Software Process Practices in Small Software Companies in Botswana

In recognizing the potential that software can help in the socio-economic development of the country, the government of Botswana has identified software industry as one of the strategic priority areas in ICT with research focus on areas such as software engineering practices and software process improvement. To realize this vision, the state of software development practice has to be formally assessed to determine the strengths and weaknesses thereby providing input for the development of appropriate software development strategy for the country. However, the current state of software process practice has not yet been properly investigated. In this paper, we discuss the results of our study conducted to determine process performance and process capability of major software companies. The process assessment study was conducted following the METvalCOMPETISOFT assessment methodology. Our findings highlight the organizations' current software engineering practices by identifying strengths, major weaknesses and key areas for software process improvement. We also discuss our lightweight prototype tool developed for the management of process assessment in small companies.