A Business Case for Software Process Improvement (2007 Update), Measuring Return on Investment from Software Engineering and Management

The purpose of this revised State-of-the-Art Report (SOAR) is to provide new insights into the details necessary to demonstrate from a business perspective the benefits of improved software management using software process improvement (SPI) techniques. SPI has received much attention in recent years; however, it has been very difficult to translate benefits achieved in one organization to another organization. The intent of this SOAR is to generalize and model the cost benefits one can achieve from SPI efforts. This revised SOAR updates the previous (1999) edition by examining the business implications of some more recent SPI practices, including the Capability Maturity Model for Integration (CMMI), agile development, and systems engineering.