Software Development Settings Research Articles

A Social Regulation Perspective on Team Reflexivity: The Development of an Analytical Framework

Teams are nowadays seen as the cornerstones of organizations. Previous research has shown that team reflexivity is positively related to team performance. Traditionally, team reflexivity is conceptualized as a process that occurs during transition moments, ignoring reflexive moments during teams’ action phases. Moreover, most studies used self-reported questionnaires and cross-sectional designs and thus provided limited insights into how team reflexivity unfolds during both the action and transition phases of teams. In this study, we adopt a social regulation perspective to develop an analytical framework to study team reflexivity in the flow of work. The study was conducted in a software development setting and included 50 h of video recordings of different types of team meetings of six professional self-managing teams (a total of 33 team members). Using concepts from social regulation theory as developed in student learning settings as an analytical lens, an analytical framework with four components of social regulation (knowledge co-construction and regulation; regulation activities; focus of regulation, and type of interaction) was developed and applied. Outcomes show that in more than half of their conversations, the teams jointly engaged in regulation-related activities, of which most concerned planning activities and a very low occurrence of evaluation activities. Different patterns of team reflexivity were found in the action and transition phase but zooming in on the interactions also showed high interrelatedness of the different activities. The analytical framework could assist future research to further study the interaction between the different components and how they mutually relate to team performance.

Quality Evaluation of Modern Code Reviews Through Intelligent Biometric Program Comprehension

Code review is an essential practice in software engineering to spot code defects in the early stages of software development. Modern code reviews (e.g., acceptance or rejection of pull requests with Git) have become less formal than classic Fagan's inspections, lightweight, and more reliant on individuals (i.e., reviewers). However, reviewers may encounter mentally demanding challenges during the code review, such as code comprehension difficulties or distractions that might affect the code review quality. This work proposes a novel approach that evaluates the quality of code reviews in terms of bug-finding effectiveness and provides the reviewers with a clear message of whether the review should be repeated, indicating the code regions that may not have been well-reviewed. The proposed approach utilizes biometric information collected from the reviewer during the review process using non-intrusive biofeedback devices (e.g., smartwatches). Biometric measures such as Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and task-evoked pupillary response are captured as a surrogate of the cognitive state of the reviewer (e.g., mental workload) and inexpensive desktop eye-trackers compatible with the software development settings. This work uses Artificial Intelligence techniques to predict the cognitive load from the extracted biomarkers and classify each code region according to a set of features. The final evaluation considers various factors such as code complexity, time of the code review, the experience level of the reviewer, and other factors. Our experimental results show the approach could predict the review quality with 87.77%±4.65 accuracy and a Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.85 (p-value < 0.001) between the predicted and the actual review performance. This evaluation validates the cognitive load measurement using electroencephalography (EEG) signals as ground truth for the HRV and pupil signals.

Towards holistic goal centered performance management in software development: lessons from a best practice analysis

There are strong motivating factors for more effective performance measurement practices in software development. Astute practices in this domain are lauded to improve efficiency and effectiveness. However previous studies have shown that measurement in software is intricate, complex and fraught with challenges. Consequently it is poorly managed in practice. Our research seeks to better understand performance management in a real world software development setting in order to identify the challenges and generate a roadmap for improvement. This paper presents findings from an inductive analysis of a radical measurement program in a global software organization. Our study investigates the level at which non-compliance with best practice can explain the company’s disappointing results. We found that a narrow focus on projects, rather than on organizational goals, has seriously hindered its success. We also found that the rate of change in the organization as a whole was impinging on the effective implementation of its measurement program. An analysis of the results demonstrates just how challenging software measurement is. The findings provide an evaluation of best practice relative to the literature that is informed by real industry experience.

Determinants of Effective Change Management for Software Deployment Projects

Software application deployment change management is one of the emerging research themes that is gaining increased focus day by day. Our study examined the factors that affect software application deployment change management in Agile software development settings. Our study provided a systematic review and synthesized the approaches, practices, and challenges reported for adopting and implementing deployment change management. The prime objective of our study was to systematically synthesize the data extracted and formulate evidence-based practical recommendations that are influential in software deployment change management. Six research themes are proposed to evaluate the rationale of the research question. This qualitative study and systematic review explored the pertinent research articles and key findings from prominent academic databases. Based on the selected criteria, the final screening revealed 25 articles from an immense set of publications. Key findings that emerged from these publications are correlated with the six research themes: (a) timely communication with all stakeholders; (b) the reliance of deployment approaches on past experience; (c) the importance of collaboration among team members having adequate knowledge of DevOps tools; (d) the ramification of the differences among development, test, and production environments; (e) the influential areas that reap the benefits of continuous delivery and deployment; and (f) the challenges of the effective use of containerization. We also found indications of the significance of Lewin’s three-step change process model in the Agile development and deployment environment. Overall, our study deepens understanding of this thriving research area and contributes to the literature on Agile deployment and the software change management process.

Self-adapting data migration in the context of schema evolution in NoSQL databases

When NoSQL database systems are used in an agile software development setting, data model changes occur frequently and thus, data is routinely stored in different versions. The management of versioned data leads to an overhead potentially impeding the software development. Several data migration strategies exist that handle legacy data differently during data accesses, each of which can be characterized by certain advantages and disadvantages. Depending on the requirements for the software application, we evaluate and compare different migration strategies through metrics like migration costs and latency as well as precision and recall. Ideally, exactly that strategy should be selected whose characteristics fulfill service-level agreements and match the migration scenario, which depends on the query workload and the changes in the data model which imply an evolution of the database schema. In this paper, we present a methodology of self-adapting data migration, which automatically adjusts migration strategies and their parameters with respect to the migration scenario and service-level agreements, thereby contributing to the self-management of database systems and supporting agile development.

An Improved Software Project Monitoring Task Model of Agile Kanban Method: A Practitioners’ Perspective

Monitoring software project development is essential to ensure that the project progress is according to budget, schedule, and quality expectations. Currently, Agile Methods (AMs) have received wide recognition within the software engineering (SE) field due to their flexibility and effectiveness. One of the AMs methods used in managing software project development is Kanban method. This method is gaining attention due to its ability to enhance understanding, visibility, and controlling the project workflow. Thus, this paper aims to discuss the initial result of the proposed model for improving the software project monitoring task of the Agile Kanban method (i-KAM). To achieve this aim, the expert review method was used to ensure that suitable components and associated criteria have been included in i-KAM. In this study, six domain experts, which are software practitioners, have been identified based on predefined characteristics. The proposed model was verified based on five dimensions, which are understandability, relevance, feasibility, organization, and comprehensiveness. The experts’ opinions and comments were obtained and subsequently quantified by using descriptive analysis. Findings revealed that this study has fulfilled its objective and has acquired constructive suggestions from the practitioners’ perspective. Future work will continue to enhance i-KAM according to the recommendations and remarks from the experts. A focus group and case study methods could be conducted in order to validate the revised i-KAM. Besides, a prototype will be developed and then implemented within a real software development setting.

The use of prototypes to bridge knowledge boundaries in agile software development

AbstractBridging knowledge boundaries among project team members is essential to prevent delays or complete failure of software development projects. Prior researchers have reported that software prototypes can be used to help bridge knowledge boundaries between team members in traditional software development settings, yet their use in an agile development setting remains unexplored. Agile development centers the interactions between team members on emerging representations of the prototype whose properties are prone to change over time. Therefore, we conducted an in‐depth study of an agile development project to enhance our understanding on how software prototypes are used as boundary objects in a distributed team setting. Our analyses of team member interactions during 46 virtual meetings that took place over a period of 6 months revealed four different prototype use practices (exemplifying, contrasting, relating, framing) that were effective in bridging syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic knowledge boundaries. We also provide empirically grounded evidence of how variations in object properties can afford different use practices, how the use practices take advantage of these properties, and how object properties are reshaped through these use practices as different types of knowledge boundaries are bridged. These findings bear important implications for research on prototypes as boundary objects in software development in particular and boundary object use in general.

Accounting for Intangibles: Can Capitalization of R&amp;D Improve Investment Efficiency?

This paper investigates the potential for accounting rules to mitigate under‐investment induced by myopic managerial incentives. It exploits the difference within US GAAP requiring the capitalization of some research and development (R&amp;D) costs in software development but proscribing the capitalization of R&amp;D in other industries. We first investigate whether other hi‐technology firms with no capitalization of R&amp;D costs suffer higher levels of under‐investment in myopic settings relative to software development firms. Second, we investigate whether the capitalization rule assists in mitigating under‐investment within the software development industry, and whether this comes at the cost of over‐investment in the presence of financial flexibility. Our findings are consistent with the mitigation of under‐investment in the software development setting but we find no evidence of over‐investment in the presence of high financial flexibility. Other hi‐tech firms that cannot capitalize R&amp;D costs suffer higher levels of under‐investment relative to software development firms. Finally, we find that the ability to capitalize for the sample of software firms does reduce the probability of cutting R&amp;D investment when managers are under earnings pressure. The findings in this paper are relevant to standard setters seeking to understand the costs imposed by (understandably) conservative accounting rules, and how verification of points of feasibility alongside less conservative accounting can prevent dysfunctional investment outcomes. This is the first study to consider whether the ability to (justifiably) capitalize the costs of internally generated intangibles can improve investment efficiency (the allocation of resources).

The Impact of Team Processes on Team Creativity in Software Development Setting: A Longitudinal Study

The Impact of Team Processes on Team Creativity in Software Development Setting: A Longitudinal Study

Propuesta de Modelo de Proceso de Ingeniería Distribuida de Requisitos de Software

Los escenarios de Desarrollo Global de Software, donde los actores del proceso están dispersos geográficamente, crecen a diario en muchas partes del mundo, incluso en Latinoamérica. Este nuevo entorno impacta sobre el desempeño de los métodos y las herramientas usadas en los procesos tradicionales de desarrollo de software. Debido al alto flujo de comunicación humana que requiere, el proceso de ingeniería de requisitos es fuertemente afectado por las características particulares de estos nuevos escenarios globales. Basado en estudios experimentales, este artículo presenta un modelo de proceso de ingeniería de requisitos para desarrollo de software distribuido que contempla tanto técnicas de elicitación como así también herramientas de comunicación.

On the Risks and Safeguards for Requirements Engineering in Global Software Development: Systematic Literature Review and Quantitative Assessment

Requirements engineering (RE) is a critical process in software development which faces important risks when performed in a global software development (GSD) setting. Some of these risks are specific to GSD, while others also appear in co-localized environments but are aggravated in GSD. A systematic literature review (SLR) has been conducted to identify the risks to RE that occur in GSD, along with the safeguards with which to manage these risks. Inspired by a grounded theory approach, risks and safeguards have been elicited and grouped by means of collaborative tagging and cluster analysis techniques, and then bivariate correlation tests have been applied to measure the association between these risks and safeguards. The results of the SLR include the identification of a great variety of risks to RE in GSD (218), along with a large number of safeguards (146 in total). Starting from these results, a risks and safeguards repository that encompasses the entire state of the art on RE in GSD has been produced and is now publicly available. This repository can be used as a growing knowledge base by any organization interested in carrying out RE in GSD. The objective is to assist those organizations that are inexperienced in GSD to handle the problems that may arise when involved in a global development. The most common risks identified in the literature are related to: 1) knowledge sharing; 2) client and vendor relationships; 3) problems with process definition; and 4) communication problems. It was also found that in the literature, the risks related to management and project coordination, knowledge management and awareness, socio-cultural differences, and client-vendor distance are the ones most lacking in proposed safeguards; these are therefore concerns to which more attention should be paid.

Investigating Software Standards: A Lens of Sustainability for Software Crowdsourcing

Inevitably, the time has come that necessitates software systems to have long lasting social impact and environmental friendliness. Although sustainability related to environmental and social aspects have been well versed in the literature, software sustainability, for the way of development and as final product for use, is still not mature enough. With the increasing role of software crowdsourcing, a new working architecture for software development, in global software development (GSD) settings, has emerged challenges regarding sustainable software development and software sustainability, which are still to be elucidated. Software standards and models exist to assist co-located and global software development; however, seismic changes in the working architecture of software development as software crowdsourcing are highlighting a risk of software failure. Recently, statistics showed that only 30% of projects are successful, whereas 50% encounter challenges and the remaining 20% are absolute failures that implicate a challenge toward software success and its sustainability. This posits questions of how many IEEE and international standard organization standards exist that cover the sustainability aspects in particular to software development and how in-depth the development practices are addressing sustainable aspects in software crowdsourcing? Thus, the aim of this paper is to examine the IEEE software standards with a lens of sustainability to software crowdsourcing. After reviewing the existing IEEE standards related to sustainability, it has been observed that few standards exist which have discussed the importance of sustainability on an abstract level (energy and examining environmental influence by the computers) in software development. Moreover, standards are focusing less attention toward the sustainability of software development in the presence of new envision toward software crowdsourcing. Thus, a lack of any guideline toward sustainable software crowdsourcing is highlighted as one of the limitations in the software standards. This paper contributes to the GSD industry in two folds, first by laying down the importance and theoretical association on and around sustainable crowdsourcing, and second by highlighting that the IEEE standards, inadequacy toward the suppressing phenomena of sustainability in software crowdsourcing, if addressed adequately, can minimize the ripple effect toward software failure.

Continuous software engineering—A microservices architecture perspective

AbstractFrom its earliest days, software development has been beset with challenges in relation to timely delivery, appropriateness of features, and quality of deliverables. Many advances in software development processes have helped to address these concerns. For example, agile software development has helped to deliver working software more frequently, and capability maturity frameworks have brought about improved consistency in quality levels. However, the age‐old challenge of better, cheaper, faster software has continued to beguile developers. In this paper, we discuss an emerging approach to software development, continuous software engineering (CSE), wherein software of operational quality may be delivered on a very frequent basis, up to many times in a given day. This approach uses a complex set of independent tools that together reduce the lead time in delivering commercial‐grade software. Having examined the situational context of one industrial organization applying CSE, we conclude that the approach may not presently be appropriate to all manners of software development. Nonetheless, the authors are of the view that CSE represents a significant progression in software engineering and that software development settings of all types stand to gain from aspects of the CSE approach.

The situational factors that affect the software development process: Towards a comprehensive reference framework

ContextAn optimal software development process is regarded as being dependent on the situational characteristics of individual software development settings. Such characteristics include the nature of the application(s) under development, team size, requirements volatility and personnel experience. However, no comprehensive reference framework of the situational factors affecting the software development process is presently available. ObjectiveThe absence of such a comprehensive reference framework of the situational factors affecting the software development process is problematic not just because it inhibits our ability to optimise the software development process, but perhaps more importantly, because it potentially undermines our capacity to ascertain the key constraints and characteristics of a software development setting. MethodTo address this deficiency, we have consolidated a substantial body of related research into an initial reference framework of the situational factors affecting the software development process. To support the data consolidation, we have applied rigorous data coding techniques from Grounded Theory and we believe that the resulting framework represents an important contribution to the software engineering field of knowledge. ResultsThe resulting reference framework of situational factors consists of eight classifications and 44 factors that inform the software process. We believe that the situational factor reference framework presented herein represents a sound initial reference framework for the key situational elements affecting the software process definition. ConclusionIn addition to providing a useful reference listing for the research community and for committees engaged in the development of standards, the reference framework also provides support for practitioners who are challenged with defining and maintaining software development processes. Furthermore, this framework can be used to develop a profile of the situational characteristics of a software development setting, which in turn provides a sound foundation for software development process definition and optimisation.

The role of non-exact replications in software engineering experiments

In no science or engineering discipline does it make sense to speak of isolated experiments. The results of a single experiment cannot be viewed as representative of the underlying reality. Experiment replication is the repetition of an experiment to double-check its results. Multiple replications of an experiment increase the confidence in its results. Software engineering has tried its hand at the identical (exact) replication of experiments in the way of the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.). After numerous attempts over the years, apart from experiments replicated by the same researchers at the same site, no exact replications have yet been achieved. One key reason for this is the complexity of the software development setting, which prevents the many experimental conditions from being identically reproduced. This paper reports research into whether non-exact replications can be of any use. We propose a process aimed at researchers running non-exact replications. Researchers enacting this process will be able to identify new variables that are possibly having an effect on experiment results. The process consists of four phases: replication definition and planning, replication operation and analysis, replication interpretation, and analysis of the replication's contribution. To test the effectiveness of the proposed process, we have conducted a multiple-case study, revealing the variables learned from two different replications of an experiment.

Understanding Tools and Practices for Distributed Pair Programming

When considering the principles for eXtreme Programming, distributed eXtreme Programming, especially distributed pair programming, is a paradox predetermined to failure. However, global software development as well as the outsourcing of software development are integral parts of software projects. Hence, the support for distributed pair programming is still a challenging field for tool developers so that failure for distributed pair programming becomes less mandatory. In this paper, we analyse the social interaction in distributed pair programming and investigate how current technology supports this interaction. We present XPairtise, a plug-in for Eclipse that allows instant pair programming in distributed development teams. In addition, we report on experiences and findings when using XPairtise in a distributed software development setting.

The Institutional Design of Open Source Programming: Implications for Addressing Complex Public Policy and Management Problems

Recently, an exciting approach to solving complex problems has evolved out of computer science, called Open Source programming. In open source software development settings, programmers freely share their intellectual property ? their readable programming source code ? over the Internet. Some open source endeavors have resulted in very complex, high-quality software products, of which the best-known are the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server. A great advantage of an Internet-based open source approach is its potential to achieve global collective action toward developing robust solutions to complex programming problems. This paper argues that open source has potential application beyond computer programming. Open source principles could potentially be applied to almost any intellectual endeavor, and may be a very important innovation toward harnessing global collaboration toward solving complex public policy and management problems. Little research has been published outlining the details of how successful open source programming endeavors are achieved, such as how projects are initiated and organized over time, what rules for participation have been established, and how the methods for maintaining versions of new submissions have been managed. The institutional designs and management of open source projects could be critical for ensuring participants' willingness to collaborate and for recruiting new team members. This paper and the research program it describes, attempts to address this gap. It provides a summary of the "life cycle" of open source programming projects based on existing literature that is largely focused on high-profile open source projects like Linux and Apache Web Server. It then provides interim results from an on-going study of the institutional designs of open source programming projects. It concludes by presenting some examples of non-programming projects that are beginning to apply open source or licensing principles in areas outside of programming and by presenting an example of how these principles might be applied to complex problems beyond programming in the realm of environmental policy and management.

Software development snapshots: A preliminary investigation

A continuing challenge to investigators of human-computer interaction issues is the selection of an appropriate methodology. A particularly difficult aspect of methodology has been the choice of a proper test instrument. In the past, small programs have been favored by researchers because they were relatively easy to manage in a controlled experimental setting. Unfortunately the relationship between the cognitive demands of small programs and of real-world software systems remains unclear. Large programs as task elements bear more resemblence to software in realistic software development settings but tend to be difficult to control in an experimental setting (cf. Moher &amp;amp; Schneider, 1981).