Documentation As a Software Process Capability Indicator

Summary form only given. In a small software organization, a close and intense relationship with its customers is often a substitute for documentation along the software processes. Nevertheless, according to the quality standards, the inadequacy of the required documentation will retain the assessed capability of software processes on the lowest level. This article describes the interconnections between software process documentation and the maturity of the organization. The data is collected from the SPICE assessment results of small and medium sized software organizations in Finland. The aim of the article is to visualise the necessity of documentation throughout the software engineering processes in order to achieve a higher capability level. In addition we point out that processes with insufficient documentation decrease the chance to improve the quality of the processes, as it is impossible to track and analyse them.