Strengthening maturity levels by a legal assurance process
Luigi Buglione, Ricardo J. Rejas‐Muslera, Juan José Cuadrado-Gallego · Software Process Improvement and Practice · 2009
Abstract One of the key elements for the viability of information system projects is given by the adoption of legal assurance activities and measures since nowadays they can arise legal risks that, in some cases, can suppose a serious threat for project commercial and financial success. When calculating the return of investment (ROI) for a software process improvement initiative, readers would not take care which are the cost issues impacting on such values, supposing the activities generating such value are referable only to the processes included in a Maturity Model (MM) such as CMMI or ISO 15504. During last years, moving from the initial Philip Crosby's idea for measuring and checking the organizational evolution of an organization, a plenty of MM have been created, but there is no news about a legal assurance (LAS) process that make more systematic the way legal risks are (or should be) managed. On the other hand, professional practice usually does not incorporate standardized processes in order to discipline the legal assurance activities and measures, returning a feeling for a lack of project legal security. This article proposes to take care of LAS process as an additional process area within an MM, in order to provide a suitable instrument for the management of inherent legal risks to any information systems project. After presenting main elements for this new process, it will be presented using the typical CMMI Process Area architecture, where it would be configurable as a support process at Maturity Level 2 (ML2). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.