Tony Gorschek; Pär Åsfält , pp. 58. MAM/Sektionen för Management, 2006.
Purpose: Investigate and examine industry practice with regards to evaluation of process improvement, identification of measures and methods for success evaluations. The main reasoning is to use empirical data from industry, data from academia and research as input for suggesting proposals for improvement and discussion new avenues for future research in a field not addressed by e.g. traditional investment theory or marketing research. Method: Interviews were used and several data sources were elicited to gather empirical data. Literature surveys complemented this. Ultimately a triangulation approach was adopted to gradually and continuously compare and identify the chasms between academia and the reality and needs of industry. Results: The results can be described in three parts. First, there is a empirical investigation showing what measures and models are used in industry. These are discussed and put against literature (the academic view) in both the software engineering field, but relevant research is also scrutinized in business management field, e.g. investment theory. The second contribution is the concrete proposal of three methods for evaluating process improvement success. The first two of these are actually useable and take notice of the limitations identified in industry through the empirical investigation, i.e. no assumptions and theoretical models are presented in the first part of the proposal. The second part of the proposal is designed to present an outlook of the overall potential, provoking a discussion and ultimately leading out to a conclusion of future research needed in the field.