Why and how we do it? The Hungarian Experience of Software Process Improvement.
Dr. Katalin Balla, SQI (Hungary)
Biography
Katalin Balla was founding member of SQI-Hungarian Software Quality Consulting Institute Ltd. in 2004, where she has the job of managing director. SQI is an authorized SEI Partner and member of the ESI@net, the European Software Institute’s commercial network. Katalin works as a consultant in software process improvement. She is a qualified ISO 9001:2000, Bootstrap and SPICE auditor, she is a candidate SCAMPI LA.
Katalin graduated as an informatician in 1984 from "Babeş Bolyai" University of Science Cluj, Romania. She worked as a programmer and a software system engineer. She attained post-graduate studies in software engineering at Technical University Budapest in 1993, followed by Ph.D. studies between 1994-1997. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2001 at the Technical University of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in the field of software quality. She worked as a quality director at IQSOFT / IQSYS Ltd., for 11 years (1993-2004).
Mrs. Balla is a lecturer at Technical University Budapest since 2001, where she developed and teaches courses in software quality management and software testing (in Hungarian and English). She participated in many international research projects.
Katalin lives in Budapest with her husband and their daughter.
Abstract
Hungarian software companies experience more and more the requirement of producing provably good - quality software, as a condition for staying in the market. ISO 9001:2000 is still the most used quality approach, but CMMI® is becoming a popular, “trusted” SPI model in Hungary. However, companies face certain (typical) challenges while implementing CMMI®.
The project IKKK-GVOP-2004-3.2.2, supported by EU and Hungarian Government, has one of its goals to position Hungarian software industry compared to the international one and to develop a long-term strategy for it. Within this project, we made a survey about SPI programs in Hungarian software companies. We were interested basically in the companies’ experience in the field of quality approaches, standards, models, metrics. We looked to the motivation of the companies in starting improvement, to the drivers of choosing certain quality models and to how the SPI program contributed to reaching business goals.
In our presentation we show the findings of the survey. We analyse basic difficulties companies faced , and describe achievements they consider important. We point out common elements in the SPI-s of different companies, trends that can be identified in quality issues within the Hungarian software community. Regarding CMMI®-usage, we show the PA’s that are easily implementd and the ones that cause diffuculties in most cases. We show some solutions to overcome these difficulties.
The survey also looked to the needs software companies formulate in terms of quality-oriented knowledge. We shortly tell about how the Hungarian education system responds to these needs.
Last Change: 01.07.2009
