Understanding the Perception of Very Small Software Companies towards the Adoption of Process Standards

This paper is concerned with understanding the issues that affect the
adoption of software process standards by Very Small Entities (VSEs), their
needs from process standards and their willingness to engage with the new
ISO/IEC 29110 standard in particular. In order to achieve this goal, a series of
industry data collection studies were undertaken with a collection of VSEs. A
twin track approach of a qualitative data collection (interviews and focus
groups) and quantitative data collection (questionnaire) were undertaken. Data
analysis was being completed separately and the final results were merged,
using the coding mechanisms of grounded theory. This paper serves as a
roadmap for both researchers wishing to understand the issues of process
standards adoption by very small companies and also for the software process
standards community.