Critical Software Processes Tailoring and Very Small Entities (VSE): A Literature Review

Abstract

Aligned with the worldwide trend of developing using small teams, most of the critical software has been developed by small organizations, which demand a particular attention to establishment of process approaches suitable for them. Although there are many software standards, the majority of them do not specifically aim the needs of organizations such as Very Small Entities (VSEs). Standard processes are usually tailored based only on the software criticality, and so researches have been conducted about the effects of project characteristics on software processes and how to use them for processes tailoring. For systematically determining software processes, they need to be defined according to projects’ characteristics and objectives. This work provides a review on project evaluation, process profiles, identification of factors which impact software processes, tools for classifying VSE software projects subject to processes tailoring. Results show the review organized in topics that surround the research objective, presenting the critical software and VSE scenario. Critical software and VSE standards comparison indicated that these processes present similarities, representing opportunities to use them complementarily. Accordingly, the projects’ criteria selection is a means to support the understanding of the influence factors for critical software projects in VSE context and, furthermore, to develop a notion on adequate tailoring. A systematic approach can be helpful in the VSE context. Suggestions for future research are proposed based on the results.