Software Engineering Competence Center (SECC) recently announced the launch of the 7th round of the Software Process Improvement Guide (SPI) program implementation for 2011. The program, designed specially to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)s, aims to raise the quality of the software products of these companies and boost their technical standard via the utilization of state-of-the-art software development processes.
The program depends on carrying out the SPI Guide (SPIG) released by SECC, an affiliate of Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), as a model that suits the nature of the operations of SMEs based on the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
The purpose of the program is to encourage SMEs to follow the operations of software development in order to raise their competence in a bid to acquire the CMMI.
The SPIG includes the instructions, procedures and detailed models for enhancing methods of operations and facilitating the software quality improvement procedure.
An electronic version is enclosed to the guide for companies to use as an effective tool anywhere.
Program enrollment applications will be accepted as of January 23, 2011 for two weeks. After that the applications will be looked into. The nominated companies will be notified by email to finalize the enrollment procedures.
The 7-month program will begin with an introductory seminar that introduces the implementation phases to the participating companies. The seminar will be followed by 11 training days for two employees from each company to be finalized within two weeks. Afterwards, the SECC experts will pay 12 consultancy visits to every company. The program will be finalized by evaluating the achievements of the prior period.
The terms and criteria for selection and the application forms are available on www.secc.org.eg. The deadline for signing up is February 3, 2011.
Six consecutive program rounds have been offered to over 110 companies since the program was first launched in mid 2006.
The initiative had a positive impact on the participating companies that praised the great benefits they acquired through the program.
Many of these companies got enrolled in a training program to acquire the CMMI; several of them obtained levels 2 and 3.
