Harmonization of ISO/IEC 9001:2000 and CMMI-DEV: from a theoretical comparison to a real case application

In the past years, both industrial and research communities in Software Engineering have shown special interest in Software Process Improvement-SPI. This is evidenced by the growing number of publications on the topic. The literature offers numerous quality frameworks for addressing SPI practices, which may be classified into two groups: ones that describe "what" should be done (ISO 9001, CMMI) and ones that describe "how" it should be done (Six Sigma, Goal Question Metrics-GQM). When organizations decide to adopt improvement initiatives, many models may be implied, each leveraging the best practices provided, in the quest to address the improvement challenges as well as possible. This may at the same time, however, generate confusion and overlapping activities, as well as extra effort and cost. That, in turn, risks generating a series of inefficiencies and redundancies that end up leading to losses rather than to effective process improvement. Consequently, it is important to move toward a harmonization of quality frameworks, aiming to identify intersections and overlapping parts, as well as to create a multi-model improvement solution. Our aim in this work is twofold: first of all, we propose a theoretical harmonization process that supports organizations interested in introducing quality management and software development practices or concerned about improving those they already have. This is done with specific reference to CMMI-DEV and ISO 9001 models in the direction "ISO to CMMI-DEV", showing how GQM is used to define operational goals that address ISO 9001 statements, reusable in CMMI appraisals. Secondly, we apply the theoretical comparison process to a real case, i.e., a Small Enterprise certified ISO 9001