SPI MANIFESTO

Values
People – Must involve people actively and affect their daily lives not to be focused on management alone
Business – What you do to make business successful – this is not about living to deploy a standard, reach a maturity level, or obtain a certificate even though it can certainly help do all of those things
Change – Process improvement is inherently linked with change – we realize and accept that we cannot continue to live as we do today – we must change – perhaps a little or perhaps a lot
Principles

People
Know the culture and focus on needs
Motivate all people involved
Base improvement on experience and measurements
Create a learning organization
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Business
Support the organization’s vision and business objectives
Use dynamic and adaptable models as needed
Apply risk management
— 
Change
Manage the organizational change in your improvement effort
Ensure all parties understand and agree on process
Do not lose focus

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What is this?

In September 2009 a group of experts in Software Process Improvement (SPI) from all over the world gathered in connection with the EuroSPI Conference for a workshop at Universidad de Alcalá in Spain.
EuroSPI's mission is to develop an experience and knowledge exchange platform for Europe where SPI practices can be discussed and exchanged and knowledge can be gathered and shared. At the workshop 15 experts presented their ‘wisdom’ grounded in many years of process improvement experience. Based on the presentations, 30 workshop participants brainstormed core values and principles specifically for process improvement. Via affinity analysis and group thinking exercises we ended up with a manifesto for SPI. At the end of the workshop 4 values and 14 principles were identified. Among the group of participants, authoring
responsibilities were distributed on a voluntary basis backed by personal justification. Some values and principles were focused on by more then one volunteer. By mid-October 2009 all the contributions were available to the editors, who edited the document thoroughly. A number of principles were written with considerable overlap so it was obvious that they should be consolidated.
The same consolidation needs were applied to one of the values. The editors restructured the documented and edited the text so that it introduces itself in a uniform style. The result was a document with three core values and eleven principles. This document was ready in November 2009. Eight reviewers read the resulting document and commented thoroughly. Finally all the comments were addressed in this final version from January 2010, including a joining of two principles and a shorter formulation of the principles – so the final document consists of three values and ten principles. A final review was performed by Tim Kasse.

Manifest – what is that?
A ‘manifest’ makes things clear and obvious or evident. This manifest gives expression to state-of-the-art knowledge on SPI. It is based on hundreds of person-years of practice and experience from organisations worldwide.

What to use the manifest for?
You can use the manifest to obtain knowledge on SPI. It will help you to remember what is important about Software Process Improvement? Each value and the consequent principles are written so you can easily place yourself into the problem and its context. Short explanations for each value are provided that can further augment your understanding. Each value also has some relevant examples that will make it easier to learn and remember the values and principles. You can use the manifest when you are responsible for planning a SPI project. The third manifest value states that SPI is actually really about change. Thus, you can apply the principles in your SPI project that will support the necessary corresponding change in the organisation.

We hope you enjoy reading the manifesto and find the contents useful.
Jan Pries-Heje and Jørn Johansen