Improving Software Developer's Competence: Is the Personal Software Process Working?
This addresses whether PSP effectively improves individual software engineer performance, but results are incremental as it shows mixed outcomes in an educational setting.
The study tested the Personal Software Process (PSP) on 58 master's students in Finland and Denmark to see if it improves software developer competence, finding that it did not enhance estimation skills but maintained productivity and improved product quality.
Emerging agile software development methods are people oriented development approaches to be used by the software industry. The personal software process (PSP) is an accepted method for improving the capabilities of a single software engineer. Five original hypotheses regarding the impact of the PSP to individual performance are tested. Data is obtained from 58 computer science students in three university courses on the master level, which were held in two different educational institutions in Finland and Denmark. Statistical data treatment shows that the use of PSP did not improve size and time estimation skills but that the productivity did not decrease and the resulting product quality was improved. The implications of these findings are briefly addressed.