Comparing Global (Multi-site) SPI Program Activities to SPI Program Models

Software Process Improvement (SPI) methods have been used for years as means to try to solve the problems in software development. Number of SPI life cycle models exists, and some of them take a wider look to the problems. However, little information exists about how the SPI models apply to global level SPI programs in a multi-site environment. This article takes a historical look into one such case and compares how well IDEAL and ISO 15504-7 models match the actual activities. The results are naturally only indicative, but suggest that the literature models do not readily scale up and that a separate model may be needed to support setting up and guiding the execution of a multi-site SPI program.