The SPI manifesto and the ECQA SPI manager certification scheme

SUMMARY 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. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The SPI manifesto states what is really important in process improvement, and the SPI manager certification provides the skills it takes to make the change. A powerful combination for process improvement. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.