Software Development Management Research Articles

A State-of-the-Practice Survey of Risk Management in Development with Off-the-Shelf Software Components

An international survey on risk management in software development with off-the-shelf (OTS) components is reported upon and discussed. The survey investigated actual risk-management activities and their correlations with the occurrences of typical risks in OTS component-based development. Data from 133 software projects in Norway, Italy, and Germany were collected using a stratified random sample of IT companies. The results show that OTS components normally do not contribute negatively to the quality of the software system as a whole, as is commonly expected. However, issues such as the underestimation of integration effort and inefficient debugging remain problematic and require further investigation. The results also illustrate several promising effective risk-reduction activities, e.g., putting more effort into learning relevant OTS components, integrating unfamiliar components first, thoroughly evaluating the quality of candidate OTS components, and regularly monitoring the support capability of OTS providers. Five hypotheses are proposed regarding these risk-reduction activities. The results also indicate that several other factors, such as project, cultural, and human-social factors, have to be investigated to thoroughly deal with the possible risks of OTS-based projects.

A story-centered, learn-by-doing approach to software engineering education

Carnegie Mellon's West Coast Campus offers an MS in Software Engineering, with technical and development management tracks, targeted at working software professionals in Silicon Valley. We believe the program to be unique in that it is entirely team-based and project-centered. Students learn by doing as they are coached just in time by faculty in the context of authentic projects, and they are evaluated based on what they produce. Student satisfaction is high: 92% believe that the program has given them a competitive advantage with respect to their professional peers, and their promotion and salary histories bear out this belief.

Managing software development in globally distributed teams

Surveying the basic elements needed for globally distributed teams to function smoothly and efficiently.

Managing software development in globally distributed teams

Surveying the basic elements needed for globally distributed teams to function smoothly and efficiently.

Life Cycle for Change Management in Business Processes using Semantic Technologies

In a fast changing market environment the task of reducing the downtime for change management of business processes has high importance. Ensuring that IT reflects the updated business requirement is an important task related to change management in software development. We present a methodology and system for changing SOA-based business process implementation. We distinguish two layers: At the design layer processes are modeled in the ontology-based semantic markup language for web services OWL-S. For execution the processes are translated into BPEL. At the core of our system are a central change management component and a set of tools which perform various tasks in the overall lifecycle of change management. Finally, we demonstrate our approach with an example e-government.

Improvement of component selection process using Genetic Algorithm for Component-Based Software Development

Modern information systems are becoming more expensive to build and maintain. Software development management and software quality goals are necessary, but not sufficient for the needs of today's marketplace. Shorter cycle time, completed with fewer resources is also in demand. Therefore, organisations are turning to Component-Based Software Development (CBSD). Potentially, CBSD can be used to reduce software development time by bringing the system to markets as early as possible. CBSD process consists of four major processes: component qualification, component adaptation, component composition and component update. To realise the benefits which CBS brings it is imperative that the right software component is selected for a project, because selecting inappropriate component may results in increased time and cost of software development which CBSD aims at reducing. Component selection is a major challenge to CBS developers, due to the multiplicity of similar components on the market with varying capabilities. Although several approaches and criteria have been proposed for component selection, there is no well-defined procedure to select optimised components. In this article, an automated approach is proposed based on Genetic Algorithm that enables the selection of software components both considering functional and non-functional requirements to find the best combination of components.

The influence of managerial experience and style on software development process

This paper presents the results of a study of how software process and Software Process Improvement (SPI) is applied in actual practice in the software industry using the indigenous Irish software product industry as a test-bed. This study focuses on the role and influence of both the Company Founder and the Software Development Manager on the initial formation of software development process practices. The results of this study contain useful lessons for software entrepreneurs who need to make decisions about process and process change within their organisations as they grow.

Extensible open source content management systems and frameworks: a solution for many needs of a bioinformatics group

A common challenge for bioinformaticians, in either academic or industry laboratory environments, is providing informatic solutions via the Internet or through a web browser. Recently, the open source community began developing tools for building and maintaining web applications for many disciplines. These content management systems (CMS) provide many of the basic needs of an informatics group, whether in a small company, a group within a larger organisation or an academic laboratory. These tools aid in managing software development, website development, document development, course development, datasets, collaborations and customers. Since many of these tools are extensible, they can be developed to support other research-specific activities, such as handling large biomedical datasets or deploying bioanalytic tools. In this review of open source website management tools, the basic features of content management systems are discussed along with commonly used open source software. Additionally, some examples of their use in biomedical research are given.

Managing risk in software development projects: a case study

PurposeThe main objective of the paper is to develop a risk management framework for software development projects from developers' perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a combined qualitative and quantitative technique with the active involvement of stakeholders in order to identify, analyze and respond to risks. The entire methodology has been explained using a case study on software development project in a public sector organization in Barbados.FindingsAnalytical approach to managing risk in software development ensures effective delivery of projects to clients.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed risk management framework has been applied to a single case.Practical implicationsSoftware development projects are characterized by technical complexity, market and financial uncertainties and competent manpower availability. Therefore, successful project accomplishment depends on addressing those issues throughout the project phases. Effective risk management ensures the success of projects.Originality/valueThere are several studies on managing risks in software development and information technology (IT) projects. Most of the studies identify and prioritize risks through empirical research in order to suggest mitigating measures. Although they are important to clients for future projects, these studies fail to provide any framework for risk management from software developers' perspective. Although a few studies introduced framework of risk management in software development, most of them are presented from clients' perspectives and very little effort has been made to integrate this with the software development cycle. As software developers absorb considerable amount of risks, an integrated framework for managing risks in software development from developers' perspective is needed.

Software development: what is the problem?

Managing software development is getting harder. Expensive before off-shoring, it has now become expensive even in offshore countries. The clamor for more H-1 visas in the US would have us believe the country has a dearth of software professionals. Is it really a shortage of resources or a misuse of them? This paper discusses what is exactly the problem in software development.

Software development as a design or a production project

PurposeThe paper seeks to investigate whether project managers regard software development projects as design problems or production problems.Design/methodology/approachProject management literature was examined to determine what evidence there should be to indicate whether a software development project was regarded as a problem to be solved or a product to be produced. Data were then collected through structured interview of project managers currently engaged in managing software development projects. The data were analysed to determine how project managers regarded their projects and whether this matched a theoretical expectation.FindingsThe empirical data indicated that most project managers regard their projects as production problems, where it is assumed that the underlying problem is largely understood, the project encapsulated in a planned schedule of activities and there will be an emphasis on monitoring the project against the planned progress.Research limitations/implicationsOwing to the small sample size of fewer than 30 project managers, external validity is weak. More research is needed to confirm these results over a larger sample and to probe more subtle orientation to production or design projects.Practical implicationsThe research developed a simple test to indicate the degree of novelty of the application to be developed. The test indicates whether the application is novel and should be treated as a design problem, or well known and therefore should be treated as a production problem.Originality/valueThe paper draws attention to the need for project managers to evaluate the type of application to be developed and to adopt an appropriate project management approach. The paper also provides a simple test to achieve that objective.

Reflective responsibility for risk: a critical view of software and information systems development risk management

Most ethical theories are based on the assumption that the results of actions are known and are part of the ethical evaluation of moral behaviour. This leads to fundamental problems of the ethical evaluation of future states because the future is by definition unknown. Risks as known uncertainties that result from human action often have morally relevant consequences but they defy easy classification in moral philosophy. As a general idea of how the ethical problems of risk can be addressed, this paper suggests the concept of reflective responsibility. Reflective responsibility is based on the overarching commonalities of all responsibility ascriptions as being open, teleological, and close to action. The concept of reflective responsibility is applied to risk management in software and information systems development. The paper will conclude that successful responsibility ascriptions in risk management are only possible if the socially constructed nature of risk is taken into consideration.

Response from authors of "Design For Trustworthy Software"

It is true that quality processes have not served software development well, and that is why we wrote the book, to correct the past abuses that seem to pain the reviewer. But quality is no longer the third rail of software design and development; one can now touch it and draw power from it without limiting one's career. It is also true that we are now working as consultants, but we have together spent some 80 years as university teachers of software and/or hardware development or quality process management.

Requirements change: Fears dictate the must haves; desires the won’t haves

We attempt to contribute to a general theory of requirements change from a goal-oriented and viewpoints-driven angle. To practitioners, this knowledge is relevant to anticipate changes in certain types of requirements, which may shorten the project’s timeline, reduce costs, and increase product quality. Initially, we followed the common assumptions that what should be on a system is demanded by goals to achieve and what should not be on a system is demanded by goal states to avoid. However, requirements engineering of a diversity of systems (capacity and warehouse management, COTS PCs, and a Braille mouse) revealed that must requirements are predicted by goals to avoid (!) and won’t requirements by goals to approach (!). Expectations about the positive or negative impact (valence) of requirements on goals played a moderating role. We unfold the gradual discovery of this “goals-to-requirements chiasm” (CHI-effect or χ-effect), claiming that variability in agreement to positive or negative requirements is predicted by goals of opposite polarity. We found that whether the χ-effect occurred or not, depended on the alignment of stakeholder viewpoints on goals and requirements. Comments from practitioners are included. Categories & Subject Descriptors H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems–Human information processing; K.6.3 [Management of Computing and Information Systems]: Software Management–Software development. General Terms Requirements Engineering, Human Factors, Theory.

A Metamodeling Approach for Requirements Specification

There are many Requirements Engineering approaches and techniques that help to specify, analyze and validate requirements. However, they are neither widely accepted nor widely used by the industrial software community. One of the main problems faced when applying them is to what extent they can be easily adapted to the specific needs of the project. This has often led to unsatisfactory requirements management in industrial software development. In this work, a proposal for requirements modeling is presented that allows the integration of the expressiveness of some of the more relevant Requirements Engineering techniques by taking advantage of metamodeling. This proposal focuses on scalability with respect to expressiveness and adaptability to the application domain to establish some basic guidelines and extension mechanisms that lend coherence and semantic precision. A case study and 4 tool support are presented to describe the application of this proposal in a real-life project.

Managing Software Development Project Size: Overcoming the Effort-Boxing Constraint

The motivation for this work is derived from the current interest in speeding up development schedules for information technology(IT) projects. A keyimplication of the shift to more rapid development methods is the growing emphasis on fixed time and fixed effort delivered during such projects. However, there appears to be little work that addresses the impacts of dealing with bound effort levels. The result of binding time and effort is to deprive project managers of the normal parameters that are used in trade-offs. The paper introduces a quantitative analytical framework for modeling effort-boxed development in order to uncover the effects on the overall development effort and the potential leverage that can be derived from incremental delivery in such projects. Models that predict product size as an exponential function of the development effort are used in the paper to explore the relationships between effort and the number of increments, thereby providing new insights into the economic impact of incremental approaches to effort-boxed software projects.

Hierarchy-based team software process simulation model

According to the characteristic of Team Software Process (TSP), it adopts a hierarchy-based model combined discrete event model with system dynamics model. This model represents TSP as form of two levels, the inner level embodies the continuity of the software process, the outer embodies the software development process by phases, and the structure and principle of the model is explained in detail, then formalization description of the model is offered. At last, an example is presented to demonstrate the simulation process and result. This model can simulate team software process from various angles, supervise and predict the software process. Also it can make the management of software development become more scientific and improve the quality of software.

A decision model for managing software development projects

The paper first examines some issues that hinder the effective management of, and decision-making on, quality software development process and products delivery by practitioners. It then generates a decision model for managing software development projects. The model uses four concepts: mappability, accountability, interoperability and controllability in decision-making which is assumed to be based on a set of indicators that link task status of the development process and its quality assessment to the responsible authorities. The quality of the tasks, and hence, of the deliverables is measured using four attributes: completeness, correctness, consistency and compliance. A web-based example implementation is then discussed. We thus show that the model is flexible, extensible and scalable. Implementation challenges and implications are then discussed.

Improving Software Development Management through Software Project Telemetry

Conventional wisdom in the software engineering research community says that metrics can make project management more effective. Software metrics range from internal product attributes such as size, complexity, and modularity to external process attributes such as effort, productivity, and reliability. Software project telemetry facilitates local, in-process decision making.

Using asynchronous discussions to enhance student participation in CS courses

As Computer Science (CS) educators, we are involved in teaching a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses such as database management systems, networking, software development and web development courses. In addition to the traditional classroom environment, we use online and blended teaching methods to enhance student participation and improve the achievement of learning objectives. Typical online supplements to classroom instruction include posting homework, links to external resources, lecture notes and exams online. Asynchronous discussions and synchronous chat sessions provide additional forums outside the classroom for strengthening interaction and enriching the learning experience for students. This paper focuses on how asynchronous discussions can be used to enhance student participation in CS courses; increased participation leads to learning effectiveness, rich involvement with the course content, and student satisfaction.