The Surveys on Software Engineering Excellence

Abstract

In Chap. 2, to solve the issues relating to managing innovation in the Japanese software industry as mentioned in Chap. 1, we aim to assess the achievements of the software engineering capabilities as represented by IT vendors in Japan; we additionally aim to better understand the mechanisms of how software engineering capabilities relate to IT vendors’ business performance and business environment. To this end we designed a research survey to investigate software engineering excellence (SEE); we administered it together with METI and IPA. SEE was originally developed based on interviews conducted with over 50 experts in academic, business, and governmental circles in Japan and the U.S. and on literature searches in the field of software engineering in a broad sense, as we reviewed in Chap. 1. Therefore, SEE can be used to evaluate the overall software engineering capabilities of IT vendors with regard to the following seven factors: Deliverables, Project Management, Quality Assurance, Process Improvement, Research and Development, Human Resource Development, and Customer Contact. We introduced two additional primary indicators as well: Business Performance, e.g., profitability, growth, productivity, and efficiency of management, and Business Environment, e.g., origin of vendor, number of software engineers, average age of employees, business model, customer base, and corporate culture. The SEE survey resulted in 233 valid responses. We found that vendors with a larger number of software engineers tended to obtain a higher SEE score, as did vendors whose employees were older, though they tended to be less profitable. Finally, there was no significant relationship between the SEE score and operating profit ratio of the IT vendors in Japan. Because the SEE survey results are precious pieces of information in the study of the Japan’s software industry, the detailed findings are demonstrated in Chap. 2, and figures relating to the survey results are included in Appendix.