UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE

                    COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

                                  presents

     "Managing Software Practitioners' Motivators and De-motivators for
                       Software Process Improvement"

                            by Dr. Nathan Baddoo
                        University of Hertfordshire

                         20 March 2002 (Wednesday)

                           Lecture Theatre LC108
                                  3 - 4 pm

                 Coffee/tea and biscuits will be available.

                       EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO ATTEND!

   Abstract:

   Software Process Improvement (SPI) is the most recent and most popular
   'silver bullet' adopted to address the problem of software quality.
   Despite this popularity there remains insufficient evidence of SPI's
   successful impact on software quality. This research suggests that SPI
   'appears' to be unsuccessful because companies are unable to manage
   practitioners' motivation and, therefore, support for SPI properly.
   This is because companies do not properly understand these motivators.
   To improve support for SPI and in turn the impact that SPI has on
   software quality, it is important to better understand practitioners'
   motivators and de-motivators for SPI. This research shows that the key
   motivators for SPI are visible support and commitment from senior
   management and empowerment of practitioners, whereas the key
   de-motivators are related to constraints on resources and a failure to
   secure practitioners' buy-in. Also, software practitioners have
   different perceptions of their role in SPI, which are related to their
   software development roles. This makes it necessary to tailor SPI
   objectives to practitioners' software development objectives in order
   to improve their support for SPI.

   Colloquium Abstracts: On-line:
   http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq/