people and their competencies. The increasing focus on people is reflected in many change models; some are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software process improvement (SPI) can be seen as a profession having its own competence needs and its own community of interest. European projects EQN and EU Cert have defined skill sets and a common certification scheme for about 20 professions, mainly in the IT domain. European Certification and Qualification Association ECQA is created to manage certification and provide the necessary infrastructure. A common way to approach the IT domain from a process perspective is the '3S' concept (Software, Systems, Services). Software process can be seen as the first spearhead among these. The first software process models, such as CMM and SPICE, have already existed for about 20 years. With all the experience that the models bring, it is reasonable to start the PI profession from the software process. Software Process Improvement Manager (SPI Manager) is one of the new topics in ECQA. The development of the SPI Manager training and certification scheme has been done in many small steps so far. This paper explains the current structure and the main components of SPI Manager competences, training needs and the certification scheme. Several other schemes will be developed in the future for process improvement-related competences. The current version of the SPI Manager skill set is mainly based on software, systems and service processes and their related reference models. It could also be used in the future in domains other than IT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an ISO/IEC 15504 II conformant test assessment approach. It argues the need for such a method by reviewing the common approaches of ISTQB, TMM and TPI/TMAP and it outlines the first version of Test SPICE. The paper shows how ISO/IEC 15504V was used as a starting point and it describes the actual model [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software process improvement (SPI) can be seen as a profession, having its own competence needs and its own community of interest. European projects EQN and EU Cert have defined skills sets and a common certification scheme for about 20 professions, mainly in IT domain. A common way to describe IT domain from process perspective is concept ‘3S’ (software, systems, services). Software process can be seen as the first spearhead among these. First software process models, such as Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and SPICE, have existed already about 20 years. That is also the main reason to start process improvement profession from software processes, because we have much experience in that. Software Process Improvement Manager (SPI Manager) is one of new topics in EU Cert project. Development of SPI Manager training and certification scheme has been done in many small steps so far. This paper explains the current structure and main components of SPI Manager competences, training needs and certification scheme. Several other schemes will be developed in future for PI-related competences. Current version of SPI Manager skills set is based mainly on software, systems and service processes and their related reference models. It could be used in future also in other domains than IT. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]