Software and Web Process Improvement – Predicting SPI Success for Small and Medium Companies

This study revisits our previous work in SPI success factors for small and medium companies [26] in order to investigate separately SPI success factors for Web companies that only develop Web applications (Web development companies (12 companies and 41 respondents)) from SPI success factors for Web companies that develop Web as well as software applications (Web & software development companies (8 companies and 31 respondents)). We have replicated Dyba’s theoretical model of SPI success factors [12] in [26], and later also in this paper. However, the study described herein differs from [12] and [26] in that Dyba used data from both software and Web companies, and Sulayman and Mendes used data from Web companies that developed Web applications and sometimes also software applications by employing quantitative assessment techniques. The comparison was also performed against the existing theoretical model of SPI success factors replicated in this study. The results indicate that SPI success factors contribute in different ratios for both types of companies.