ProPAMet: A Metric for Process and Project Alignment

Abstract. Software Process Improvement (SPI) is one of the main software development challenges. Unfortunately, process descriptions generally do not correspond to the processes actually performed during software development projects. Process and project alignment is essential to really find out how process improvement is important to achieve an organization’s strategic objectives. Considering this approach, this paper presents a new software SPI methodology designated by Process and Project Alignment Methodology (ProPAM). As a complement to be aware about project changes and facilitate the migration to an improved process, we propose a metric called ProPAMet to analyze the alignment between process and projects. To conclude, a case study contributed to validate the effectiveness of ProPAM and ProPAMet.