Efficient software review process for small and medium enterprises

Abstract

A considerable amount of software is produced world-wide by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These organisations do not have enough resources to implement a rigorous quality plan. It has been established that reviews of various artifacts play a very important role in ensuring the quality of software. Traditional review methods are rigorous and their implementation is cumbersome for SMEs. A new review process which is easy to implement and requires almost no documentation is introduced. It is based on reviewers' efforts to produce high-quality software while minimising the inspection cost. Additionally, people who are conducting this review need not be present at the same place during most phases of the review process. This process has been successfully implemented in a CMM level 3 software development company intending to achieve CMMI level 5 and results are found to be quite encouraging.