Software Development Organizations Research Articles

Enhancing agile project success: a comprehensive study of risk management approaches among Malaysian practitioners

AbstractRisk management (RM) plays a role in project management in the software development field. As information technology (IT) systems become more essential across industries and IT projects continue to face failure rates effective project management becomes crucial. However, the utilization of methodologies in risk management is not widely considered, specifically in Malaysia. This study aims to investigate how software practitioners in Malaysia have implemented risk management and discover strategies that can enhance risk management for agile contexts. The main focus of this study is the limited integration of methodologies into risk management practices, which has created a gap within the software risk domain. Successful risk management is essential for the achievement of software projects, and the findings from this study can offer insights for software development organizations to make informed decisions and improve project outcomes. By utilizing a quantitative approach and adapted questionnaires, this comprehensive study collected data from 60 practitioners and conducted descriptive analysis to identify key risk elements that have significant potential to affect project performance. The findings highlight these risk elements that can significantly impact project success. Agile methodologies, with their emphasis on collaboration, communication within teams, and engagement with stakeholders, including top management, are instrumental in aligning project objectives, identifying potential risks, and resolving issues promptly. This study provides empirical insights into the risk management practices of agile practitioners in Malaysia, which can equip software development organizations with valuable knowledge for informed decision‐making. By enhancing project outcomes and guiding future strategic actions, the findings of this study can contribute to the improvement of agile risk management in the software development industry, particularly in the Malaysian context.

A Conceptual Framework Based on PLS-SEM Approach for Sustainable Customer Relationship Management in Enterprise Software Development: Insights from Developers

Due to its significant relevance in outsourcing, the global software industry, such as enterprise software development organizations, accepted the implementation of global software development (GSD). Customers play a pivotal role in any industry, and effective customer relationship management (CRM) is instrumental in ensuring client satisfaction while developing software projects. However, software organizations operating globally often need more insight into their customers’ perspectives. These challenges give rise to a major combination for the success of the GSD projects. Organizations working globally face the key challenge of the implementation of CRM. The main objective of this paper is to investigate and understand the challenges faced by global software development organizations when implementing customer relationship management (CRM) in their enterprise software projects. This paper aims to assess how these CRM implementation challenges impact the value of enterprise software products in the context of global software development (GSD). To achieve this objective, the study employs the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach and conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify relevant challenges. Additionally, this paper presents a conceptual framework based on the identified challenges and validates it through surveys and qualitative research with software outsourcing companies in Pakistan. The research provides valuable insights from the perspective of software developers and aims to offer practical guidance for the successful application of CRM in outsourcing.

VERIFYING AND ACCESSING STUDENT PROJECT APPLICATION

This abstract presents a conceptual overview of an application design to verify and accessing the project the student project using which maintain the information about the project present in the system that contains project documentation, report, code and so on. It is difficult to maintain and search all this information manually in an Organization as it takes lot of time to do. The proposed app aims to overcome the manual search to avoid difficulty in searching. Owing to the advancement of technology, this project offers a holistic solution to enhance the validation and approval process for project development by students. By fostering collaborations, improving communication, and facilitating efficient workflows, the app aims to elevate the quality of software development outcomes while reducing project timeline and costs. It is potential to transform how project validation is conducted makes it a valuable tool for modern software development teams and organizations.

A view of agile organizations: bibliometric analysis

Agile organizations represent a transformation in the search for convergence in relation to the dynamic challenges of the environment, market transformations and the growing complexity of social systems. The objective of this study was to develop a descriptive bibliometric study to identify research trends on agile organizations. Web of Science and Scopus databases were used to retrieve scientific production. Bibliometric indicators of production, collaboration, visibility, and impact were analyzed. The analysis of 150 documents, with the total participation of 340 authors, showed a growth rate of 4% per year in the time interval from 1995 to the beginning of 2023. Dominant trends were identified with respect to the research topic, the first referring to the human factor, organizational innovation and organization and management, and the second, agile methods, agile transformations, agile software development and agile organizations.

Enhancing Software Quality through Early-Phase of Software Verification and Validation Techniques

Purpose: The core objectives of this conducted research were threefold: first, to assess whether early-phase verification and validation (V&V)techniques, encompassing software design review, code review, and inspection, significantly contribute to defect prevention throughout the software development process; second, to evaluate the impact of these techniques on the efficiency of software development in terms of time, cost, and resource allocation; and third, to conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis between early-phase verification and validation (V&V)techniques and traditional post-development testing regarding their effectiveness in defect prevention and software quality improvement.
 Methodology: Employing an experimental approach, this study conducted case studies within Tanzanian software development organizations. Data were meticulously gathered through surveys and interviews involving software professionals. Both quantitative and qualitative data were systematically analyzed to ensure data reliability and ethical considerations.
 Findings: The research findings indicate that early-phase verification and validation (V&V) techniques shine as powerful tools for defect prevention, leading to a substantial reduction in defect counts and elevating software quality metrics, such as reliability and user satisfaction. Notably, these techniques demonstrated a favorable impact on software development efficiency by shortening development cycles and curtailing costs. When compared to traditional post-development testing, early-phase verification and validation (V&V) techniques consistently outperformed in the realm of defect prevention and software quality enhancement.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study's outcomes underscore the transformative potential of early-phase verification &validation techniques, urging the software development industry to pivot from defect detection to defect prevention. The insights garnered here offer practical guidance for organizations aiming to streamline their software development processes, economize costs, and deliver top-notch software products that closely align with user expectations. While conducted in a Tanzanian context, these findings reverberate across the global software development landscape, underscoring the universal relevance of early-phase verification and validation (V&V) techniques as pivotal enablers of software quality assurance and operational efficiency.

Robust Scheduling of Multi-Skilled Workforce Allocation: Job Rotation Approach

This paper addresses scheduling challenges in software development organizations, specifically focusing on a novel version of the software project scheduling problem (SPSP). This enhanced model incorporates the dynamics of learning and forgetting phenomena, crucial in maintaining employee competencies, particularly when unexpected events such as absenteeism or shifts in project priorities occur. The paper introduces a new declarative reference model for SPSP, aimed at proactively managing the assignment of versatile programmers to tasks within an portfolio of IT projects, while considering the effects of forgetting. Implemented within a constraints programming environment, this model facilitates decision making in project management for software companies. It serves to find feasible solutions and identify conditions necessary to meet specified expectations. The effectiveness of the proposed SPSP model is demonstrated through numerical examples.

Reducing Challenges in Design Thinking Adoption Using Intrapreneurship and a Learning Environment

Design thinking (DT) is increasingly used to develop solutions that identify users' real needs. However, resistance to adopting DT and a lack of knowledge about the tools and activities of this approach are significant challenges in its implementation. Thus, organizations need to create strategies that minimize these challenges. This paper explores an approach focused on intrapreneurship to motivate employees to develop new business ideas combined with a learning environment for exchanging knowledge as a mechanism to overcome resistance to the adoption of DT. In this sense, the research problem addressed here is the lack of strategies to minimize resistance and the lack of knowledge for adopting DT in software organizations. This work was conducted using action research in a Brazilian software development organization. Initially, a call for proposals for new software-based business ideas was launched at the organization. Then, the DT was applied to develop the proposed ideas. In parallel, a learning environment was created to train employees in DT and its tools. A feedback questionnaire and a retrospective meeting were held with the organization's employees to evaluate the action research. Our results suggest that an intrapreneurship approach and the learning environment proved to be effective within the context studied and managed to reduce resistance to the adoption of DT.
 
 Received: 13 September 2023 / Accepted: 22 December 2023 / Published: 5 January 2024

Process mining software engineering practices: A case study for deployment pipelines

Context:In mature software development organizations the ci/cd pipeline is the only route to deploy software into production. While the workflow of this process seems straightforward, the reality is different since exceptions and deviations are the norm in actual industry practice. In this context, Process Mining appears as a promising technique to uncover deviations and check compliance with standardized DevOps processes, and highlight bottlenecks and potential improvement areas. Objective:This paper presents a case study designed to assess the potential of using Process Mining techniques to provide visibility into the deployment pipeline. Method:This research uses raw event data extracted from the continuous practices toolchain, which is then used to compute a comprehensive set of DevOps-specific metrics, thus supporting objective monitoring of the quality and efficiency of the deployment workflow. The study focuses on different development units in the Engineering team, each working in a distinct business context but sharing standard practices. Results:We verified that even though there are standards for the deployment pipelines, each team’s workflow denotes local variations with unique points for improvement that are highly coupled to their business unit context. We observed that each team’s pipeline has different temporal profiles that reflect their context and work practices. Additionally, we identified a set of deployment pipeline metrics focusing on process compliance, efficiency, and deployment stability. Conclusion:The main contributions of this paper include (1) the description of an actual application of Process Mining to the deployment pipeline of a highly complex e-commerce platform, (2) how this approach provided an objective understanding of the efficiency and quality of the development workflow, (3) how this process-centric view, combined with domain-specific DevOps metrics, supports continuous practices, and (4) how Developers can analyse their workflows by applying Process Mining while using standard tools like GitLab and PM4Py.

Continuous Learning at the Individual Level: a study in software development organizations

This study aims to understand the occurrence of continuous learning at the individual level in Software Development Organizations – SDOs according to the framework proposed by Tannenbaum (1997). The objectives are to understand and describe the strategies and tools applied by developers during their learning process and if the studied SDOs offer a work environment conducive to continuous learning at the individual level. Thus, qualitative research was conducted with 12 Software Development Professionals in four SDOs applying semi-structured interviews. The subjects interviewed were involved in the software development process. The analyses were performed by the qualitative data analysis software Weft_QDA, which allowed the identification and analysis of speeches related to the theoretical concept of this study. The results show that SDOs offer an environment conducive to continuous learning at the individual level by allowing meaningful learning experiences, motivating constant participation in these experiences and, especially, engaging in complex projects whose results are influenced by the application of acquired knowledge.

Разработка онтологий для автоматизации вычислительных процессов при проектировании трубопроводных систем энергетики

Designing pipeline energy systems (heat, water, oil, gas supply, etc.) is a complex task that requires the use of specialized software to solve it. It is proposed to use ontologies to structure knowledge that is used in the processes of software development automation and organization of the computing process and user interface content. The proposed methodological approach includes the following components: the composition of ontologies, tools for implementing ontologies, and the methods for constructing ontologies (metaontologies, ontologies of specific classes, ontologies of design tasks, software ontologies). It is shown that the use of ontologies allows one to obtain the following results: a single platform for research and development of new methods, algorithms, mathematical models of pipeline systems and their elements; the ability to automate access to data for different types of systems and tasks; and automated software system construction. An example of ontology system application in software development is presented. The architecture of a software system for solving problems of designing pipeline systems of various types and purposes is given.

Adopting DevOps practices: an enhanced unified theory of acceptance and use of technology framework

<div align="center"><span lang="EN-US">DevOps software development approach is widely used in the software engineering discipline. DevOps eliminates the development and operations department barriers. The paper aims to develop a conceptual model for adopting DevOps practices in software development organizations by extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). The research also aims to determine the influencing factors of DevOps practices’ acceptance and adoption in software organizations, determine gaps in the software development literature, and introduce a clear picture of current technology acceptance and adoption research in the software industry. A comprehensive literature review clarifies how users accept and adopt new technologies and what leads to adopting DevOps practices in the software industry as the starting point for developing a conceptual framework for adopting DevOps in software organizations. The literature results have formulated the conceptual framework for adopting DevOps practices. The resulting model is expected to improve understanding of software organizations’ acceptance and adoption of DevOps practices. The research hypotheses must be tested to validate the model. Future work will include surveys and expert interviews for model enhancement and validation. This research fulfills the necessity to study how software organizations accept and adopt DevOps practices by enhancing UTAUT.</span></div>

Unravelling DevOps Agile Methodologies: A Comprehensive Review of Recent Research

Abstract: This study report offers a thorough analysis of current studies on DevOps Agile techniques. The study summarizes and dissects the major discoveries made in peer-reviewed literature, conference proceedings, and other academic publications. The article examines the most recent DevOps Agile practice trends and advances, as well as how they affect software development, testing, deployment, and operations. The analysis emphasizes the advantages of applying DevOps Agile approaches, including enhanced collaboration, faster time to market, and higher-quality software products. The paper also examines the challenges and potential limitations of DevOps Agile adoption, such as cultural resistance, lack of skills, and integration issues. Finally, the study concludes with recommendations for practical implications for software development teams and organizations seeking to implement DevOps Agile methodologies. The review provides valuable insights and guidance for researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers in the field of software engineering and information technology.

Multicriteria decision‐making–based framework for implementing DevOps practices: A fuzzy best–worst approach

AbstractIncreasingly, software organizations are implementing DevOps culture to benefit from it in terms of continuous testing, delivery, improvement, and so forth. Implementing DevOps is difficult due to a lack of understanding about the practices and their effective application for its effective implementation. This paper aims to explore different DevOps practices that can be implemented in software organizations. The study involves conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify DevOps implementation practices, followed by the utilization of the fuzzy best–worst method (FBWM) to establish a taxonomy or classification of software practices. We have used an SLR to investigate the practices, and subsequently, the survey method was followed to validate the identified practices. Moreover, the best–worst method (BWM) was considered to evaluate the significance and develop the taxonomy of the practices. The results of this study extracted 19 practices that have been identified in the SLR process. The identified factors are further classified into six core DevOps lifecycle phases. The results of the BWM approach are shown. The outcomes of the study conclude that the proposed taxonomy of the practices could help DevOps practitioners and researchers effectively implement them in software development organizations.

ORGANISATIONAL LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES IN ADOPTING DEVOPS IN NORTHERN NIGERIA SMES

The development and operation issue is rapidly expanding as some organisations in northern Nigeria seek to capitalise on the benefits it can provide to software development organisations and information technology projects. Adopting DevOps, on the other hand, requires significant organisational change, especially where tradition and established processes exist. This study presents the findings of a five-month qualitative diary study following the implementation of DevOps in a Nigerian SME with over 100 employees as part of a large-scale doctoral research project that investigates software development processes and leadership challenges. Based on the study's findings, the case study organisation employs the DevOps approach to develop new software for internal and external use. DevOps appears to be well-known in theory, but it is extremely difficult to put into practise. This difficulty is exacerbated by the need to maintain old systems, a lack of technical leadership, management systems, and resilience. This research also found evidence of job creation, particularly among software developers. Taken together, we argue that DevOps is an interdisciplinary topic that requires all stakeholders to participate in order to communicate and collaborate, and that it would benefit greatly from more leadership and possibly deeper psychological research.

Integrating Sustainability Metrics into Project and Portfolio Performance Assessment in Agile Software Development: A Data-Driven Scoring Model

In today’s rapidly evolving information technology sectors, agile methodologies have been employed by software development organizations to facilitate the large-scale, efficient, and swift development of digital products. Notably, it is a widely accepted principle that an increase in project delivery predictability results from more effective portfolio management. Despite the abundant resources within software engineering that address project management and agile development performance, the measurement of portfolio delivery performance integrating sustainability principles is under-researched. This paper aims to underline a solution to bridge this gap by proposing a data-driven scoring model explicitly designed for software firms to integrate sustainability metrics into their project and portfolio performance assessment. The model is primarily aimed at monitoring and enhancing delivery performance while also reinforcing the sustainability of the software development lifecycle. A thorough literature review was conducted to discern gaps in existing practices, followed by development of a scoring model melded with delivery and sustainability metrics seamlessly. Validated through a case study, the findings reveal that the model influences the performance and sustainability dynamics within software development entities. The insights gained from this study underscore the pivotal role of a harmonized delivery and sustainability metrics system in enhancing the sustainability and efficiency of software development undertakings.

Design thinking adoption in software development organizations: A SAP LAP analysis

The design thinking approach (DTA) is recognized as a desirable and viable strategic plan for addressing the ever-changing dynamic needs of the customer in software products. However, the adoption of DTA in software development organizations (SDOs) remains low, which is of significant concern in developing countries such as India. DTA implementation appears complex, challenging and necessitates holistic investigation to understand the factors influencing the adoption. Consequently, the study seeks to propose a practice-based theoretical framework using the situation-actor-process and learning-action-performance (SAP-LAP) framework to advance our understanding of DTA utilization challenges in SDOs and suggest actions to improve the current scenario. The SAP LAP framework was developed using personnel semi-structured interviews with nineteen experts having more than ten years of experience from nine leading SDOs. Overall, the study identifies fifteen challenges and thirteen actions to overcome the challenges to DTA utilization in SDOs. Finally, implications for practitioners and policymakers are discussed.

FQMaP: Towards a Framework Quantitative Management of Processes in Small Software Development Organizations

FQMaP: Towards a Framework Quantitative Management of Processes in Small Software Development Organizations

Maturity model for secure software testing

AbstractSecurity is an essential attribute of high‐quality software. However, effectively incorporating security practices into different phases of the software development life cycle (SDLC) remains challenging. Owing to less mature secure testing processes, organizations are prone to ineffective testing practices for defect detection, including severe security‐related failures. Thus, in this study, we present a maturity model for secure software testing (MMSST) to assist software development organizations in improving the secure testing of software applications. We conducted a multivocal literature review and identified 68 primary studies from the formal and gray literature. Then, based on the available evidence, 27 process areas were identified to develop the proposed MMSST. The MMSST includes five main categories: governance, contrive and design, execution, deployment and configuration, and mature. The MMSST was subsequently evaluated using case studies related to practical environments. Results demonstrate that the proposed MMSST is useful for estimating the maturity level of an organization with respect to the secure testing phase of the SDLC. The participants of the case studies also agreed that the proposed MMSST is useful in terms of structure, user satisfaction, and ease of use. We believe that the proposed MMSST can help organizations evaluate and improve software security testing practices. In addition, the proposed MMSST is expected to provide researchers and industry practitioners with an effective foundation for developing new secure testing approaches and tools.

Facilitators and inhibitors of Agile methods adoption: Practitioners view

AbstractThis study provides empirical evidence to the body of knowledge in Agile methods adoption in small, medium, and large organizations in the global context. This research explores facilitators and inhibitors of Agile methods adoption in software development organizations. A survey was conducted among Agile professionals to gather survey data from 52 software organizations in seven countries across the world. This study found many facilitators of Agile adoption to be significant such as customers’ dominant issues, encouragement, project champion, highly competent team, use of tools, etc. Similarly a correlation analysis revealed multiple inhibitors as significant: absence of a full set of right Agile practices, absence of customer presence, absence of tracking mechanisms during Agile progress, and failure to determine the role of the client. The present study identifies that an Agile team with high expertise and competence leads to higher quality in software, customer satisfaction along with return on investment (ROI) while a small Agile team increases ease in handling changing requirements, customer satisfaction, reduced delivery time, and increased ROI. Frequent delivery accelerates better control over work, adds to software quality, customer satisfaction, and in shortening delivery time along with increase ROI. It has also been observed that providing essential features early leads to increase in software quality and customer satisfaction. This study confirms that active customer focus leads to better control over work. Further, absence of customer decreases dealing with changing requirements, and customer satisfaction while absence of progress tracking lowers customer satisfaction.

On the roles of software testers: An exploratory study

Context:Software development organizations need testers with high skill levels in a broad range of technical areas and application domains. Accordingly, we need a better understanding of how testers meet such skill demands in the practice of their role. Objective:This work aims to deepen the understanding of the typical tester role. Method:We performed a thematic analysis of 19 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with software testers working in various industries. To investigate employers’ views on such roles, we conducted a thematic analysis of 400 job ads. Results:From the interviews, we identified five subroles of software testers: domain-specific tester, test automation specialist, test infrastructure specialist, user experience tester, and test manager. Most of the practitioners preferred to develop skills and act in one subrole. In contrast, most of the job ads requested that testers act in multiple subroles. Conclusion:Our findings provide a deeper understanding of the tester role, which may guide testers in their acquisition of skills and employers in the recruiting of testers.