Antecedents to certification of software development processes

Software development projects are very frequently deemed to be failures. Those projects that do succeed commonly have significant quality problems. There are a number of quality standards which could be applied to the software development process, and which might reasonably be expected to improve the situation. In spite of this, certification to these standards is seldom sought. This study seeks to identify the factors which may predispose a company to seek quality certification of their software development processes. The research uses a survey methodology in the Canadian software development sector to test seven antecedents to certification that have been proposed in the literature. The results support the hypotheses that market competitiveness, project team size, and methodological rigour all predispose a company to seek quality certification.