Software Development Practice: How Organisation Dynamics Inhibit the Utilization of Process Tools in Small Software Companies.

Abstract

Low-quality software products are synonymous with small software companies, yet thousands of process tools and methods are available, although unfortunately, they remain unutilized. The utilization of these process tools are said to be very challenging to small software companies with the difficulty of adaptability tagged to the context in which the companies operate since the process tools are not designed to take care of the operational context of the small software companies. This survey study was undertaken to empirically investigate the implication of the organizational dynamics on using process tools in SSCs. A total of 115 respondents from Tanzania, Namibia, and Ghana were reached through a structured questionnaire. Our findings reveal that the ad-hoc behaviors and attitude breed a culture that inhibits procedural and process intensive practices synonymous with most software engineering process tools. This finding is interesting because this area has been underestimated while looking at software practice, yet it is significant in understanding practice in relation to software process tools, significantly how small software companies can be helped to adopt the different tools and also provide a mechanism to help the designers of process tools make tools that are usable in the context of the practice of SSCs.