Abstract
Documentation is an important part of the software process, even though it is often neglected in software companies. The eternal question is how much documentation is enough. In this article, we present a practical implementation of lightweight product documentation process resulting from SPI efforts in a small company. Small companies’ financial and human resources are often limited. The documentation process described here, offers a template for creating adequate documentation consuming minimal amount of resources. The key element of the documentation process is an open source web-based bugtracking system that was customized to be used as a documentation tool. The use of the tool enables iterative and well structured documentation. The solution best serves the needs of a small company with off-the-shelf software products and striving for SPI.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bayer, J., Muthig, D.: A View-Based Approach for Improving Software Documentation Practices. In: Proceedings of the 13th Annual IEEE International Symposium and Workshop on Engineering of Computer Based Systems (ECBS 2006), pp. 269–278. IEEE Computer Society, Washington (2006)
Olsson, T., Runeson, P.: Document Use in Software Development: A Qualitative Survey. In: Software Engineering Research and Practice in Sweden, SERPS 2002 (2002)
Card, D.N., Mc Garry, F.E., Page, G.T.: Evaluating Software Engineering Technologies. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering SE-13(7), 845–851 (1987)
Cook, C., Visconti, M.: Documentation is important. CrossTalk 7(11), 26–30 (1994)
Richardson, I., Gresse von Wangenheim, C.: Guest Editors’ Introduction: Why are Small Software Organizations Different? IEEE Software 24(1), 18–22 (2007)
Forward, A., Lethbridge, T.C.: The relevance of software documentation, tools and technologies: a survey. In: Proceedings of the 2002 ACM symposium on Document engineering, pp. 26–33. ACM Press, New York (2002)
Briand, L.C.: Software documentation: how much is enough? In: Proceedings of Seventh European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering (2003)
12207.2-1997 Industry implementation of International Standard ISO/IEC 12207:1995. (ISO/IEC 12207 standard for information technology - software lifecycle processes - implementation considerations)
Kruchten, P.: The rational unified process: an introduction. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2000)
Beck, K., Andres, C.: Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change. Addison-Wesley Professional, Reading (2004)
Barker, T.T., Dragga, S.: Writing Software Documentation: A Task Oriented Approach. Allyn & Bacon, Inc., Needham Heights (1997)
Software Engineering Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society: IEEE Std 830-1998. IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Requirements Specifications. IEEE-SA Standards Board (1998)
Software Engineering Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society: IEEE Std 1016-1998. IEEE Recommended Practice for Software Design Descriptions. IEEE-SA Standards Board (1998)
Paulk, M.C., Curtis, B., Chrissis, M.B., Weber, C.V.: Capability maturity model, version 1.1. IEEE Software 10(4), 18–27 (1993)
Visconti, M., Cook, C.: Software system documentation process maturity model. In: CSC 1993: Proceedings of the 1993 ACM conference on Computer science, pp. 352–357. ACM Press, New York (1993)
Kajko-Mattsson, M.: The state of documentation practice within corrective maintenance. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (2001)
Valtanen, A., Ahonen, J.J.: Big Improvements with Small Changes: Improving the Processes of a Small Software Company. In: Jedlitschka, A., Salo, O. (eds.) PROFES 2008. LNCS, vol. 5089, pp. 258–272. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Avison, D., Lau, F., Myers, M., Nielsen, P.A.: Action Research. Communications of the ACM 1, 94–97 (1999)
Lepasaar, M., Varkoi, T., Jaakkola, H.: Documentation as a software process capability indicator. In: PICMET 2001 International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology, Portland, vol. 1, p. 436 (2001)
Zahran, S.: Software Process Improvement: Practical Guidelines for Business Success. Addison Wesley Professional, Reading (1998)
Ahonen, J.J., Forsell, M., Taskinen, S.K.: A modest but practical software process modeling technique for software process improvement. Software Process Improvement and Practice 7, 33–44 (2002)
Visconti, M., Cook, C.R.: An overview of industrial software documentation practices. Technical Report 00-60-06, Computer Science Department, Oregon State University (April 2002)
Visconti, M., Cook, C.R.: Assessing the State of Software Documentation Practices. Lecture notes in computer science. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Valtanen, A., Sihvonen, H.M.: Employees’ Motivation for SPI: Case Study in a Small Finnish Software Company. In: O’Connor, R.V., et al. (eds.) EuroSPI 2008. CCIS, vol. 16, pp. 152–163. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Valtanen, A., Ahonen, J.J., Savolainen, P. (2009). Improving the Product Documentation Process of a Small Software Company. In: Bomarius, F., Oivo, M., Jaring, P., Abrahamsson, P. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2009. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 32. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02152-7_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02152-7_23
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-02151-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-02152-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)