Model-Driven Gap Analysis for the Fulfilment of Quality Standards in Software Development Processes

Abstract Nowadays, society is moving to rapid digitalization of almost any aspect of our lives. From healthcare and transport to work or entertainment, we depend on software products that must function properly. The adequate construction of these software products can be evaluated and certified by means of quality standards. However, the adoption of quality standards is a complex and time-consuming task that requires experienced practitioners with advanced knowledge about the standards and development practices. This presents a dichotomy for development companies that are moving to more agile schemes, where the necessary expert knowledge about quality is not easy to get. To overcome these issues, this paper presents a model-driven approach to automate the analysis of software development processes that must be aligned to quality standards. The approach has been implemented in an open-source tool and applied to a case study to automatically generate a gap analysis by reusing expert knowledge related to the ISO 9001 standard. The application has demonstrated that is possible to reduce the effort required to perform the analysis and the improvement of development processes to assure the fulfilment of specific quality standards.