Abstract For this paper, we have identified a list of 32 characteristic symptoms that is often discussed during assessments, generated by two experienced assessors who had undertaken maturity assessments in more than 300 companies. We then use cognitive mapping and the “five whys” technique to look beyond the symptoms and reveal the underlying problems or causes of the problems. Following that, we evaluate our findings through the design and evaluation of a web‐based tool where users can score statements based on a formulation of the symptoms. This enables us to recommend to users the areas where they probably need to improve. We designed the tool in three learning cycles of design evaluation and ended up in a summative evaluation where we compared the outcome of using the website tool with a CMMI maturity assessment. We conclude that a systematic quest for symptoms coupled with scoring statements based on the symptoms can point to improvement areas. However, we conclude that doing so is no substitute for a maturity assessment; the scoring of statements cannot reveal the maturity of the organization, but it can quickly and easily point in a useful direction and provide recommendations for going in that direction.

Abstract The ISO/IEC 33014.2013 standard on process improvement includes a core activity called ‘identify the overall change strategy’, which includes selecting a change strategy among the many available. This selection can be carried out using the ImprovAbility model in which there is a framework of how to select change strategy. The framework contains 10 different change strategies to choose from. But which ones are chosen in practice? To answer that, we have analyzed data from 134 assessments in 129 organizations that have used the framework. We give a ranking of strategies chosen, and we analyze how they adapt the change strategy to their specific conditions. We conclude that the most often recommended organizational change strategy is optionality followed by three other strategies: specialist‐driven, production‐organized, and learning‐driven. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SUMMARY In a globalized world, success in business today is linked with success with outsourcing. Several factors have a strong influence in this ‘game’. It is our opinion that organizational maturity and process capability are very important. Low maturity in general is a problem in collaboration in a customer–supplier relationship. It is obvious that differences in maturity and process capability between customer and supplier will bring challenges and eventually problems. The insight into the difference in maturity between customer and supplier is important during the daily work—maybe even more important when a customer selects a supplier. It is here the ‘landscape of problems’ is formed. We have based our performance analysis on CMMI® 1.2 for each possible combination of difference in maturity between the customer and supplier. The problems initiated by the difference are described along with our best suggestion for possible solutions on the basis of our experiences from working with process improvement in companies worldwide. It is not possible to present the entire set of results of the performed analysis in this paper. Only the main results, argumentation, and conclusions will be presented. This paper describes the results and ends with a discussion and conclusion on the topic. Further work will go on, and the goal is to develop a simple tool to assist companies in their use of outsourcing support. This work is part of the 3‐year Danish SourceIT research project, an 18 person‐year project focusing on outsourcing and maturity, which is supported by the Danish Agency for Science Technology and Innovation under the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation. Danske Bank, CSC Scandihealth, Nets, Roskilde University, and DELTA have been part of this project. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

It is well-known that process improvement change requires “tools-processes-people.” Engineers have spent most energy on the tools and processes, but everything is done by people, and success depends on people and their competencies. The increasing focus on people is reflected in many change models; some are discussed in this paper.

SUMMARY Software process improvement (SPI) can be seen as a profession having its own competence needs and its own community of interest. European projects EQN and EU Cert have defined skill sets and a common certification scheme for about 20 professions, mainly in the IT domain. European Certification and Qualification Association ECQA is created to manage certification and provide the necessary infrastructure. A common way to approach the IT domain from a process perspective is the ‘3S’ concept (Software, Systems, Services). Software process can be seen as the first spearhead among these. The first software process models, such as CMM and SPICE, have already existed for about 20 years. With all the experience that the models bring, it is reasonable to start the PI profession from the software process. Software Process Improvement Manager (SPI Manager) is one of the new topics in ECQA. The development of the SPI Manager training and certification scheme has been done in many small steps so far. This paper explains the current structure and the main components of SPI Manager competences, training needs and the certification scheme. Several other schemes will be developed in the future for process improvement‐related competences. The current version of the SPI Manager skill set is mainly based on software, systems and service processes and their related reference models. It could also be used in the future in domains other than IT. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.