Evaluating Return On Investment For Software Process Improvement Projects

Abstract

This article presents a simple approach that will allow decision-makers to evaluate the return on investment of software process improvement prior to launching such an effort. Obviously, it will be easy to tell ten years up the road whether the right decision was made. But a CEO, or CIO contemplating laying out six, or seven figures for the additional personnel and resources to conduct SPI is not in a position to make that call and the wise ones will not be led into it by blind faith. The problem is assessing the risks and returns of such a project in terms and perspective that a non-technical decision-maker can understand. We believe our instrument serves that purpose.