The care and feeding costs of a maturing software process

Three major components of the software process have been defined: human relations or people, such as skills acquisition, compensation, incentives and rewards; technology, including CASE (computer-aided software engineering); and management, policies, procedures, standards and practices. The authors explore the overt and hidden costs of these components in three phases: the initial non-recurring costs to acquire and install these capabilities as the organization grows from an initial level of process maturity; the recurring costs associated with maintenance of the installed systems used in a well-defined software process organization; and the continuing costs associated with technology tracking and insertion to maintain a state-of-the-practice that is consistent within an organization using a managed or optimizing software development process.<>