The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a ?strategic management system? developed in the early 1990's by Dr. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and Dr. David Norton (Balanced Scorecard Collaborative). The Balanced Scorecard defines a strategic-based responsibility accounting system. It provides feedback for both the internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. It also divides an organization's mission and strategy into operational objectives and performance measures for four different perspectives: the financial perspective, the customer perspective, the internal business process perspective, and the learning and growth (infrastructure) perspective.

Until a few years ago, many companies had relegated the management of their software development process to their technical staff who were without proper professional management training. Growing competition and decreased time-to-market, as well as poor performance in terms of meeting cost and schedule commitments, has raised the awareness of management to the need to take control of this component which is increasingly critical to the success of their business. To improve success rates in terms of quality, productivity and scheduling commitments, the Software Process Improvement (SPI) paradigm gained considerable following in management circles during the ?90s. This paradigm is variously defined as:

The continual and iterative improvement of both the software process and products through the use of project experiences.

A deliberate, planned methodology following standardized documentation practices to capture on paper (and in practice) the activities, methods, practices, and transformations that people use to develop and maintain software and the associated products. As each activity, method, practice and transformation is documented, each is analyzed against the standard value added to the organization

and a plan derived from the recommendations of a software process assessment that identifies the specific process capability and performance. Each of these definitions a possible dimension, from interaction to the need for documentation, from process assessment to the achievement of business goals.

There are four basic tenets behind

Evolution is possible and it requires time and resources;

At higher process maturity levels, risk decreases and performance increases;

Evolution implies the existence of a predefined sequence to keep processes under control;

Organisational maturity will decrease if it is not maintained over time.

There are two generic types of approach to Process Improvement

Analytic models. These are open, goal-oriented, measurement-based and bottom-up-driven. This type of approach uses quantitative evidence in determining where an improvement is needed and, later, whether or not the improvement initiative has been successful. The Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle, by Shewhart & Deming, and the GQM technique can be categorised as analytic models. There are few organisations which create ad hoc measurement programs, just for their own processes ;

Prescriptive models. These are closed, staged, assessment-based and top-down-vision-driven. This type of approach uses a formal and prescriptive improvement model which includes a structured set of practices. A basic assumption with this type of approach is that the defined roadmaps of these prescriptive models have general validity. SW-CMM? and similar formal SPI models can be categorised as prescriptive SPI models.