The growing of the software demand has created opportunities for software development organizations. Especially for very small entities (VSEs), because a large number of them produce software for medium and large companies as part of a production chain that provides products and services to satisfy market needs. This situation highlights the increasing need for improving their software development processes in order to stay in business by developing quality software products and services with limited resources. Unfortunately, a common issue faced by most of the VSEs is the lack of knowledge and practical experience regarding the implementation of current SPI models and software engineering standards. In this context, the ISO/IEC 29110 series of standards and guides have been developed to help VSEs to improve their development processes. One of the main features of this standard is that it can be adapted to the software lifecycle of VSEs. This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis of 13 software organizations with teams that work using predictive methodologies and those using adaptive methodologies during the implementation of the software Basic profile of the ISO/IEC 29110. The results show that after executing the method teams have a high level of coverage regarding the ISO/IEC 29110. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.