Evaluating the Readiness to Adopt CMMI in Malaysian Software SME

Background/Objectives: Delivering high quality software is a big challenge for software companies specifically for SMEs but it is significant asset. This research objective is to evaluate the readiness of Malaysian SME to adopt CMMI with consideration of agile methods and principles. Methods/Statistical Analysis: A survey was conducted with random 40 respondents of the company’s employees like developers, quality engineers and managers and it was a cross sectional survey because the data was gathered in a period of time in order to achieve the objectives. The data was analyzed using statistical analysis technics like bar graph and pie chart. Findings: Based on the survey results, the company is not ready to adopt CMMI officially because the results show that most of the employees agreed on the need to adopt more agile methods and to exercise more agile principles in the company. additionally, the results show that some CMMI practices like establish estimates of work product, task attribute, and plan for project resources were used effectively. On the hand, some essential CMMI practices like identifying configuration items, establishing a configuration management system, and creating baselines were not used sufficiently besides some other CMMI practices like controlling configuration items, tracking change requests, and controlling configuration items were exercised very badly. Application/Improvements: In interests of enhancing the succeed of SPI initiatives based on CMMI for any SMEs, this study suggests SMEs to check their readiness first.