Experiences on establishing software processes in small companies

Abstract In order to guide the tailoring of existing approaches for the establishment of software processes in small companies, we report our experiences on defining and implementing software processes in two small software companies. The paper describes the principal steps performed and presents information on costs and duration. We analyse, if and how process guides are used, their impacts and how they are improved. Our findings indicate that also in this specific kind of organisation, software processes can be established successfully at low cost considering typical business models, goals and characteristics of small organisations.