Six Sigma in the software industry: results from a pilot study

Six Sigma is a disciplined approach to define, measure, analyse, improve and control processes that result in variability and defect reduction. Although Six Sigma has been widely embraced by many world class manufacturing companies, it is still new in the software industry. This paper initially makes an attempt to compare software industry with manufacturing industry. This is followed by presenting the results from a pilot survey on Six Sigma in the software industry. The focus is on the Six Sigma tools and techniques used by software industry, key Six Sigma metrics used by the software businesses, important attributes in the software development process and finally critical success factors for successful implementation of Six Sigma in software industry.