Large Software Development Organization Research Articles

Introduction to the Special Issue on “International Conference on Software Reuse 2015”

Conducting requirements reviews before the start of software design is one of the central goals in requirements management. Fast and accurate reviews promise to facilitate software development process and mitigate technical risks of late design modifications. In large software development companies, however, it is difficult to conduct reviews as fast as needed, because the number of regularly incoming requirements is typically several thousand. Manually reviewing thousands of requirements is a time-consuming task and disrupts the process of continuous software development. As a consequence, software engineers review requirements in parallel with designing the software, thus partially accepting the technical risks. In this paper we present a measurement-based method for automating requirements reviews in large software development companies. The method, Rendex, is developed in an action research project in a large software development organization and evaluated in four large companies. The evaluation shows that the assessment results of Rendex have 73%-80% agreement with the manual assessment results of software engineers. Succeeding the evaluation, Rendex was integrated with the requirements management environment in two of the collaborating companies and is regularly used for proactive reviews of requirements.

Rendex: A method for automated reviews of textual requirements

Abstract Conducting requirements reviews before the start of software design is one of the central goals in requirements management. Fast and accurate reviews promise to facilitate software development process and mitigate technical risks of late design modifications. In large software development companies, however, it is difficult to conduct reviews as fast as needed, because the number of regularly incoming requirements is typically several thousand. Manually reviewing thousands of requirements is a time-consuming task and disrupts the process of continuous software development. As a consequence, software engineers review requirements in parallel with designing the software, thus partially accepting the technical risks. In this paper we present a measurement-based method for automating requirements reviews in large software development companies. The method, Rendex, is developed in an action research project in a large software development organization and evaluated in four large companies. The evaluation shows that the assessment results of Rendex have 73%-80% agreement with the manual assessment results of software engineers. Succeeding the evaluation, Rendex was integrated with the requirements management environment in two of the collaborating companies and is regularly used for proactive reviews of requirements.

How do software development teams manage technical debt? – An empirical study

Technical debt (TD) is a metaphor for taking shortcuts or workarounds in technical decisions to gain short-term benefit in time-to-market and earlier software release. In this study, one large software development organization is investigated to gather empirical evidence related to the concept of technical debt management (TDM). We used the exploratory case study method to collect and analyze empirical data in the case organization by interviewing a total of 25 persons in eight software development teams. We were able to identify teams where the current strategy for TDM was only to fix TD when necessary, when it started to cause too much trouble for development. We also identified teams where the management had a systematic strategy to identify, measure and monitor TD during the development process. It seems that TDM can be associated with a similar maturity concept as software development in general. Development teams may raise their maturity by increasing their awareness and applying more advanced processes, techniques and tools in TDM. TDM is an essential part of sustainable software development, and companies have to find right approaches to deal with TD to produce healthy software that can be developed and maintained in the future.

MeSRAM – A method for assessing robustness of measurement programs in large software development organizations and its industrial evaluation

Measurement programs in large software development organizations contain a large number of indicators, base and derived measures to monitor products, processes and projects. The diversity and the number of these measures causes the measurement programs to become large, combining multiple needs, measurement tools and organizational goals. For the measurement program to effectively support organization’s goals, it should be scalable, automated, standardized and flexible – i.e. robust. In this paper we present a method for assessing the robustness of measurement programs. The method is based on the robustness model which has been developed in collaboration between seven companies and a university. The purpose of the method is to support the companies to optimize the value obtained from the measurement programs and their cost. We evaluated the method at the seven companies and the results from applying the method to each company quantified the robustness of their programs, reflecting the real-world status of the programs and pinpointed strengths and improvements of the programs.

Monitoring Evolution of Code Complexity and Magnitude of Changes

Complexity management has become a crucial activity in continuous software development. While the overall perceived complexity of a product grows rather insignificantly, the small units, such as functions and files, can have noticeable complexity growth with every increment of product features. This kind of evolution triggers risks of escalating fault-proneness and deteriorating maintainability. The goal of this research was to develop a measurement system which enables effective monitoring of complexity evolution. An action research has been conducted in two large software development organizations. We have measured three complexity and two change properties of code for two large industrial products. The complexity growth has been measured for five consecutive releases of the products. Different patterns of growth have been identified and evaluated with software engineers in industry. The results show that monitoring cyclomatic complexity evolution of functions and number of revisions of files focuses the attention of designers to potentially problematic files and functions for manual assessment and improvement. A measurement system was developed at Ericsson to support the monitoring process.

Critical role of measures in decision processes: Managerial and technical measures in the context of large software development organizations

ContextToday, many software development organizations struggle to establish measurement programs to monitor their projects, products and units. After overcoming the initial threshold of establishing the measurement program organizations stand before the questions of which measures should be collected in order to lead to actions or at least effectively trigger decision processes. ObjectiveThe objective of this paper is to investigate how to use measures in an effective way in decision processes. This dependency is examined through a case study – Ericsson in Sweden. Two models of these dependencies are recognized a priori – metrics-push and metric-pull – and in the study the models are used to describe how measures affect decisions and vice versa. MethodThe research method is a case study of the measurement program of one of the product development units of Ericsson in Sweden. The participants are carefully selected from the management teams at different levels of organizations. The objects are measures and decisions at these management levels. The instruments are interviews and observations. The results obtained at Ericsson are validated through interviews at another company – RUAG Space. ResultsThe results show that effective use of measures as evidence for decision processes does not require a large number of measures (ca. 20 at the top management level). It was found that there are four types of measures which are used in different ways in the context of decision formulation and implementation (which we call decision-measures dependency model). The critical aspects of effective measures in decision-making context are completeness, reliability and providing early warnings. It was also found that the time between the decision and when its results can be observed via measures (length of the feedback loop) is a crucial aspect determining at which organizational level a measure should be placed. ConclusionsAfter overcoming the initial threshold of establishing measurement programs the organizations demand non-functional properties from the measures. These non-functional properties like completeness, providing early-warning or trust determine whether decision processes are triggered by measures or not.

Uncovering cultural perceptions and barriers during knowledge audit

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce and illustrate the importance of uncovering tacit perceptions during knowledge management (KM) audit, in order to identify cultural barriers that may interfere with KM initiatives. The goal of such KM initiatives is to leverage a firm's capacity to efficiently produce value from knowledge held by employees and embedded in processes. Current audit practices analyze the explicit information gained through interviews and questionnaires, focusing on the organization's culture, existing KM processes and the improved KM processes it wishes to implement. The paper seeks to suggest an approach for uncovering and analyzing tacit perceptions identified through interviews and discussions as an inherent part of KM audit.Design/methodology/approachThe research was conducted during a KM audit in a large international software development organization. The research methodology was composed of two disciplines. The first, used for data collection, was a knowledge‐engineering and management methodology – the CommonKADS. The second, used for qualitative data analysis, was the grounded theory approach.FindingsThe KM activities currently taking place in the organization include creation, sharing, access, usage, and maintenance. In interviews and discussions, access was the most emphasized activity. The cultural barriers that were identified relate to the KM roles and responsibilities that occur in daily work. A business process analysis revealed different perspectives of KM from different stakeholders.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study are based on a large, multi‐located and highly distributed, yet single organization. Additional research needs to be conducted in order to further validate and generalize the findings.Practical implicationsThe principle of identifying tacit perceptions and cultural barriers illustrated in the study may be beneficial in any organization. Identifying the issues that need to be addressed before implementing a KM solution is critical for a successful implementation.Originality/valueThe paper introduces the concept of uncovering tacit perceptions in order to identify cultural barriers that may interfere with a KM initiative. For this purpose, an analysis method was developed and used during a KM audit. Using this audit practice prior to a KM project will enable a better understanding of the risks and challenges that need to be managed to ensure success.

EAGLE: EFFECTIVE TOOL SUPPORT FOR SHARING ARCHITECTURAL KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge management plays an important role in the software architecting process. Recently, this role has become more apparent by a paradigm shift that views a software architecture as the set of architectural design decisions it embodies. This shift has sparked the discussion in both research and practice on how to best facilitate sharing of so-called architectural knowledge, and how tools can best be employed. In order to design successful tool support for architectural knowledge sharing it is important to take into account what software architecting really entails. In this paper, we define the main characteristics of architecting, based on observations in a large software development organization, and state-of-the-art literature in software architecture. Based on the defined characteristics, we determine how best practices known from knowledge management could be used to improve architectural knowledge sharing. This results in the definition of a set of desired properties of architectural knowledge sharing tools. Finally, we highlight the design and implementation of EAGLE, an architectural knowledge sharing portal that implements those properties.

Model-driven development: The good, the bad, and the ugly

In large software development organizations, increased complexity of products, shortened development cycles, and heightened expectations of quality have created major challenges at all the stages of the software life cycle. As this issue of the IBM Systems Journal illustrates, there are exciting improvements in the technologies of model-driven development (MDD) to meet many of these challenges. Even though the prevalent software-development practices in the industry are still immature, tools that embody MDD technologies are finally being incorporated in large-scale commercial software development. Assuming MDD pervades the industry over the next several years, there is reason to hope for significant improvements in software quality and time to value, but it is far from a foregone conclusion that MDD will succeed where previous software-engineering approaches have failed.

Combining Agile Methods with Stage-Gate Project Management

We encountered cultural changes and different management and engineering viewpoints in a study of three large software development organizations that started using agile methods. Case studies at three large software product companies show the benefits and pitfalls of integrating agile methods with stage-gate management models.

On Issues with Component-Based Software Reuse.

As the size and complexity of software products, and the compression of software product development cycle seem ready to go out of control, large software development organizations are taking a hard look at the allure of the substantial productivity enhancements envisioned by early proponents of component-based software reuse. In this article, I will summarize practical difficulties in realizing the benefits of componentbased software reuse and discuss key pre-conditions to meet before attempting software reuse on a wide scale in a formalized manner.

Living Design Memory: Framework, Implementation, Lessons Learned

We identify an important type of software design knowledge that we call community-specific folklore and discuss problems with current approaches to managing it. We developed a general framework for a living design memory, built a design memory tool, and deployed the tool in a large software development organization. The tool effectively disseminates knowledge relevant to local software design practice. It is embedded in the organizational process to help ensure that its knowledge evolves as necessary. This work illustrates important lessons in building knowledge management systems, integrating novel technology into organizational practice, and carrying out research-development partnerships.

Growing a Styleguide: Macroergonomic Strategies for Achieving Consistent User Interface Design

Consistency in user interface design is generally recognized as a desirable goal. The main problem facing most practitioners is how to achieve it. In many cases the solution begins with a user interface styleguide that defines the design criteria for user interface developers. A styleguide is a necessary, but not sufficient, part of the solution. In practice, achieving consistency requires a multi-faceted approach ranging from design guidelines to organizational structures and processes. This paper discusses macroergonomic aspects of styleguide development in a large software development organization, focusing on the processes and organizational strategies used to develop content and achieve initial buyin by user interface designers and developers.

Process clustering with an algorithm based on a coupling metric

Process management has received considerable attention in recent years as a means to improve productivity and quality in the software industry. Quite often, it might be advantageous to group related processes to reduce and control the amount of effort needed to measure and manage the processes in the organization. Here we present an algorithm for grouping processes into process clusters. The article begins with the development of a coupling metric that measures the strength of the linkage between processes. Next, the algorithm is presented. Finally, we report on the results obtained while analyzing the processes in a large software development organization.

Modeling and software development quality

This paper summarizes the models used by a large software development organization for estimating software reliability and managing software development quality. The role of modeling in software quality improvement is illustrated. Implementation of the models, reliability of the estimates, predictive validity, and the nature of data are discussed.

User interface design in large corporations: coordination and communication across disciplines

This report describes some of the results of a survey constructed to address the multidisciplinary, collaborative nature of user interface design as it is practiced in large software development organizations today. Survey forms were prepared for Software Engineers, Human Factors Engineers, Industrial Design Engineers, Technical Writers, Training Developers, and Marketing representatives. The survey was filled out by over 200 designers from multiple sites within 7 large companies. Previous interview studies of user interface design have relied on far smaller samples taken primarily from single organizations, and have focused on the individual designer's perspective, primarily that of programmers or software engineers. While surveys have limitations as information-gathering tools, the findings in this report suggest specific places where organizational change or tool development might improve the coordination or communication among the different professionals and managers who contribute to interface design in large company settings.