The Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE), based at the University of the Witwatersrand, wants to learn more about the Team Software Process (TSP).
To this end, it is visiting Mexico and the US, together with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
JCSE director professor Barry Dwolatzky says the point of the trip is to learn more about TSP and see whether it is a viable methodology to bring to SA. Although none of the parties on the trip have yet made any commitments regarding TSP adoption in SA, they all wish to collect detailed information, he says.
"We're looking to learn directly from the people who developed the methodologies and those who have used it, so we can make a decision on bringing TSP to SA. The JCSE may well look to duplicate the Mexico pilot or something similar in a South African context in future," he says.
The TSP and PSP (Personal Software Process) methodologies have been shown to improve the quality of software by between two and 20 times, based on the average number of defects per 1 000 lines of code.
It provides a two to 10 times reduction in software testing time, and accelerates a company's progress through the maturity levels of Capability Maturity Model Integration by as much as 60%.
TSP and PSP are methodologies developed at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in the US.
The delegation will go to the SEI in Pittsburgh, where it will meet with various other people involved in the TSP and PSP initiatives.
The delegation will begin its trip by attending a conference in Mexico City, where a national TSP roll-out will be launched.
Discussions will also be held with the Mexican government and companies from the Mexican IT industry on TSP and the possible impact it may have on an IT sector in a developing nation like Mexico.
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