Continuous Software Process Improvement Requires Organisational Learning: An Australian Case Study

The study reported in this paper suggests that in order to achieve optimal benefits from implementing process improvement programs, organisations must move towards becoming what is termed “a learning organisation.” Software process assessment “leads to the identification and selection of key activities for improvement and the continuous application of improvements to match business needs” (ISO/IEC 1996). Continuous improvement requires a commitment to learning on the part of the organisation (Garvin 1993). A model to help identify evidence of learning (the Organisational Learning Evaluation Cycle [OLEC] has been developed and empirically tested in the study. We have found evidence to suggest that the case study organisation had not moved through all three of Garvin's (1993) overlapping phases of organisational learning and as a result the firm's improvement program did not achieve optimal benefits for the organisation. The paper concludes by discussing why significant improvement in performance was not achieved.