An Innovative Approach to the Development of an International Software Process Lifecycle Standard for Very Small Entities

For very small software development companies, the quality of their software products is a key to competitive advantage. However, the usage of Software Engineering standards is extremely low amongst such very small software companies. A primary reason cited by many such companies for this lack of quality standards adoption is the perception that they have been developed for large multi-national software companies and not with small and very small organizations in mind and are therefore not suitable for their specific needs. This paper describes an innovative systematic approach to the development of the software process lifecycle standard for very small entities ISO/IEC 29110, following the Rogers model of the Innovation-Development process. The ISO/IEC 29110 standard is unique amongst software and systems engineering standards, in that the working group mandated to develop a new standard approached industry to conduct a needs assessment and gather actual requirements for a new standard as part of the standards development process. This paper presents a unique insight from the perspective of some of the standards authors on the development of the ISO/IEC 29110 standard, including the rationale behind its development and the innovative design of implementation guides to assist very small companies in adopting the standards, as well outlining a pilot project scheme for usage in early trials of this standard.