A software product is often behind schedule, over budget, non-conforming to requirements and of poor quality. Controlling and improving the processes used to develop software has been proposed as a primary remedy to these problems. The model is also used as a roadmap to improve a software development process's maturity. The premise of the SW-CMM is that mature development processes deliver products on time, within budget, within requirements, and of high quality. This research examines the effects of Software Process Maturity, using the SW-CMM, on software development effort.
Effort is the primary determinant of software de-velopment cost and schedule.
The technical challenge in this research is determining how much change in effort is due solely to changing Process Maturity when this change generally occurs concurrently with changes to other factors that also influence software development effort. The modeling approach used in this analysis can be used in other areas of Software Engineering as well. Understanding Software Process Redesign using Modeling, Analysis and Simulation . Workshop on Software Process Simulation and Modeling, Silver Springs, OR 27-29 June 1999. It provides an overview of research results from business process redesign to help draw attention to the importance of treating process redesign as a process of organizational and process transformation.