Received: 9 March 2021

DOI: 10.1049/sfw2.12041
- -Revised: 5 June 2021

O R I G I N A L R E S E A R C H PA P E R
Accepted: 22 June 2021

- IET Software

Beyond factors that motivate the adoption of the ISO/IEC 29110

in Mexico: An exploratory study of the implementation pace of
this standard and the benefits observed

Mirna Muñoz1 | Jezreel Mejía1 | Adriana Peña2 | Claude Y. Laporte3 |

Gloria Piedad Gasca‐Hurtado4

1
Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas‐Unidad
Zacatecas, Zacatecas, México
2
Computer Science Department, CUCEI of the
Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, México
3
Department of Software and IT Engineering, École
de Technologie Supérieure, Montréal, Québec,
Canada
4
Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Medellin,
Medellin, Colombia
Correspondence
Jezreel Mejía, Centro de Investigación en
Matemáticas‐Unidad Zacatecas, Parque Quantum,
Ciudad del Conocimiento Av. Lasec Andador
Galileo Galilei Manzana 3 Lote 7, 98160, 98068
Zacatecas, México.
Email: jmejia@cimat.mx
Abstract
Around the world, the importance of Very Small Entities (VSEs), organisations having up to
25 people, has been constantly increasing. Worldwide, VSEs represent over 92% of the
software industry. Therefore, two main needs can be highlighted: a) providing VSEs with
resources to produce high‐quality software, and b) training software engineering un-
dergraduates in proven practices to produce high‐quality software within the given schedule
and budget. A logical way to meet these needs is transfering proven practices provided by
software engineering standards. However, transferring the knowledge of software engi-
neering standards is not always an easy task. The ISO/IEC 29110 is a series of international
standards and guides that provide codified knowledge related to the software development
process. The series was specifically developed to be used by VSEs. This study presents an
exploratory analysis, conducted in 12 Mexican VSEs, which implemented the software Basic
profile of the ISO/IEC 29110, to identify the pace at which they can adopt this standard to
their environment. Besides, the benefits and difficulties encountered are provided. The
results can be relevant for other VSEs interested in implementing this standard. Even if the
exploratory analysis was performed in the VSEs of Mexico, this analysis can be of interest in
other countries. The results obtained can help other VSEs that are interested in the adoption
of this international standard to reduce the barriers to a successful implementation.

KEYWORDS
software development management, software engineering, software management, software process
improvement, software quality

1 | INTRODUCTION competitiveness of software organisations [1–5]. The imple-

The importance to generate software products and services
capable of solving problems of different domains such
as industrial, agricultural, aeronautics, information, and
communication technologies, among others, by providing
high‐performance solutions is increasing, giving software en-
gineering researchers a great opportunity to contribute to
software development organisations.
In this context, Software Process Improvement (SPI) ac-
tivities have been recognised as a logical way to increase the
mentation of SPI in software development organisations has
highlighted many challenges related to time, financial support,
employee effort, and particularly the capacity to understand the
information contained in the international software engineer-
ing standards [6].
These facts become more critical for small organisations,
such as those having up to 25 people categorised as Very Small
Entities (VSEs). A VSE can be defined as an organisation (e.g.
public or non‐profit organisation), a project, or a department
having up to 25 people [1–5, 7–9]. VSEs usually present

-
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MUÑOZ ET AL.
- 413

characteristics such as a lack of knowledge and practical
experience regarding the implementation of SPI models and
standards. VSEs also must work hard to survive, and they lack
enough employees dedicated to SPI activities [2–5, 7–9].
The motivation to perform this research increased due to
the importance of VSEs as the main producers in a supply
chain of software products since they frequently develop
software for medium and large companies or organisations [1, 3].
Because of their specific features, it becomes important to
analyse the needs to perform software process improvement
activities from the human perspective. To address this
perspective, this research study began focussing on identi-
fying the factors that motivate and affect the implementation
of the ISO/IEC 29110 standard [10].
The main results of this first exploratory analysis are
summarised in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Factors that motivate and affect the implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110

Questions Highlighted factors Motivators and their type of impact

Why implement the ISO/IEC 29110 in your
organisation?
Customer was the most highlighted factor. VSEs Recognition of customers has a positive impact
mentioned that with the implementation of the ISO/
IEC 29110, they will be able to get new customers or
new markets.
Learning and growth/skills were the other highlighted New knowledge has a positive impact
factors. VSEs mentioned that they will update their
processes, products, or services based on the acquired
knowledge.

Why did you invest resources to get certified?
Processes, VSEs mentioned that they will achieve the Implementation of a structured way of
implementation of processes, and therefore, they will developing software has a positive impact
be more effective in software development.
Customers, VSEs consider that they will obtain Recognition of customers has a positive impact
recognition with an international standard and attract
more customers.
SPI project/reference models, VSEs mentioned that they
will ensure the quality of software projects because
they are working under the ISO/IEC 29110 standard.

What difficulties did you have in the
implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110?
Processes, VSEs had never developed software using Lack of experience using international standards
documented processes. has a negative impact
Learning and growth/skills, VSEs suffer the lack of
collaboration of the teammates, as there is no
knowledge of processes and there is no structured
way of working.
Organisation/culture, VSEs mentioned the resistance to
change to work under a formal or systematic way to
develop software.

What difficulties did you have to obtain the ISO/ Learning and growth/skills, VSEs present a lack of The resistance to change of the organisational
IEC 29110 certification? experience in performing some activities related to culture has a negative impact
quality such as architecture, design, verification, test
definition, and execution.
SPI project/reference models, VSEs mentioned that it was
the first time they applied a standard. They had to get
comprehension and a practical understanding of it.

What benefits did you have as a result of the
certification to the ISO/IEC 29110?
Processes, VSEs mentioned that they achieved a Implementation of a structured way of
definition, documentation, and implementation of developing software has a negative impact
processes for developing their software projects.
Customers, VSEs mentioned an increase in awareness
of the need to work under a quality standard.

What benefits did you have in the implementation Financial, VSEs mentioned the government's support in Economical support has a positive impact
of the ISO/IEC 29110? sponsoring a percentage of the cost of the
implementation and certification.
Learning and growth/skills, VSEs mentioned the Technical support has a positive impact
support from a research centre in training, reviewing,
and providing recommendations that helped them to
have a better understanding of the standard and how
to implement it within their organisations based on
their particular way of work.

414
- MUÑOZ
After studying the results, the authors of this study wanted
to know the implementation pace as well as the benefits
identified by VSEs. Therefore, these two questions motivated
this study: (1) what is the pace at which VSEs can adopt
practices of the ISO/IEC 29110 standard? (2) Are VSEs able
to perceive the benefits of the practices of the software engi-
neering standard implemented?
This study presents the second study of a series of
exploratory studies focussed on 12 VSEs of the Zacatecas state
of Mexico that have implemented the software Basic profile of
the ISO/IEC 29110. It is important to mention that the
software Basic profile is presently the only profile in which a
VSE can be certified. Therefore, the analysis is focussed on
how they have adopted the proven practices of the Basic
profile of the ISO/IEC 29110 standard and how they
perceived the utility of the practices provided by the standard.
We are confident that this analysis will help to reduce the
potential barriers towards having a successful implementation of
the ISO/IEC 29110 for VSEs interested in the implementation
of this standard, such as the lack of experience in using a stan-
dard. To be able to use a standard, VSEs must understand the
engineering and management practices to be carried out. VSEs
also have to identify the practices in which their people will need
training or additional effort to implement them.
After the Introduction, the rest of the paper is organised as
follows: Section 2 provides the background of this research
including why the ISO/IEC 29110 is interesting for the
Mexican software industry, the related works, and an overview
of the software Basic profile of the ISO/IEC 29110 standard.
Section 3 provides an exploratory analysis performed to iden-
tify how the practices were adopted by 12 VSEs as well as their
perception of the benefits provided by the software engineering
practices of this standard. Section 4 presents the discussion, and
finally, Section 5 provides the conclusion and future work.
2 | BACKGROUND
2.1 | Why is the ISO/IEC 29110 interesting
for the Mexican software industry?
The National Survey on Productivity and Competitiveness of
Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (ENAPROCE by its
Spanish acronym) published in 2018 in Mexico noted that
Mexico has around four million enterprises and 97% of them
are VSEs [11]. This highlights the importance of the role that
VSEs play in supplying the chain of software to cover the
software market demand.
Therefore, pushing the competitiveness by the use of in-
ternational models and standards has been prioritised in
Mexico with the implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110 sys-
tems and software engineering series. The ISO/IEC 29110 has
been recognised as one quality standard for the Mexican
software industry to support VSEs to face challenges such as
improving productivity and quality with minimum costs [12].
This standard presents a set of characteristics that makes it
attractive to Mexican VSEs, as follows [12]: (1) it provides a
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ET AL.
roadmap of four profiles that could be selected by a VSE ac-
cording to its specific needs; (2) it has two processes as the
foundation for project management and the software imple-
mentation; (3) it works in VSEs using any development
approach, methodology or tool; and (4) it provides a step‐by‐
step guide based on a set of process elements such as the
objective, activities, task, roles and work products.
It is worth mentioning that, currently, Mexico has 81 of the
129 VSEs certified to the software Basic profile of the ISO/
IEC 29110 standard in Latin America, which means that 63%
of Latin American VSEs certified to this standard are Mexican
VSEs [13]. Over 37% of other Latin American VSEs that
obtained a certification to the Basic profile are from Columbia
and Peru.
2.2 | Related works
The models and standards for the software industry are elab-
orated to contribute to the development of quality products
within the budget and schedule, by optimising the efforts and
resources. Nevertheless, their implementation in software
development organisations presents a great challenge. This fact
is evidenced by researchers identifying such challenges [1–10,
14–16]. But, only a few of them performed an analysis of the
factors that impact the implementation of this standard; this
section briefly describes some of them [3, 14–17].
Larrucea, O’Connor, Colomo‐Palacios, and Laporte in [3]
provided a study of hurdles that VSEs must face in the
implementation of Software Process Improvements as well as
the opportunities that its implementation offers. Their study
was conducted based on the software industry experience of
authors in multiple countries. The results showed a set of 10
barriers and 8 opportunities classified into four categories:
financial, skills, culture, and reference models.
Davila and Pessoa in [14] performed a case study in a
company in Peru to identify both positive and negative factors
that drive the implementation of the software Basic profile of
the ISO/IEC 29110. They implemented a questionnaire to
perform the analysis for three targeted projects within the
company. They identified the experience in IT and top man-
agement support as factors that positively influence the
implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110. They also identified
competitive pressure, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of
use, and user training as factors with a negative influence on
the implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110.
Wongsai, Siddoo, and Wetprasit in [15] performed a study
in Thailand to identify the negative and positive factors that
impact the implementation of the software Basic profile of the
ISO/IEC 29110 in VSEs. They analysed 15 papers from a
Systematic Literature Review they evaluated through ISO
standard's experts to analyse its potential. They identified six
factor categories: finance, customer, internal business pro-
cesses, learning, and growth, organisation, and SPI project
programme; each category has a set of negative and positive
factors. Finally, they pointed out the importance of the effec-
tive management of the available resources, staff turnover, and

MUÑOZ ET AL.
individual skills and experience as valuable factors for the
implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110.
Sanchez‐Gordon, O’Connor, and Colomo‐Palacios in [16]
presented an analysis, based on the grounded theory, to un-
derstand the issues that affect the adoption of the ISO/IEC
29110 including VSEs from Ireland and Ecuador. They per-
formed a qualitative analysis of data resulting in three cate-
gories and six subcategories as follows: (1) the level of interest
and awareness with two subcategories: high awareness on the
standard and standard benefit awareness; (2) the level of
acceptance with two subcategories: low acceptance and less
priority; and (3) barriers towards the standard adoption with
two subcategories: the perceived need and the resource de-
mand. Their results for the first category showed that VSEs
have a very low level of acceptance and low priority for quality
models and standards. Regarding the second category, the
results showed that due to the high level of awareness of
quality standards as well as the knowledge of its advantage,
VSEs are interested in a standard adoption in a short time.
Finally, for the third category, they discovered the need for
more guidelines and assistance to encourage and/or attract the
attention of VSEs towards the implementation of quality
standards.
Lucho, Melendez, and Dávila in [17] presented an analysis
of the environmental factors affecting the adoption of the
ISO/IEC 29110 standard. The analysis is based on a multiple
case study including four organisations. From a total of 16
environmental factors, the authors identified 5 factors that
influenced all organisations: partners support, vertical linkage,
and trust with partners are the factors related to the top
management support an SPI with a positive influence; and the
partners' defence and globalisation influenced all organisations,
even when these factors have not been identified as barriers or
success factors in previous studies. Finally, they argued that the
partner support factor must be supervised carefully during the
implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110.
2.3 | The ISO/IEC 29110 series
To help VSEs unlock the use of quality standards, the ISO/
IEC 29110 has been developed as a set of standards and guides
designed to cover the VSEs' needs [6]. The ISO/IEC 29110
series provides standards and guides with a minimal subset of
international engineering standards called profiles for VSEs
[1, 3, 8].
This standard is targeted to VSEs that do not develop
critical products and have little or no experience in the use and
improvement of processes from systems engineering or soft-
ware engineering lifecycle standards for example ISO/IEC/
IEEE 12207 [1, 8, 18]. Additionally, one characteristic that
makes this standard attractive for VSEs is that it can be used
with any development approach such as waterfall, incremental,
evolutionary, iterative, and agile approaches [1, 8, 18].
The ISO/IEC 29110 standard has four software profiles to
be selected by an organisation according to its specific needs
[1, 8, 18]: (1) the Entry profile is addressed to start‐ups and
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- 415
VSEs developing small projects of less than 6‐person month; (2)
the Basic profile is addressed to VSEs developing one product
by a single team; (3) the Intermediate profile is addressed to
VSEs developing more than one project in parallel with more
than one work team, and (4) the Advanced profile is addressed
to VSEs that want to sustain and grow as an independent
competitive system or a software development business.
According to [1, 8, 12, 18], the four software profiles have
two fundamental processes in common: the Project Manage-
ment (PM) process and the Software Implementation (SI)
process:
1. Project management process. This process aims to establish
and carry out the tasks related to project management in a
systematic way to complete it with the expected quality,
time, and costs of the project's objectives. This process is
composed of four activities: project planning, project plan
execution, project assessment and control, and project
closure.
2. Software implementation process. This process aims to
perform in a systematic way, the activities related to the
analysis, design, construction, integration, and tests, ac-
cording to the requirements specified of a new or modified
software product. This process is composed of six activities:
initiation, analysis, design, construction, integration and
tests, and delivery.
It is important to highlight that, nowadays, the ISO/IEC
29110 has only one certifiable software profile, the Basic
profile. Therefore, the analysis presented in this study was
focussed on this profile.
3 | RESEARCH APPROACH
This section presents the results of the second exploratory
analysis that was performed on a set of organisations in México
to identify, in a qualitative way, the pace at which they were able
to adopt and adapt the practices provided by the ISO/IEC
29110 as well as the perception of the benefits.
In the following paragraphs, we describe the three steps
performed: (1) design of an online questionnaire to collect
data, (2) data collection strategy, and (3) data analysis.
3.1 | Design of an online questionnaire to
collect data
This step was focussed on the development of a questionnaire
as an instrument to collect data from VSEs. We decided to
provide a set of questions that were easy to answer, not taking
too long for the VSE to complete. The following constraints
were then established:
� No more than 12 questions per process.
� The questions should be developed focussing on each
practice of the ISO/IEC 29110 and should allow registering:

416
- MUÑOZ
(a) the year in which the practice was implemented and (b)
how the utility of each practice is perceived.
� One question per process focussed on the benefits
perceived by the VSEs with the implementation of the
standard. To obtain the data related to the benefits, a list of
benefits was developed using the expected benefits provided
in part 5 as a reference, and the purpose and objectives of
each process (i.e. project management and software process
implementation) provided by the software Basic profile of
the ISO/IEC 29110 [12].
A 23‐question questionnaire with only multiple‐option
answers was designed as shown in Figure 1.
As illustrated in Figure 1, the questionnaire was
conducted in Spanish because the sample of VSEs was
from Mexico. Figure 1a shows the section aimed at
obtaining the general data; Figure 1b shows an example
of the questions aimed at obtaining the information about
the pace of each practice implementation; Figure 1c
shows an example of the questions aimed at obtaining the
information about the perception of the practice's utility;
and Figure 1d shows an example of a general question
asking about the benefits observed by a VSE after con-
ducting an entire implementation of the standard. The
figure also lists the purpose and objectives of the project
management process and the software implementation
process provided by the ISO/IEC 29110 [12]. The
FIGURE 1 The questionnaire developed to collect data from Very Small Entities
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ET AL.
complete questionnaire is available at https://forms.gle/GF
rsbah6XuKyAW2BA.
A brief description of the questionnaire is as follows:
� The questionnaire has three sections: general data, project
management process questions, and software implementa-
tion process questions.
� The general data aims to collect two types of data: the year
the VSEs implemented the Basic profile of the ISO/IEC
29110, and the type of VSE (e.g. a software development
centre of a university or a software development
organisation).
� The project management section aims to obtain information
related to each activity provided by the standard, to obtain
more detailed information. The questionnaire focussed on
the set of tasks provided for each activity. This section
contains nine questions:
◦ Four questions, one per project management activity (i.e.
project planning, project plan execution, project assess-
ment and control, and project closure), asking to select
the year in which each practice was adopted.
◦ Four questions, one per project management activity (i.e.
project planning, project plan execution, project assess-
ment and control, and project closure), asking to select an
option in four‐scale values (i.e. very useful, useful, little
useful, or not useful) on how each practice is perceived by
the VSE.
 17518814, 2021, 6, Downloaded from https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1049/sfw2.12041 by SEA ORCHID (Thailand), Wiley Online Library on [21/05/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
MUÑOZ ET AL.
- 417

◦ One question in which, from a set of previously defined
benefits, the VSE selects the benefit(s) that they have
obtained.
� The software implementation section aims at obtaining in-
formation regarding each activity provided by the standard.
This section of the questionnaire focussed on the set of
tasks provided for each activity. This section contains 13
questions:
◦ Six questions, one per software implementation activity
(i.e. initiation, analysis, design, construction, integration
and tests, and delivery), asking to select the year in which
each practice was adopted.
◦ Six questions, one per project management activity (i.e.
initiation, analysis, design, construction, integration and
tests, and delivery), asking to select in four‐scale values
(i.e. very useful, useful, little useful, or not useful) on how
each practice is perceived by the VSE.
◦ One question in which, from a set of previously defined
benefits, the VSE selects the benefit(s) that have been
obtained.
3.2 | Data collection strategy
Table 2 provides a summary of the sample of VSEs
participating in this research, the information provided includes
the number of employees (size), the software development
approach, the number of years using the standard (years), the
application domain (specifying if it is an industry), the type of
software whether it is from academic domain, a spin‐off or a
software development centre (SDC) of a university.
3.3 | Data analysis approach
To perform this exploratory analysis, the authors performed
the following steps:
1. To consolidate the data provided in the sections regarding the
year of adoption of the practices and the observed benefits.
2. Illustrate the data graphically to analyse each practice
implementation pace from both processes: the project
management and the software implementation.
3. Establish a relationship between the practices' imple-
mentation pace findings with the observed benefits.
4. Synthesise the results by consolidating the information
obtained in step 3.

The questionnaire was sent to a sample of VSEs of the

Zacatecas state that have implemented the ISO/IEC 29110
and have obtained their certification. The sample was made of
15 VSEs that participated in the study about the factors that
motivated and affected the implementation of the software
Basic profile of the ISO/IEC 29110 standard [10]. We
received the answers from 12 VSEs, which means 80% of the
targeted sample.
In addition, it is important to highlight that within the sam-
ple, VSEs have been using the standard between 1 and 4 years.
4 | RESULTS
This section aims to analyse the data related to the
implementation pace of the practices provided in the basic
profile of ISO/IEC 29110, and the benefits collected, and
provides an interpretation of the data. Next, Section 4.1
provides the results regarding the implementation pace and
Section 4.2 provides the results regarding the benefits
observed.

TABLE 2 Data from the sample of VSEs participating in this research

ID Size Software development approach Years Application domain

VSE1 7 Iterative 4 Academic (spin‐off)

VSE2 5 Waterfall 1 Academic (SDC)

VSE3 4 Scrum 4 Academic (SDC)

VSE4 7 Waterfall 2 Academic (SDC)

VSE5 4 Waterfall 2 Academic (SDC)

VSE6 5 TSP 3 Academic (SDC)

VSE7 2 Waterfall 2 Industry‐embedded software

VSE8 5 Iterative and incremental 3 Academic (SDC)

VSE9 5 Waterfall/Scrum 2 Industry department in an SME developing software for the mining industry

VSE10 3 Agile practices 1 Industryhuman resources software

VSE11 2 Agile practices 4 Industry‐embedded software

VSE12 4 Hybrid CMMI‐Scrum 2 Industry‐livestock systems

Abbreviation: SDC, software development centre; VSE, Very Small Entities.


418
- MUÑOZ
4.1 | Implementation pace
4.1.1 | Analysis of the adoption of the project
management process
This section provides the analysis related to the adoption of
the practices provided by each of the four activities of this
process:
Project planning activity:
This activity is related to the documentation of the planning
details that are necessary to manage the software project [12].
Figure 2 shows the results of the year of adoption of the 15
tasks of this activity by the VSEs.
As shown in Figure 2, all VSEs were able to have a
complete adoption of most of the practices provided by this
activity within the first year related to the following, that is,
review the statement of work (PM.1.1), define delivery in-
structions (PM.1.2), identify tasks to be performed to achieve
the project goals (PM.1.3), establish the workgroup composi-
tion (PM.1.6), generate and integrate a project plan
(PM1.11), include the product description, scope, objectives,
and deliverables (PM.1.12)in the project plan, verify the
project plan (PM.1.13), and validate the project plan
(PM1.14).
The following are the practices identified by at least one
VSE as practices that took two years to be completely adop-
ted: the estimation of the duration of the tasks (PM.1.4) by
VSE1; assignment of start and completion dates (PM.1.7)
by VSE7; creation of a version control strategy (PM.1.10) by
VSE7; and the establishment of a project repository (PM.1.15)
by VSE7.
FIGURE 2 Adoption of project management practices by VSEs
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ET AL.
The practice identification and documentation of the
project resources (PM.1.5) were completely adopted in the
second year by VSE7 and VSE11, and in the third year by
VSE1.
The practice estimation of the project effort and cost
(PM.1.8) was mentioned by VSE3, VSE7, and VSE11 as a
practice that took two years to be completely adopted. How-
ever, the VSE1 took four years to implement this practice.
Finally, the practice identification and documentation of
project risk (PM.1.9) were highlighted by VSE1 as a practice
that took four years to be completely adopted.
Project plan execution activity
This task is related to the adoption of the activities docu-
mented in the project plan [12]. Figure 3 shows the results of
the year of adoption of the six tasks of this activity.
As shown in Figure 3, half of the VSEs (VSE2, VSE3,
VSE4, VSE6, VSE8, and VSE12) were able to have a complete
adoption of all the practices in the first year.
The following are the practices mentioned by VSEs as
practices that took two years to be completely adopted: moni-
toring the execution of the project plan and the recording of the
progress status (PM.2.1) by VSE1 and VSE9; the practice anal-
ysis and evaluation of change requests (PM.2.2) by VSE7,
VSE10, and VSE11; the practices performance of a project re-
pository backup (PM.2.5), and performance of a project re-
pository recovery (PM.2.6) by VSE5 and VSE7; the practices of
conducting meeting reviews with the team (PM.2.3) and con-
ducting meeting reviews with the customer (PM.2.4) by VSE9.
However, the practices analyse and evaluate the change
request for the cost, schedule, and technical impact (PM.2.2)
and perform backup according to the version control strategy

MUÑOZ ET AL.
FIGURE 3 Adoption of project plan execution practices by Very Small Entities
FIGURE 4 Adoption of project assessment and control practices by VSEs
(PM.2.5) were identified by VSE1 as practices that took 3 and
4 years, respectively, to be completely adopted.
Project assessment and control activity
This task is related to the evaluation of the performance of the
project against the commitments documented in the project
plan [12]. Figure 4 shows the results of the year of adoption of
the three tasks of this activity.
As shown in Figure 4, 10 VSEs were able to have a
complete implementation of the practice establish actions to
correct project deviations or problems (PM.3.1).
However, the practices evaluate the progress concerning
the project plan (PM.3.2) and the use of change requests to
document changes to requirements and/or the project plan
(PM.3.3) were highlighted by VSE1 as practices that took four
years to be completely adopted.
Project closure activity
This task is related to the formalisation of the closure of the
project according to the contract requirements [12]. Figure 5
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shows the results of the year of adoption of the two tasks of
this activity.
As shown in Figure 5, all VSEs were able to adopt the two
practices provided by this activity within the first year. These
practices are related to the formalisation of the completion of
the project concerning the delivery instructions documented in
the project plan (PM.4.1) and the updation of the project re-
pository (PM.4.2).
4.1.2 | Analysis of the adoption of the
software implementation process
This section provides the analysis related to the adoption of the
practices provided by each of the four activities of this process:
Software implementation initiation activity
This activity is conducted to ensure that the work team is
committed to the project plan [12]. Figure 6 shows the results
of the year of adoption of the two tasks of this activity.

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- MUÑOZ
FIGURE 5 Adoption of project closure practices by Very Small Entities
FIGURE 6 Adoption of software implementation initiation practices by Very Small Entities
As shown in Figure 6, all VSEs were able to have a
complete implementation of the two practices provided by this
activity within the first year. These practices are related to
presenting the project plan to the work team members and
engaging them with the project (SI.1.1) and setting up the
implementation environment or updating it (SI.1.2).
Software requirements analysis activity
This activity is related to the establishment of the validated
requirements for a project [12]. Figure 7 shows the results of the
year of adoption of the seven tasks of this activity.
As shown in Figure 7, all VSEs were able to have a complete
implementation of the practices provided by this activity within
the first year, These practices are related to assigning the tasks to
the project team according to their role (SI.2.1), documenting the
requirements specification (SI.2.2), verifying the requirements'
specification (SI.2.3), validating the requirements' specification
(SI.2.4), documenting the preliminary version of the user
documentation (SI.2.5), verifying the preliminary version of the
user documentation (SI.2.6), and incorporating the artefacts
produced to the baseline (SI.2.7).
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ET AL.
Software architectural and detailed design activity
This activity is related to the transformation of the software
requirements by producing a software architecture and a
detailed design [12]. Figure 8 shows the results of the year of
adoption of the eight tasks of this activity.
As shown in Figure 8, most of the VSEs were able to
have a complete implementation of the practices provided
in this activity within the first year. These practices are
related to assigning tasks to the project team according to
their role (SI.3.1), getting an understanding of the re-
quirements' specification (SI.3.2), documenting the software
design or updating it (SI3.3), verifying the software design
(SI.3.4), and verifying the test cases and test procedures
(SI.3.6).
However, the practices such as establishing the test cases
and test procedures (SI.3.5) were highlighted by VSE1 as a
practice that took two years to be completely adopted and the
practices managing the traceability records (SI.3.7), and
incorporating produced artefacts to the baseline (SI.3.8) were
highlighted by VSE1 and VSE12 as the practices that took two
years to be completely adopted.

MUÑOZ ET AL.
FIGURE 7 Adoption of software requirements analysis practices by Very Small Entities
FIGURE 8 Adoption of software architectural and detailed design practices by Very Small Entities
Software construction activity
This activity is related to the development of the software code
and the execution of unit tests [12]. Figure 9 shows the results
of the year of adoption of the seven tasks of this activity.
As shown in Figure 9, most of the VSEs were able to adopt
most of the practices provided in this activity within the first
year. These practices are related to assigning tasks to the project
team according to their role (SI.4.1), getting an understanding
of the software design (SI.4.2), building the software compo-
nents or updating them (SI.4.3), designing the unit test or
updating it (SI.4.4), and correcting defects found as result to
apply unit test (SI.4.5).
However, the practices such as managing the traceability
records (SI.4.6) and incorporating the produced artefacts to the
baseline (SI.4.7) were highlighted by VSE12 as practices that
took two years to be adopted.
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Software integration and test activity
This activity ensures that the integration of the software com-
ponents satisfies the software requirements [12]. Figure 10 shows
the results of the year of adoption of the 11 tasks of this activity.
As shown in Figure 10, the VSEs were able to adopt most
of the practices provided in this activity within the first year.
These practices are related to assigning tasks to the project
team according to their role (SI.5.1), integrating the software,
and providing test cases and test procedures for integration
testing (SI5.3), performing test cases and test procedures for
integration testing (SI.5.4), correcting defects found as result to
apply integration tests (SI.5.5) and incorporating the artefacts
produced to the baseline (SI.5.11).
However, six practices were highlighted by at least one
VSE as practices that took two years to be adopted such as
getting an understanding of the test cases and test procedures
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422
- MUÑOZ ET AL.

FIGURE 9 Adoption of the software construction practices by Very Small Entities

FIGURE 10 Adoption of software integration and test practices by Very Small Entities

(SI.5.2) by VSE1, managing the traceability record (SI.5.6) by
VSE7, and VSE12; documenting the product operation guide
(SI.5.7) by VSE12; and verifying the product operation guide
(SI.5.8), documenting the user documentation (SI.5.9), and
verifying the user documentation (SI.5.10) by VSE7.
Product delivery activity
This activity provides integrated software to the customer [12].
It is important to mention that software configuration means
the software and related artefacts (e.g. user manual) that were
committed in the project plan to the customer.
Figure 11 shows the results of the year of adoption of the
six tasks of this activity.
As shown in Figure 11, all VSEs were able to have a
complete adoption of most of the practices provided in this
activity within the first year. These practices are related to
assigning tasks to the project team according to their role
(SI.6.1), incorporating the maintenance documentation to the
baseline (SI.6.5), and delivering the product according to the
delivery instructions (SI.6.6).
However, some practices were highlighted by at least one
VSE as practices that took two years to be adopted such as
getting an understanding of the software configuration (SI.6.2)
by VSE1, documenting the maintenance documentation
(SI.6.3), and verifying the maintenance documentation (SI.6.4)
by VSE7.
4.2 | Benefits observed
One of the main issues regarding the implementation of a
standard in a VSE is often the lack of publications related to the

MUÑOZ ET AL.
FIGURE 11 Adoption of product delivery practices by Very Small Entities
benefits of using software engineering practices. This is why it is
important to analyse the perceived benefits of the VSEs for the
sample with the adoption of the practices of the Basic profiles of
the ISO/IEC 29110 for both processes: Project Management
and Software Implementation processes.
Next, we present an analysis of the benefits identified by
the VSEs. Then, VSEs were asked to choose all the benefits
that were applicable to them. Then, the VSEs had to select the
benefit(s) in the VSE as a result of the adoption of the
standard.
About the benefits, a percentage of 60% is considered a
high percentage because it means that at least 8 of 12 VSEs
selected it as an identified benefit.
4.2.1 | Benefits observed for the project
management process
A list of nine benefits was defined. Table 3 shows the benefits
selected by VSEs. As the table shows, the benefits selected by
11 VSEs at the top are the (B5) improvement in the project
progress monitoring, followed by major project visibility
mentioned by 10 VSEs. Other benefits such as the (B1)
improvement in the early stages of the project on the agree-
ment of the project requirements and the expected products to
be delivered to the customer, (B8) improvement in the agree-
ments' documentation, and (B9) improvement in the for-
malisation of the project closure were mentioned by nine
VSEs, and (B2) a disciplined managed process and (B7)
improvement in the analysis of change requests were
mentioned by eight VSEs.
Finally, two benefits were identified only by seven VSEs,
(B4) an improvement in the definition and monitoring of
corrective actions, and (B6) improvement in the risk's iden-
tification and monitoring from the beginning to closure of
projects.
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4.2.2 | Benefits identified with the
implementation of the software implementation
process
A list of 9 benefits was defined. Table 4 shows the benefits
selected by VSEs. As Table 4 shows, the benefits selected by
11 VSEs at the top are (B9) improvement in the software
architecture and detailed design, followed by (B1) improve-
ment in the requirements definition and (B3) improvement
in the software tests selected by 10 VSEs. Other benefits such
as (B2) improvement in the traceability of requirements (e.g.
from the approval of requirements to the integration tests),
(B5) reduction of project errors, and (B8) improvement in
the control of artefacts produced throughout the project
development were selected by nine VSEs. and (B4) an
improvement in the identification and correction of errors
and (B7) an increase of the customer satisfaction by eight
VSEs.
Finally, the benefit (B4) identification of product errors in
the early stages of the project was selected by six VSEs.
5 | DISCUSSION
Using the results of the exploratory analysis with a sample of
12 VSEs, the following findings are highlighted:
Related to the adoption pace of the Basic profile of
the ISO/IEC 29110, 55% of the practices were completely
adopted by all the VSEs within the first year; 35% were
completely adopted within the second year by all the
VSEs; 3% of the practices were completely adopted within
the third year by all the VSEs and 8% of the practices
were completely adopted within the fourth year by all the
VSEs.
Table 5 illustrates the number of years it took by the 12
VSEs to fully implement the project management process
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424
- MUÑOZ ET AL.

TABLE 3 Benefits identified for the project management process by VSEs

Benefit ID Benefits identified Number of VSEs VSE ID

B1 Improvement in the early stages of the project on the agreement of the project requirements and 9 1, 2, 4–8, 10, 12
the expected products to be delivered to the customer

B2 A disciplined management process was used 8 1–6, 8, 10

B3 Improvement in project visibility 10 1–5, 7, 9–12

B4 Improvement in the definition and monitoring of corrective actions 7 2, 4–8, 10

B5 Improvement in the project progress monitoring 11 1–11

B6 Improvement in the risk's identification and monitoring from the beginning to closure of projects 7 2, 4–6, 8, 10

B7 Improvement in the analysis of change requests 8 1, 2, 4–6, 8–10

B8 Improvement in the agreements' documentation 9 1, 2, 4‐8, 10, 11

B9 Improvement in the formalisation of project closure 9 1, 2, 4–7, 9, 10, 12

Abbreviation: VSEs, Very Small Entities.

TABLE 4 Benefits identified for the software implementation process by VSEs

Benefit ID Benefits identified Number of VSEs VSE ID

B1 Improvement in the requirements definition 10 1–8, 10, 12

B2 Improvement in the traceability of requirements (e.g. from the approval of requirements to the 9 1, 2, 4–6, 8–11
integration tests)

B3 Improvement in software tests 10 1–8, 10, 12

B4 Improvement in the identification and correction of the errors 8 1, 2, 4–8, 10

B5 Reduction of project errors 9 1, 2, 4–10

B6 Identification of product errors in the early stages of the project 6 2, 4–6, 8,10

B7 Improvement the customer satisfaction 8 2, 4–10

B8 Improvement in the control of artefacts produced throughout the project development 9 2–6, 8–11

B9 Improvement in the software architecture and detailed design 11 1, 2, 4–12

Abbreviation: VSEs, Very Small Entities.

TABLE 5 VSEs achieving the adoption of the standard by year

(PM) and the software implementation process (SI). It is ID Year 1 PM/SI Year 2 PM/SI Year 3 PM/SI Year 4 PM/SI
important to highlight that the project management process
VSE1 16/36 3/5 2/0 5/0
contains a total of 26 practices, and the software imple-
mentation process contains a total of 41 practices. VSE2 26/41 0/0 0/0 0/0
As Table 5 shows, if we analysed the number of VSEs VSE3 25/41 1/0 0/0 0/0
achieving the adoption of the standard, within the first year
VSE4 26/41 0/0 0/0 0/0
VSE2, VSE4 and VSE6 have achieved a complete adoption
of the standard; VSE3 and VSE10 have achieved 99% of a VSE5 24/41 2/0 0/0 0/0
complete adoption of the standard; VSE8 has achieved 97% VSE6 26/41 0/0 0/0 0/0
of a complete adoption of the standard, and VSE9 and
VSE7 18/35 8/6 0/0 0/0
VSE12 have achieved 95% of a complete adoption of the
standard. Moreover, those VSEs who have more practices VSE8 24/41 2/0 0/0 0/0
that took more than one year such as VSE11, VSE7, and VSE9 23/41 3/0 0/0 0/0
VSE1 have achieved 91%, 88%, and 79% of a complete
VSE10 25/41 1/0 0/0 0/0
adoption of the standard. All of them have achieved more
than 70% of a complete adoption of the standard in the VSE11 23/41 3/0 0/0 0/0
first year. Therefore, we can conclude that this standard is VSE12 26/35 0/6 0/0 0/0
easy to be implemented by VSEs if we take into account the
Abbreviation: VSEs, Very Small Entities.
following issues.

MUÑOZ ET AL.
5.1 | Project management process
Related to the project management process's practices, we
focus on those practices that took 2 or more years to be
completely implemented and were mentioned by 2–4 VSEs:
� VSEs do not invest much time in tasks related to the project
estimation or the project repository background because
they do not understand its importance.
� VSEs find it difficult to evaluate the project progress
because most of them do not develop estimations as well as
the registration of the project progress.
� VSEs find it difficult to implement the management of
change requests because most of them believe that changes
should be accepted because of the high dependency of the
customer. Most VSEs that have demonstrated this behav-
iour, are from an academic domain (VSE1, VSE3, VSE5,
and VSE8). The projects were performed by undergraduates
that do not have too much hands‐on experience about the
management of change requests.
� VSE7 and VSE9 develop embedded software. They were
most focussed on hardware and that is the reason why tasks
related to the estimation and project monitoring took more
than one year to be understood to get a complete
implementation.
� Related to VSE10, from the industry, used agile practices in
the first year of the standard adoption. This VSE did not
formalise the estimation of the project resources and effort.
The cost estimation was performed by the VSE owner.
� VSE11, from the industry, use some agile practices, and
have used the standard for 4 years. Because of this, the VSE
develop embedded software; the employees did not pay
much attention to estimating the resources for the software
until they understood its importance.
5.2 | Software implementation process
Related to the software implementation process's practices, we
focussed on those practices that took 2 or more years to be
completely implemented and were mentioned by 2– 4 VSEs:
� VSEs have more experience and practice in activities related
to software development. We did not identify practices that
take up more than 1 year, as mentioned by three or four
VSEs. We detected three practices highlighted by VSEs; two
by VSE1 and VSE12 (managing the traceability records
(SI.3.7), and incorporating the produced artefacts to the
baseline (SI.3.8)); and one by VSE7 and VSE12 (managing
the traceability record (SI.5.6)); all of them are from an
academic domain, where the projects are performed by
undergraduate students. Those VSEs did not have much
knowledge about this topic. It is complicated for them to
understand both concepts having little practical knowledge.
� VSE7, which develops embedded software, is the only VSE
from an industry domain that did not perform the unit and
integration tests and test cases definition because the main
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concern of that VSE was on hardware, and when the VSE
understood the importance of these practices for the soft-
ware, the VSE started using them.
5.3 | Benefits observed
Regarding the identified benefits from the adoption of the
project management practices, in our previous results related
to motivators positively impacting the implementation of the
standard (see Table 1), they highlighted the implementation of
a structured way of developing software and the new knowl-
edge obtained. This matches with the new results related to the
benefits expected to implement the standard (see Table 3)
because most of the VSEs mentioned the following: B5 by 11
VSEs; B3 by 10 VSEs; B1, B8, and B9 by 9 VSEs; and, B2 and
B7 by 8 VSEs. These are the results of adopting a structured
way to develop software and of obtaining new knowledge
related to the practices they do not use to perform before.
About identified benefits from the adoption of the software
implementation practices, in our previous results related to
motivators positively impacting the implementation of the
standard (see Table 1), they highlighted the implementation of a
structured way of developing software and the new knowledge
obtained. This matches with the new results related to benefits
expected to implement the standard (see Table 4) because most
of the VSEs mentioned the following: B9 by 11 VSEs, B1 and
B3 by 10 VSEs; B2, B5, and B8 by 9 VSEs; and B4 and B7 by 8
VSEs. These are the results of adopting a structured way to
develop software and of obtaining new knowledge related to
the practices they do not use to perform before.
6 | CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
WORK
This study presents an exploratory analysis on the pace at which
12 VSEs adopted the proven practices of the software basic
profile of the ISO/IEC 29110 standard and the benefits they
have identified that are the main contributions of this study.
According to the results and the discussion provided, the
first question established in the introduction, ‘What is the pace at
which VSEs can adopt practices from ISO/IEC 29110?’ can be
answered by highlighting the fact that the software Basic profile
of the ISO/IEC 29110 can be implemented at a pace supported
by VSEs within the first year. Most importantly, it allows them to
understand and analyse the benefits of adopting a structured
way to develop software and of obtaining new knowledge
related to practices they do not use to perform before.
It is important to highlight that the VSEs that achieved a
complete implementation of the practices of the software
implementation process in less time was because they paid
more attention to software development. However, VSEs have
a lack of using a structured way to perform practices related to
the project management process, for example those related to
estimations and the registration of the project progress data
and its evaluation resulting in an inadequate analysis of the

426
- MUÑOZ
project progress because of the lack of data to do that. These
practices took more time to be implemented because most of
the time a few VSEs did not realise their importance.
Regarding the second question ‘Are VSEs able to perceive
the benefits of the practices of the software engineering
standard implemented?’, it can be answered by highlighting the
fact that the implementation of processes provided by this
standard, enables the VSEs the following: (a) to implement
practices that help them to improve the performance of their
development process by providing project management prac-
tices, which enable them to have more visibility and control of
their projects; and (b) the practices provided by the software
implementation process reinforce the activities they performed
in the software development.
However, the practices that took more than one year to
implement are related to the opportunity of new knowledge
that should be provided to VSEs such as the management of
traceability, change requests, and test cases and procedures.
A limitation to the results provided in this study, as
mentioned in Section 3, is that the exploratory analysis was
performed in a small sample of VSEs from the Mexico region
and that the instrument used in this research was validated by
some of the authors of this study with high experience in the
standard. Besides, it is important to highlight that the authors
decided to provide a list of predefined benefits based on the
answers provided by the VSEs in the previous analysis (see
Table 1).
However, we are confident that the analysis of our data will
provide pointers to the elements that should be taken into
account for VSEs interested in the implementation of the
ISO/IEC 29110 standard.
As future work, with the data identified, the authors are
working on providing resources to help VSEs in the training of
the standard in an attractive way such as using gamification and
serious games. Besides, the authors are collecting data to
perform a quantitative analysis of the benefits obtained and the
factors motivating the implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110
by VSEs. Finally, some of the authors are waiting for the
approval of the guide to implement the ISO/IEC 29110 in
agile environments (developed by some of them), to imple-
ment it in VSEs using an agile approach for software
development.
CONF L ICT O F I N T E R EST
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
DATA AVA I LA BI LI T Y S TAT E M E NT
Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions.
ORCI D
Mirna Muñoz https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8537-2695
Jezreel Mejía https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0292-9318
Adriana Peña https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6823-2367
Claude Y. Laporte https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3453-
740X
Gloria Piedad Gasca‐Hurtado https://orcid.org/0000-
0003-0157-1959
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ET AL.
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How to cite this article: Muñoz, M., et al.: Beyond
factors that motivate the adoption of the ISO/IEC
29110 in Mexico: an exploratory study of the
implementation pace of this standard and the benefits
observed. IET Soft. 15(6), 412–427 (2021). https://doi.
org/10.1049/sfw2.12041