Change-Oriented Open Source Software Process Simulation

Abstract

The goal of our research is to find better ways for assessing the impact of changes to the software projects and the cost-effectiveness of process improvement strategies. To support decision-makers in analyzing changes effects and finding the optimal improvements of software process in a given project, a process simulation model using the system dynamics modeling technique is proposed and used in the context of a case study with open source software. Details of the system dynamics model, its usage scenarios and simulation experiments are provided. With the help of the simulation model, the process quality attributes of the open source software Spring Framework with varying change effects was evaluated. The project effort, delivery time, productivity, schedule, and product quality are impacted as a result of changes. Three different process improvement strategies were evaluated to help decision-makers choose most cost-effective improvement strategies. The simulation models can be used as an effective tool to evaluate the impact of changes, reason about the process improvement, and support consensus building by visualizing dynamic views of the process.