Successful adoption of software process improvement models: A cultural-methodological proposal

Adoption of a Software Process Improvement Model (SPIM) is a problematic activity that occurs in almost all software development companies. This problem has different causes. One of these causes has relation with cultural aspects that are present in: a) The Company's organizational culture, b) The SPIM's documents embedded culture. Whether these cultural aspects are not treated properly there will be a problem that generates millions in economic losses to companies around the world. To reduce these economic losses and increase successful rates of SPIM adoptions, we developed a culturalmethodological proposal. This has four steps: a) Identify the Company's organizational culture, b) identify the SPIM's documents embedded culture and, c) Identify and quantify cultural aspects of organizational culture and embedded culture and, d) explain differences between them. The purpose is to generate information that can be used to develop plans and strategies for adoption and institutionalization of SPIM. Our proposal is illustrated using the Mexican Norm: NMXI-059/NYCE-2005 as an example of a SPIM and 8 Mexican Software development companies as an example of organizational culture.