I Simposio de Postgrado 2023. Ingeniería, ciencias e innovación

MÓDULO_ 03 Computación y Ciencias de datos 70 UNDERSTANDING THE PRE-CONTRACT PROCESS OF SMALL SOFTWARE PROJECTS 1 Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación, Universidad de Chile. *Email: apereira@dcc.uchile.cl Anelis Pereira-Vale 1* , Daniel Perovich 1 , Sergio F. Ochoa 1 ABSTRACT The phase of pre-contract of software projects is highly relevant for providers and acquirers. This time consuming phase should be done in a cost-effective way, since the possibility of finishing in a software contract is uncertain. The literature reports some macro-activities to guide this process. However, they are coarse grained, and therefore, difficult to follow in practice by practitioners. Moreover, it is not clear how the industry deals with the pre-contract process; particularly, when addressing the pre-selling of small software projects. This article presents an exploratory study (Figure 1) that involves 14 Chilean software companies, in which we performed qualitative research to understand how they conduct the pre-contract process of small projects. The results were arranged in a model, named the Pre-Contract Process (PCP) model (Figure 2), which identifies the most prevalent actors (Figure 3), activities, outcomes, and a workflowaccording to the best practices used by these companies; aswell as the instrumentsusedby the intervieweesduring thepre- contract process (Figure 4).These results extend those reported in the literature; particularly, the PCP model contributes with more in depth information about how to conduct the macro-activities in practices. Although this process is still preliminary, it can be used to inform the design of pre-contract activities in software companies and educational institutions. Future software engineers and practitioners can take advantage of it to address their own project pre-contract processes.