Software Development Organizations Research Articles

A Conceptual Model of Factors Influencing Customer Relationship Management in Global Software Development: A Client Perspective

The software development industry or organizations increasingly emerging day by day have adopted global software development (GSD) practices due to the large significance of outsourcing. These industries face many challenges due to a lack of understanding customer perspective in the GSD environment. For any organization, the customer is the major stakeholder, and customer relationship management (CRM) plays a vital role in customer satisfaction with software development projects. These challenges create serious risks for any software development project’s success. Thus, CRM is a crucial challenge in the success of software projects in the GSD environment. This research study aims to address the factors that negatively influence CRM implementation in the global context and proposes a conceptual model based on the identified factors for enhancing software product quality. The systematic literature review (SLR) phase investigates the potential barriers to CRM implementation in GSD. Based on identified barriers, an initial conceptual model is developed. The proposed conceptual model is validated using a questionnaire survey of the GSD industry and CRM practitioners of Pakistan. Statistical analysis and several suitable tests are also performed to develop the final conceptual model for CRM implementation in the GSD environment. This research is performed from the client’s perspective. The results are promising and accommodating to avoid any software project failure due to customer-related issues in a GSD environment.

Toward successful DevSecOps in software development organizations: A decision-making framework

Development and Operations (DevOps) is a methodology that aims to establish collaboration between programmers and operators to automate the continuous delivery of new software to reduce the development life cycle and produce quality software. Development, Security, and Operations (DevSecOps) is developing the DevOps concept, which integrates security methods into a DevOps process. DevSecOps is a software development process where security is built in to ensure application confidentiality, integrity, and availability. This paper aims to identify and prioritize the challenges associated with implementing the DevSecOps process. We performed a multivocal literature review (MLR) and conducted a questionnaire-based survey to identify challenges associated with DevSecOps-based projects. Moreover, interpretive structure modeling (ISM) was applied to study the relationships among the core categories of the challenges. Finally, we used the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) to prioritize the identified challenges associated with DevSecOps projects. We identified 18 challenges for the DevSecOps process and mapped them to 10 core categories. The ISM results indicate that the “standards” category has the most decisive influence on the other nine core categories of the identified challenges. Moreover, the fuzzy TOPSIS indicates that “lack of secure coding standards,” “lack of automated testing tools for security in DevOps,” and “ignorance in static testing for security due to lack of knowledge” are the highest priority challenges for the DevSecOps paradigm. Organizations using DevOps should consider the identified challenges in developing secure software.

Mind the product owner: An action research project into agile release planning

This paper studies agile release planning in a software development organization with 13 development teams. It is important for software development organizations to be able to plan work in an efficient way that supports development work. The research aims to understand issues within agile release planning in the studied organization, and to make some improvement to the agile release planning practices there. The study followed canonical action research methodology completing one cycle of diagnosis, action planning, intervention, evaluation, and learning. Qualitative methods were used during these phases to identify preliminary issues, to support the choice of action, and the evaluation of those actions. The research identified issues of strain on the role of Product Owners. Sources of strain in the organization include changing priorities, the effort required to build up domain competence for new projects, and external pressure to push out new features. Additionally, there was difficulty for people participating in agile release planning to suggest improvements to the used practices due in part to the complexity and scale of planning practices in a multi-team development organization. The actions taken as part of the research provided ways for Product Owners to share knowledge between themselves, to better affect the working practices in the organization, and promoted a sense of team spirit between the Product Owners. Organizations should be mindful of their Product Owners when looking at their release planning practices. Problems for Product Owners are problems in planning for the whole organization. Having an active, collective, and structured channel for continuous improvement for Product Owners can help drive improvements to agile release planning. • Issues in agile release planning with 13 software development teams. • Strain for Product Owners issue in agile release planning. • Strain includes changing priorities, external pressure, domain competence. • Improving agile release planning difficult due to inherent complexity. • Retrospectives for Product Owners help improve agile release planning.

Application of a Gamified Approach to Learning in the Treatment of Problems in Software Process Improvement: Analysis and Discussion of Results

The specialized literature defines Software Process Improvement (SPI) as the fundamental approach to improving software products in software development organizations. In this context, studies report several problems and difficulties that organizations face during the implementation of improvements. Although there are studies that address the problems highlighted in improvement programs, few studies still seek to identify practices in order to mitigate the negative effects of critical factors. Thus, the objective of this work is to discuss and analyze the results obtained in an Experience Report that consisted of a dynamic application with gamification elements in an SPI context related to learning in the treatment of recurring problems or difficulties in the implementation of improvements. It is noteworthy that the dynamics can be developed in organizations (commercial and academic) regardless of the improvement model or standard desired, since it was elaborated in relation to common problems experienced and identified in the SPI implementations scenario. The analysis of the obtained data was performed using an Evaluation Framework for Gamification in Software Engineering, which provided a standard structure for the design of evaluation studies for gamification cases.

A comprehensive overview of software product management challenges

The principal focus of software product management is to ensure the economic success of the product, which means to prolong the product life as much as possible with modest expenditures to maximizs profits. Software product managers play an important role in the software development organization while being responsible for the strategy, business case, product roadmap, high-level requirements, product deployment (release-management), and retirement plan. This article explores the problems that affect the software product management process, their perceived frequency and perceived severity. The data were collected by a systematic literature review (5 main databases were analyzed), interviews (10 software product managers from IT companies), and surveys (89 participants). 95 software product management problems assigned nonexclusively to 7 areas were identified. 27 commonly mentioned software product management problems were evaluated for their perceived frequency and perceived severity. The problems perceived as the most frequent are: determining the true value of the product that the customer needs, strategy and priorities change frequently, technical debt, working in silos, and balancing between reactive and proactive work. In total, 95 problems have been identified which have been narrowed down to 27 problems based on their occurrence in at least 3 interviews. These selected problems were prioritized by perceived frequency and perceived severity. Some of the identified problems spanned beyond the software product management process itself, but they all affect the work of software product managers.

Examining the Capacity of Text Mining and Software Metrics in Vulnerability Prediction.

Software security is a very important aspect for software development organizations who wish to provide high-quality and dependable software to their consumers. A crucial part of software security is the early detection of software vulnerabilities. Vulnerability prediction is a mechanism that facilitates the identification (and, in turn, the mitigation) of vulnerabilities early enough during the software development cycle. The scientific community has recently focused a lot of attention on developing Deep Learning models using text mining techniques for predicting the existence of vulnerabilities in software components. However, there are also studies that examine whether the utilization of statically extracted software metrics can lead to adequate Vulnerability Prediction Models. In this paper, both software metrics- and text mining-based Vulnerability Prediction Models are constructed and compared. A combination of software metrics and text tokens using deep-learning models is examined as well in order to investigate if a combined model can lead to more accurate vulnerability prediction. For the purposes of the present study, a vulnerability dataset containing vulnerabilities from real-world software products is utilized and extended. The results of our analysis indicate that text mining-based models outperform software metrics-based models with respect to their F2-score, whereas enriching the text mining-based models with software metrics was not found to provide any added value to their predictive performance.

Changes to team autonomy in large-scale software development: a multiple case study of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) implementations

Large-scale transformations of agile ways of working have received more attention in the industry in recent years. Some organizations have developed their own solutions for scaling, whereas many have chosen trademarked frameworks. In large-scale agile software development, many developers and development teams carry out work simultaneously. When autonomous teams need to coordinate toward a common goal, they must sacrifice some level of autonomy. Development, testing, and integrations need to be coordinated with other teams and aligned with an organization´s programs or portfolio. Through the conducting of 28 interviews and 17 on-site visits, this multiple case study explored how team autonomy changed in three agile software development organizations that implemented the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The positive changes to team autonomy that they experienced as a result included getting a better overview, making better long-term decisions, giving and receiving help, and signaling limitations. We found two negative impacts on team autonomy: limited feature choice and enforced refinement. The study extends previous research on large-scale agile software development and improves our understanding of impacts on team autonomy.

Ontological automation of software essence kernel to assess progress of software project

Managing a software project with a large number of requirements is a challenging task, a lot of effort and time is required to measure the software’s progress and health. To tackle this, software development organizations look for different development processes that would best assist them. Recently, software essence is used to measure the progress and health of software development. However, these are applied manually to assess the development and fitness of the system. Therefore, it is very difficult for software organizations to access the required information quickly. The aim of this study is the automation of Software Essence Kernel through Ontology Development to quickly measure the progress and health of the system. Experimental work is done with a hypothesis that if software essence kernel is automated, then one can quickly measure the progress and health of the system. The results of this study argue that software health of the system can be quickly and easily measured if the ontology is automated.

First step climbing the Stairway to Heaven Model - Results from a Case Study in Industry

Context: Nowadays, software development organizations have adopted agile practices and data-driven software development aiming at a competitive advantage. Moving from traditional to agile and data-driven software development requires changes in the organization´s culture and structure, which may not be easy. The Stairway to Heaven Model (StH) describes this evolution path in five stages. Objective: We aimed to investigate how Systems Theory tools, GUT Matrix, and reference ontologies can help organizations in the first transition of StH, i.e., moving from traditional to agile development. Method: We performed a participative case study in a Brazilian organization that develops software in partnership with a European organization. We applied Systems Theory tools (systemic maps and archetypes) to understand the organization and identify undesirable behaviors and their causes. Thus, we used GUT Matrices to decide which ones should be addressed first and we defined strategies to change the undesirable behaviors by implementing agile practices. We also used the conceptualization provided by reference ontologies to share a common understanding of agile and help implement the strategies. Results: By understanding the organization, a decision was made to implement a combination of agile and traditional practices. The implemented strategies improved software quality and project time, and cost. Problems due to misunderstanding agile concepts were solved by using reference ontologies, process models, and other diagrams built based on the ontologies conceptualization, allowing the organization to experience agile culture and foresee changes in its business model. Conclusion: Systems Theory tools and GUT Matrix aid organizations to move from traditional to agile development by supporting better understanding the organization, finding leverage points of change, and enabling to define strategies aligned to the organization characteristics and priorities. Reference ontologies can be useful to establish a common understanding about agile, enabling teams to be aware of and, thus, more committed to agile practices and concepts. The use of process models and other diagrams can favor learning the conceptualization provided by the ontologies.

Relationships between Agile Work Practices and Occupational Well-Being: The Role of Job Demands and Resources.

Agile work practices have been adopted by most software development organizations and by many large organizations from other industries. The introduction of agile work practices is assumed to positively affect work characteristics and, in turn, well-being of employees. So far, there is only very little and methodologically limited empirical research on this topic. Based on job demands–resources theory, we developed and tested a model on the direct and indirect relationships between agile work practices, job demands and resources, and occupational well-being. Data were provided by 260 employees working in agile development teams who participated in two surveys that were approximately six weeks apart. Results of structural equation modeling provided support for the hypothesized model, suggesting that agile work practices have a negative indirect effect on emotional fatigue through lower job demands. At the same time, agile work practices also had a positive indirect effect on emotional engagement through higher job resources. Our research contributes to the literature by integrating agile work practices with job demands–resources theory, bridging an important gap between research and practice. Overall, the findings suggest that the implementation of agile work practices may have a positive impact on occupational well-being by improving employees’ perceptions of key work characteristics.

Systematic Literature Review on Security Risks and its Practices in Secure Software Development

Security is one of the most critical aspects of software quality. Software security refers to the process of creating and developing software that assures the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of its code, data, and services. Software development organizations treat security as an afterthought issue, and as a result, they continue to face security threats. Incorporating security at any level of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) has become an urgent requirement. Several methodologies, strategies, and models have been proposed and developed to address software security, but only a few of them give reliable evidence for creating secure software applications. Software security issues, on the other hand, have not been adequately addressed, and integrating security procedures into the SDLC remains a challenge. The major purpose of this paper is to learn about software security risks and practices so that secure software development methods can be better designed. A systematic literature review (SLR) was performed to classify important studies to achieve this goal. Based on the inclusion, exclusion, and quality assessment criteria, a total of 121 studies were chosen. This study identified 145 security risks and 424 best practices that help software development organizations to manage the security in each phase of the SDLC. To pursue secure SDLC, this study prescribed different security activities, which should be followed in each phase of the SDLC. Successful integration of these activities minimizing effort, time, and budget while delivering secure software applications. The findings of this study assist software development organizations in improving the security level of their software products and also enhancing their security efficiency. This will raise the developer’s awareness of secure development practices as well.

Strengthening Software Make vs. Buy Decision: A Mixed-Method Approach

Over the past few decades, multiple software development process models, tools, and techniques have been used by practitioners. Despite using these techniques, most software development organizations still fail to meet customer’s needs within time and budget. Time overrun is one of the major reasons for project failure. There is a need to come up with a comprehensive solution that would increase the chances of project success. However, the “make vs. buy” decision can be helpful for “in time” software development. Social media have become a popular platform for discussion of all sorts of topics, so software development is no exception. Software developers discuss all the pros and cons of making vs. buy decisions on Twitter and other social media platforms. Twitter trending is a typical feature that evaluates the level of popularity of a specific event on online networking. A mixed-method approach comprising of interviews of software industry experts and Twitter data extraction is applied to scrutinize the effective decision of software build vs. buy decision. The findings of the analysis show that software makes vs. buy decisions depend on several factors including cost, development technology, software development team skills, and time. Based on the finding of the study a framework is proposed for the decision to build versus buy in Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Furthermore, the framework has been designed to statistically indicate make versus buy decisions of the organization and to suggest appropriate choices based on different parameters.

Software Reliability Assessment Using Hybrid Neuro-Fuzzy Model

Software reliability is the primary concern of software development organizations, and the exponentially increasing demand for reliable software requires modeling techniques to be developed in the present era. Small unnoticeable drifts in the software can culminate into a disaster. Early removal of these errors helps the organization improve and enhance the software’s reliability and save money, time, and effort. Many soft computing techniques are available to get solutions for critical problems but selecting the appropriate technique is a big challenge. This paper proposed an efficient algorithm that can be used for the prediction of software reliability. The proposed algorithm is implemented using a hybrid approach named Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System and has also been applied to test data. In this work, a comparison among different techniques of soft computing has been performed. After testing and training the real time data with the reliability prediction in terms of mean relative error and mean absolute relative error as 0.0060 and 0.0121, respectively, the claim has been verified. The results claim that the proposed algorithm predicts attractive outcomes in terms of mean absolute relative error plus mean relative error compared to the other existing models that justify the reliability prediction of the proposed model. Thus, this novel technique intends to make this model as simple as possible to improve the software reliability.

4PCDT: A Quantifiable Parameter-based Framework for Academic Software Project Management

Many authorities like Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development (CMMI-Dev) lend a hand to software development organizations in management of their crucial projects. Though this area needs focused research, such models are not dedicatedly available for the academic projects developed by students of computer science and engineering where software project development is considered as one of the criteria for the award of degree to the future professionals of the IT industry. With this motivation, we explored 4PTRB, 3PR and software project management practices, approaches as well processes framed and provided by PMBOK and CMMI-Dev. The main aim of this research is to introduce and propose a software project management framework for the academic domain. The proposed framework contains identification and description of 7 and 26 quantifiable parameters and sub-parameters respectively. The framework is called 4PCDT for People, Process, Product, Project, Complexity, Duration and Technology for the academic software projects. To validate the proposed framework, an online survey of 113 faculties was conducted to rank and weigh the quantifiable parameters. The results show that People, Process and Technology management parameters are top 3 ranked parameters. The robustness of the approach is further evident from the results of experimentation on 18 actual academic software projects of final year post graduate students of the IT domain. Not only the proposed work is first of its kind, but also it is bound to generate an excellent ripple effect in the research community.

A hybrid model for prediction of software effort based on team size

Most of the software development organisations frequently use an appreciable amount of resources to estimate the effort in the beginning of the development process. In most of the cases, inaccurate estimates tend to wastage of these resources. Very few generalised models have been found in the literature. These models have been developed using the prototype dataset of the organisation. The project management team of an organisation tries to predict the effort needed for the development of software using various mathematical techniques. These techniques are mostly based on statistical methods (viz. simple linear regression (SLR), multi linear regression, support vector machine, cascade correlation neural network (CCNN) etc.) and some probability-based models. They use historical data of similar projects. The work presented in this article envisages the use of Support Vector Regression (SVR) and constructive cost model (COCOMO), where SVR can be used for both linear and non-linear models and COCOMO can be used as a regression model. The proposed hybrid model has been tested on the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group dataset. The data has been grouped according to the size of man power. It has been found that the proposed model yields better results than the SVR or SLR for each group of data in general.

Moderator factors of software security and performance verification

Context:Security and performance are critical software non-functional requirements. Therefore, verification activities should be included in the development process to identify related defects, avoiding failures after deployment. However, there is a lack of understanding on factors moderating the security and performance verification, which jeopardizes organizations to improve their verification activities to assure the releasing of software fulfilling these requirements. Objective:To identify moderator factors influencing security and performance verification and actions to promote them. Methods:Case study to identify security and performance moderators factors. Rapid Literature Reviews with Snowballing to strengthen moderator factors confidence. Practitioners Survey to classify the moderator factors relevance. Results:Identification of eight security and performance moderator factors regarding organizational awareness, cross-functional team, suitable requirements, support tools, verification environment, verification methodology, verification planning, and reuse practices. Rapid Reviews confirmed the moderator factors and revealed actions to promote each. A survey with 37 practitioners allowed us to classify the moderator factors and their actions regarding their relevancy. Conclusions:The moderator factors can be considered key points to software development organizations implement/improve security and performance verification activities in regular software systems. Further investigation is necessary to support the understanding of these moderator factors when building modern software systems.

Development of an Ontology-based Approach for Knowledge Management in Software Testing

Software development organizations are seeking to add quality to their products. Testing processes are strategic elements to manage projects and product quality. However, advances in technology and the emergence of increasingly critical applications make testing a complex task and large volumes of information are generated. In fact, software testing is a knowledge intensive process. Because of this, these organizations have shown a growing interest in Knowledge Management (KM) programs, which in turn support the improvement of testing procedures. KM emerges as a means to manage testing knowledge, and, consequently, to improve software quality. However, there are only a few KM solutions supporting software testing. This paper reports experiences from the development of an approach, called Ontology-based Testing Knowledge Management (OntoT-KM), that aims to assist in launching KM initiatives in the software testing domain with the support of Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs). OntoT-KM provides a process guiding how to start applying KM in software testing. OntoT-KM is based on the findings of a systematic mapping on KM in software testing and the results of a survey with testing practitioners. Moreover, OntoT-KM considers the conceptualization established by a Reference Ontology on Software Testing (ROoST). As a proof of concept, OntoT-KM was applied to develop a KMS called Testing KM Portal (TKMP), which was evaluated in terms of usefulness, usability, and functional correctness. Results show that the developed KMS from OntoT-KM is a potential system for managing knowledge in software testing, so, the approach can guide KM initiatives in software testing.

Prevalence, common causes and effects of technical debt: Results from a family of surveys with the IT industry

Context:The technical debt (TD) metaphor describes actions made during various stages of software development that lead to a more costly future regarding system maintenance and evolution. According to recent studies, on average 25% of development effort is spent, i.e. wasted, on TD caused issues in software development organizations. However, further research is needed to investigate the relations between various software development activities and TD. Objective:The objective of this study is twofold. First, to get empirical insight on the understanding and the use of the TD concept in the IT industry. Second, to contribute towards precise conceptualization of the TD concept through analysis of causes and effects. Method:In order to address the research objective a family of surveys was designed as a part of an international initiative that congregates researchers from 12 countries—InsighTD. At country level, national teams ran survey replications with industry practitioners from the respective countries. Results:In total 653 valid responses were collected from 6 countries. Regarding the prevalence of the TD concept 22% of practitioners have only theoretical knowledge about it, and 47% have some practical experiences with TD identification or management. Further analysis indicated that senior practitioners who work in larger organizations, larger teams, and on larger systems are more likely to be experienced with TD management. Time pressure or deadlinewas the single most cited cause of TD. Regarding the effects of TD: delivery delay, low maintainability, and rework were the most cited. Conclusion:InsighTD is the first family of surveys on technical debt in software engineering. It provided a methodological framework that allowed multiple replication teams to conduct research activities and to contribute to a single dataset. Future work will focus on more specific aspects of TD management.

Organizational issues in embracing Agile methods: an empirical assessment

This study provides empirical evidence to the body of knowledge in Agile methods adoption in small, medium and large organizations in international context. This research explores the factors involved in the adoption of Agile methods 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. Statistical techniques are applied towards empirical assessment. Organizational culture, team structure and management support are found to be crucial success factors whereas lack of management support, a large organization size and traditional organizational culture are found to be detrimental for the adoption of Agile approach in an organization. The selection of an appropriate Agile method depends on the project size and, for each size, there are specific methods preferred by different enterprises. Providing better control over the work is viewed as the primary advantage of the Agile methods within large and small organizations, while for the medium-size organizations, the priority is switched to coping with changing user requirements. Majority of the respondents did not consider embracing agile methods as a reason for project failure which indicates that Agile methods are, indeed, beneficial.

A Framework for Integrating Usability Practices into Small-Sized Software Development Organizations

A Framework for Integrating Usability Practices into Small-Sized Software Development Organizations