Agility and Software Teams: The Future of Software Process Improvement

Welcome to another issue of SPIP. The articles in this issue contain insights and fresh perspectives on the software process and where it is heading. We hear a lot about developers and skills, but not enough about the teams or groups that form the basic development unit we use for software development. Software development is typically done in teams; however SPIP has little to say about how to guide and lead teams. New challenges such as agile and extreme development further emphasise the role of teams in the successful delivery of useful value to an organisation. Many of the new developments are predicated on good practice principles which are used more often and more rapidly. Improving our performance pre-supposes an understanding of how teams work together to deliver software. The new challenges also require us to consider where we are heading in terms of software development, SPI and many of the new trends. Exploring the future works best when we recall the past, i.e. when we consider where we have come from. The first article by Watts Humphrey provides an excellent introduction to the area of software process improvement. The author, Watts Humphrey, will be familiar to most of our readers as the ‘father’ of process improvement and the inventor of software maturity models.