NDLI: Software process improvement under duress: experiences of SPI in a town hall in Argentina

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Boria, J.L. Bianchi, A.J.
Copyright Year	1999
Description	Author affiliation: Schlumberger IT Sourcing, Austin, TX, USA (Boria, J.L.)
Abstract	Rosario, Argentina's second largest city, requires huge efforts of administration and services to its citizens that translate in millions of transactions carried out at the many offices of the municipality. These tasks are supported by software applications that are the specific responsibility of one administrative section ("Direccion General de Informatica"), a medium sized structure, (60 employees for software development and maintenance), assisting more than 100 administrative sections with an application portfolio covering tax collection, health services, parks and recreation, school district transactions, personnel applications, accounting, and more. Eight years ago, the system was in crisis: its processes were difficult to maintain, were full of errors, and outdated. Its hardware was incapable of any upgrades and the programmers' turnaround was very high. To further improve the managerial structures of the municipality, technology was the only path, paired with an upgrade of human resources. The critical factor for success was to dramatically improve the software production and maintenance methods, which they saw as a "means to an end" in their vision. This paper describes how the improvement project was planned, developed and implemented. We describe the time and resources the project required, together with a list of the valuable lessons learned, which may have an impact on future projects.
Starting Page	404
Ending Page	405
File Size	189944
Page Count	2
File Format	PDF
ISBN	1890843024
DOI	10.1109/PICMET.1999.808387
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	1999-07-29
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Portland Int. Conf. on Management of Eng. & Techno
Subject Keyword	Software maintenance Application software Cities and towns Portfolios Educational institutions Personnel Hardware Programming profession Crisis management Human resource management
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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