Experiences in transferring a software process improvement methodology to production laboratories

Abstract This article describes the experience of transferring a software process improvement methodology developed in a research laboratory to different production laboratories at IBM. The methodology involves the classification and analysis of software defects with a view to improving the software development process. The experience is reported in two parts. The first part details those factors that were anticipated, at least to some extent, or that seem more obvious. The second part details those parts of the experience that were completely unanticipated, appear quite subtle, and are probably not well known.