Software process improvement under duress: experiences of SPI in a town hall in Argentina

Rosario, Argentina´s second largest city, requires huge efforts of administration and services to its citizens that translate in millions of transactions carried out at the many offices of the municipality. These tasks are supported by software applications that are the specific responsibility of one administrative section (“Direccion General de Informatica”), a medium sized structure, (60 employees for software development and maintenance), assisting more than 100 administrative sections with an application portfolio covering tax collection, health services, parks and recreation, school district transactions, personnel applications, accounting, and more. Eight years ago, the system was in crisis: its processes were difficult to maintain, were full of errors, and outdated. Its hardware was incapable of any upgrades and the programmers´ turnaround was very high. To further improve the managerial structures of the municipality, technology was the only path, paired with an upgrade of human resources. The critical factor for success was to dramatically improve the software production and maintenance methods, which they saw as a “means to an end” in their vision. This paper describes how the improvement project was planned, developed and implemented. We describe the time and resources the project required, together with a list of the valuable lessons learned, which may have an impact on future projects