A Survey Identifying Trends on Use of Software Development Tools in Different Indian SMEs

Software Process Improvement defines the identification of the current state-ofpractice of processes within an organization and then improving it. Software Process Improvement is ever lasting, never ending and ever changing process. Some of the issues which force an organization to undergo software process improvement are customer dissatisfaction, inadequate software quality, inability to deliver on time and within budget, and excessive rework. The SMEs are using software process models but they are not able to deliver on time and within budget, and excessive rework. The SMEs are using software process improvement models but they are not able to follow all the processes due to lack of resource and cost to improve their productivity and quality of their product. A survey of 18 SMEs catering software market has been carried out for finding software development scenarios.The intent of the study was to find the prevailing tools and techniques , the SMEs are using to automate software development process and to incorporate software project management. The survey identifies four different types of Software Development Tools which are proving to be effective in current scenario of software development. These are identified as Requirement Management Tools, Process Modelling Tools, Software Configuration Management Tools and Cost Estimating Tools. This paper summarizes the trends followed in usage of Software Development Tools in SMEs and it has been shown graphically also.