IT Service Management Process Improvement based on ISO/IEC 15504: A systematic review

Context: In recent years, many software companies have considered Software Process Improvement (SPI) as essential for successful software development. These companies have also shown special interest in IT Service Management (ITSM). SPI standards have evolved to incorporate ITSM best practices. Objective: This paper presents a systematic literature review of ITSM Process Improvement initiatives based on the ISO/IEC 15504 standard for process assessment and improvement. Method: A systematic literature review based on the guidelines proposed by Kitchenham and the review protocol template developed by Biolchini et al. is performed. Results: Twenty-eight relevant studies related to ITSM Process Improvement have been found. From the analysis of these studies, nine different ITSM Process Improvement initiatives have been detected. Seven of these initiatives use ISO/IEC 15504 conformant process assessment methods. Conclusion: During the last decade, in order to satisfy the on-going demand of mature software development companies for assessing and improving ITSM processes, different models which use the measurement framework of ISO/IEC 15504 have been developed. However, it is still necessary to define a method with the necessary guidelines to implement both software development processes and ITSM processes reducing the amount of effort, especially because some processes of both categories are overlapped. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.