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ICT Process Improvement and Assessment

Foreword by the Chair

Karol Frühauf (INFOGEM AG, Switzerland)

Many organisations only recognise their pain and use painkillers without taking into account the adverse reactions in the healthy organs. It is the art of process assessment to provide the right diagnosis.

Either standards or maturity models are used as reference in assessments. There is an underlying assumption that these references define the state of the art and therefore an assessment using them provides a useful picture with hints what to keep as it is and where to change what. The development of such references and of the underlying models is a job with great responsibility.

With reliable assessment results at hand we need 'only' to implement the improvements in the identified areas. The only problem is 'only'. Organisations have a great inertia, development organisations working on innovation for others the greatest. Therefore is the topic of approaches used for process improvement and experience / insights gained of prevalent interest.

The focus of improvement can be any process. Contracting the development is a process on a different level than a ‘simple’ test process. A significant improvement will take a different period of time depending on the process complexity. The size of the organisation is another factor influencing the speed of change. Generally speaking, the bigger the need to standardise or improve a (complex) process in a (big) organisation the longer it takes to achieve it. No surprise. Small organisations often do not feel the need of process standardisation and that makes their improvement life harder.

All these topics are discussed in this track.


Karol Frühauf is co-founder and president of INFOGEM AG, Informatiker Gemeinschaft für Unternehmensberatung in Switzerland, since 1987 consulting in the field of software project and quality management. He worked 12 years for BBC Brown Boveri & Cie in the area of power system control in different positions and helped since 1987 as consultant many companies to improve their processes and software products. He co-authored two books and is a frequent speaker, tutor and teacher in the field of software engineering. Karol initiated and directs the "Bridge Guard Art/Science Residence Centre" in Štúrovo, Slovakia (www.bridgeguard.org).


Track Committee:

ChairKarol Frühauf, INFOGEM AG, Switzerland

Local Co-Organizing ChairPaula Ventura Martins, University of Algarve, Portugal

Program Committee


Matthias Würgler, SBB (Swiss Railways), Switzerland
Ferdinand Gramsamer, BBV, Switzerland
Arnold Q. Scheuing, Schweiz. Mobiliar Versicherungen & Vorsorge, Switzerland
Srinath    Vaidyanathan, Six-Group, Switzerland
Ondrej    Krajicek, YSoft, Czech Republic
Michael    Felderer, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Ralf Kneuper, Dr. Ralf Kneuper Beratung, Germany
Andreas    Nehfort, Nehfort IT-Consulting KG, Austria
Eva Kisonova, Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o., Slovakia 
Ivan Stavrovsky, Siemens Program and System Engineering s.r.o., Slovakia
Paula Ventura Martins, University of Algarve, Portugal

Call for Papers

We know it by now well that most problems in ICT development and maintenance are of human nature, and not technological obstacles.
The way how developers co-operate in teams and projects key to success. Process engineering is an attempt to facilitate co-operation by providing the chance to establish a common view on how the work should be done. ICT organizations face the challenge to have strong processes to reduce cost and keep the processes flexible so that the teams can quickly adapt their approach to the rapidly changing requirements. Far more important than process capability is the attitude of continuous improvement. Only fast learning organisations are competitive and likely to survive.
Software Process Improvement (SPI) requires an effective assessment of the software process, leading to the identification of improvement challenges and opportunities. We seek contributions to a better understanding of how process improvement and assessment does work and how does it help ICT organizations.

Suggested topics of interest include, but are not restricted to:
  • Methods, models and tools for process assessment and improvement
  • Integrating SPI in process models (e.g. SPEM)
  • Maturity models, and their adoption
  • Process improvement and assessment in small to medium companies
  • Agile approaches to process improvement and assessment
  • Leveraging business goals through process improvement and assessment
  • Process improvement and assessment in the “trenches” (aka case studies)
  • Benchmarking alternatives to process improvement and assessment
  • Empirical studies concerning process improvement and assessment
  • Quantitative process assessment and visible improvement
  • Approaches to process improvement without assessment

Paper submission

Authors should submit to http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=quatic2014 a PDF version of their paper. Papers must be in CPS format and not exceed 6 pages, including figures, references, and appendices. Submissions must be original and will be reviewed by the Track Program Committee. Accepted papers will be submitted for archiving in Xplore and CSDL, subject to one of the authors registering for the conference. The authors of the 3 best papers of this thematic track will be invited to submit extended versions to the main track of the conference. More info on the QUATIC’2014 selection process and its tracks can be found at http://2014.quatic.org.

Important dates

Abstract submission: April 21, 2014 (optional)
Paper submission: April 28, 2014
Authors’ notification: May 26, 2014
Registration and Camera-ready: July 10, 2014 (extended to July 21, 2014)