Using ABC Model for Software Process Improvement: A Balanced Perspective

Recently, many related researches focus on using mathematical approaches or artificial techniques to efficiently improve software development process (SDP). This paper provides a managerial viewpoint to discuss software process improvement (SPI) and introduces an alternative orientation that can lead to asking new questions. We combine activity-based costing (ABC), balanced scorecard (BSC) and capability maturity model (CMM) into SPI and propose a new model, called the ABC Model, also called the ABCM. There are two purposes of the proposed model. The first is to reshape the effective SDP in terms of goals and strategies of organizations. The second is to evaluate the performance of SDP based on the balanced perspective. This paper has two perspectives introduced, a balanced perspective on SDP, and a process-based perspective on the ABCM. Finally, this research is a longitudinal and practical research and employs a case study to propose a feasible model for SPI.