| 1. |
- Alahyari, Hiva, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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A study of value in agile software development organizations
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212 .- 1873-1228. ; 125, s. 271-288
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Agile manifesto focuses on the delivery of valuable software. In Lean, the principles emphasise value, where every activity that does not add value is seen as waste. Despite the strong focus on value, and that the primary critical success factor for software intensive product development lies in the value domain, no empirical study has investigated specifically what value is. This paper presents an empirical study that investigates how value is interpreted and prioritised, and how value is assured and measured. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 23 participants from 14 agile software development organisations. The contribution of this study is fourfold. First, it examines how value is perceived amongst agile software development organisations. Second, it compares the perceptions and priorities of the perceived values by domains and roles. Third, it includes an examination of what practices are used to achieve value in industry, and what hinders the achievement of value. Fourth, it characterises what measurements are used to assure, and evaluate value-creation activities. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Gren, Lucas, 1984-, et al.
(författare)
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Is it possible to disregard obsolete requirements? a family of experiments in software effort estimation
- 2021
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Ingår i: Requirements Engineering. - : Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. - 0947-3602 .- 1432-010X. ; :3, s. 459-480
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Expert judgement is a common method for software effort estimations in practice today. Estimators are often shown extra obsolete requirements together with the real ones to be implemented. Only one previous study has been conducted on if such practices bias the estimations. We conducted six experiments with both students and practitioners to study, and quantify, the effects of obsolete requirements on software estimation. By conducting a family of six experiments using both students and practitioners as research subjects (N= 461), and by using a Bayesian Data Analysis approach, we investigated different aspects of this effect. We also argue for, and show an example of, how we by using a Bayesian approach can be more confident in our results and enable further studies with small sample sizes. We found that the presence of obsolete requirements triggered an overestimation in effort across all experiments. The effect, however, was smaller in a field setting compared to using students as subjects. Still, the over-estimations triggered by the obsolete requirements were systematically around twice the percentage of the included obsolete ones, but with a large 95% credible interval. The results have implications for both research and practice in that the found systematic error should be accounted for in both studies on software estimation and, maybe more importantly, in estimation practices to avoid over-estimations due to this systematic error. We partly explain this error to be stemming from the cognitive bias of anchoring-and-adjustment, i.e. the obsolete requirements anchored a much larger software. However, further studies are needed in order to accurately predict this effect. © 2021, The Author(s).
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| 3. |
- Marculescu, Bogdan, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Transferring interactive search-based software testing to industry
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212 .- 1873-1228. ; 142, s. 156-170
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: Search-Based Software Testing (SBST), and the wider area of Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE), is the application of optimization algorithms to problems in software testing, and software engineering, respectively. New algorithms, methods, and tools are being developed and validated on benchmark problems. In previous work, we have also implemented and evaluated Interactive Search-Based Software Testing (ISBST) tool prototypes, with a goal to successfully transfer the technique to industry. Objective: While SBST and SBSE solutions are often validated on benchmark problems, there is a need to validate them in an operational setting, and to assess their performance in practice. The present paper discusses the development and deployment of SBST tools for use in industry, and reflects on the transfer of these techniques to industry. Method: In addition to previous work discussing the development and validation of an ISBST prototype, a new version of the prototype ISBST system was evaluated in the laboratory and in industry. This evaluation is based on an industrial System under Test (SUT) and was carried out with industrial practitioners. The Technology Transfer Model is used as a framework to describe the progression of the development and evaluation of the ISBST system, as it progresses through the first five of its seven steps. Results: The paper presents a synthesis of previous work developing and evaluating the ISBST prototype, as well as presenting an evaluation, in both academia and industry, of that prototype's latest version. In addition to the evaluation, the paper also discusses the lessons learned from this transfer. Conclusions: This paper presents an overview of the development and deployment of the ISBST system in an industrial setting, using the framework of the Technology Transfer Model. We conclude that the ISBST system is capable of evolving useful test cases for that setting, though improvements in the means the system uses to communicate that information to the user are still required. In addition, a set of lessons learned from the project are listed and discussed. Our objective is to help other researchers that wish to validate search-based systems in industry, and provide more information about the benefits and drawbacks of these systems.
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| 4. |
- Afzal, Wasif, et al.
(författare)
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An experiment on the effectiveness and efficiency of exploratory testing
- 2015
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Ingår i: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer. - 1382-3256 .- 1573-7616. ; 20:3, s. 844-878
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The exploratory testing (ET) approach is commonly applied in industry, but lacks scientific research. The scientific community needs quantitative results on the performance of ET taken from realistic experimental settings. The objective of this paper is to quantify the effectiveness and efficiency of ET vs. testing with documented test cases (test case based testing, TCT). We performed four controlled experiments where a total of 24 practitioners and 46 students performed manual functional testing using ET and TCT. We measured the number of identified defects in the 90-minute testing sessions, the detection difficulty, severity and types of the detected defects, and the number of false defect reports. The results show that ET found a significantly greater number of defects. ET also found significantly more defects of varying levels of difficulty, types and severity levels. However, the two testing approaches did not differ significantly in terms of the number of false defect reports submitted. We conclude that ET was more efficient than TCT in our experiment. ET was also more effective than TCT when detection difficulty, type of defects and severity levels are considered. The two approaches are comparable when it comes to the number of false defect reports submitted.
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| 5. |
- Berntsson Svensson, Richard, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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Is role playing in Requirements Engineering Education increasing learning outcome?
- 2017
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Ingår i: Requirements Engineering. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0947-3602 .- 1432-010X. ; 22:4, s. 475-489
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Requirements Engineering has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers and practitioners in recent years. This increasing interest requires academia to provide students with a solid foundation in the subject matter. In Requirements Engineering Education (REE), it is important to cover three fundamental topics: traditional analysis and modeling skills, interviewing skills for requirements elicitation, and writing skills for specifying requirements. REE papers report about using role playing as a pedagogical tool; however, there is a surprising lack of empirical evidence on its utility. In this paper we investigate whether a higher grade in a role playing project have an effect on students' score in an individual written exam in a Requirements Engineering course. Data are collected from 412 students between the years of 2007 and 2014 at Lund University and Chalmers | University of Gothenburg. The results show that students who received a higher grade in the role playing project scored statistically significant higher in the written exam compared to the students with a lower role playing project grade.
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| 6. |
- Fagerholm, F., et al.
(författare)
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Cognition in Software Engineering: A Taxonomy and Survey of a Half-Century of Research
- 2022
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Ingår i: Acm Computing Surveys. - : Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). - 0360-0300 .- 1557-7341. ; 54:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cognition plays a fundamental role in most software engineering activities. This article provides a taxonomy of cognitive concepts and a survey of the literature since the beginning of the Software Engineering discipline. The taxonomy comprises the top-level concepts of perception, attention, memory, cognitive load, reasoning, cognitive biases, knowledge, social cognition, cognitive control, and errors, and procedures to assess them both qualitatively and quantitatively. The taxonomy provides a useful tool to filter existing studies, classify new studies, and support researchers in getting familiar with a (sub) area. In the literature survey, we systematically collected and analysed 311 scientific papers spanning five decades and classified them using the cognitive concepts from the taxonomy. Our analysis shows that the most developed areas of research correspond to the four life-cycle stages, software requirements, design, construction, and maintenance. Most research is quantitative and focuses on knowledge, cognitive load, memory, and reasoning. Overall, the state of the art appears fragmented when viewed from the perspective of cognition. There is a lack of use of cognitive concepts that would represent a coherent picture of the cognitive processes active in specific tasks. Accordingly, we discuss the research gap in each cognitive concept and provide recommendations for future research.
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| 7. |
- Gren, Lucas, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Group development and group maturity when building agile teams: A qualitative and quantitative investigation at eight large companies
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier BV. - 0164-1212 .- 1873-1228. ; 124, s. 104-119
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The agile approach to projects focuses more on close-knit teams than traditional waterfall projects, which means that aspects of group maturity become even more important. This psychological aspect is not much researched in connection to the building of an "agile team." The purpose of this study is to investigate how building agile teams is connected to a group development model taken from social psychology. We conducted ten semi-structured interviews with coaches, Scrum Masters, and managers responsible for the agile process from seven different companies, and collected survey data from 66 group-members from four companies (a total of eight different companies). The survey included an agile measurement tool and the one part of the Group Development Questionnaire. The results show that the practitioners define group developmental aspects as key factors to a successful agile transition. Also, the quantitative measurement of agility was significantly correlated to the group maturity measurement. We conclude that adding these psychological aspects to the description of the "agile team" could increase the understanding of agility and partly help define an "agile team." We propose that future work should develop specific guidelines for how software development teams at different maturity levels might adopt agile principles and practices differently. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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| 8. |
- Marculescu, Bogdan, et al.
(författare)
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Tester interactivity makes a difference in search-based software testing : A controlled experiment
- 2016
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Ingår i: Information and Software Technology. - : Elsevier. - 0950-5849 .- 1873-6025. ; 78, s. 66-82
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: Search-based software testing promises to provide users with the ability to generate high quality test cases, and hence increase product quality, with a minimal increase in the time and effort required. The development of the Interactive Search-Based Software Testing (ISBST) system was motivated by a previous study to investigate the application of search-based software testing (SBST) in an industrial setting. ISBST allows users to interact with the underlying SBST system, guiding the search and assessing the results. An industrial evaluation indicated that the ISBST system could find test cases that are not created by testers employing manual techniques. The validity of the evaluation was threatened, however, by the low number of participants. Objective: This paper presents a follow-up study, to provide a more rigorous evaluation of the ISBST system. Method: To assess the ISBST system a two-way crossover controlled experiment was conducted with 58 students taking a Verification and Validation course. The NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) is used to assess the workload experienced by the participants in the experiment. Results:The experimental results validated the hypothesis that the ISBST system generates test cases that are not found by the same participants employing manual testing techniques. A follow-up laboratory experiment also investigates the importance of interaction in obtaining the results. In addition to this main result, the subjective workload was assessed for each participant by means of the NASA-TLX tool. The evaluation showed that, while the ISBST system required more effort from the participants, they achieved the same performance. Conclusions: The paper provides evidence that the ISBST system develops test cases that are not found by manual techniques, and that interaction plays an important role in achieving that result. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 9. |
- Ouriques, Raquel, et al.
(författare)
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The role of knowledge-based resources in Agile Software Development contexts
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier. - 0164-1212 .- 1873-1228. ; 197
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The software value chain is knowledge-based since it is highly dependant on people. Consequently, a lack of practice in managing knowledge as a resource may jeopardise its application in software development. Knowledge-Based Resources (KBRs) relate to employees’ intangible knowledge that is deemed to be valuable to a company's competitive advantage. In this study, we apply a grounded theory approach to examine the role of KBRs in Agile Software Development (ASD). To this aim, we collected data from 18 practitioners from five companies. We develop the Knowledge-Push theory, which explains how KBRs boost the need for change in ASD. Our results show that the practitioners who participated in the study utilise, as primary strategies, task planning, resource management, and social collaboration. These strategies are implemented through the team environment and settings and incorporate an ability to codify and transmit knowledge. However, this process of codification is non-systematic, which consequently introduces inefficiency in the domain of knowledge resource utilisation, resulting in potential knowledge waste. This inefficiency can generate negative implications for software development, including meaningless searches in databases, frustration because of recurrent problems, the unnecessary redesign of solutions, and a lack of awareness of knowledge sources. © 2022 The Authors
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| 10. |
- Gomes, Francisco, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Evolution of statistical analysis in empirical software engineering research : Current state and steps forward
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Systems and Software. - : Elsevier Inc.. - 0164-1212 .- 1873-1228. ; 156, s. 246-267
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Software engineering research is evolving and papers are increasingly based on empirical data from a multitude of sources, using statistical tests to determine if and to what degree empirical evidence supports their hypotheses. To investigate the practices and trends of statistical analysis in empirical software engineering (ESE), this paper presents a review of a large pool of papers from top-ranked software engineering journals. First, we manually reviewed 161 papers and in the second phase of our method, we conducted a more extensive semi-automatic classification of papers spanning the years 2001–2015 and 5196 papers. Results from both review steps was used to: i) identify and analyse the predominant practices in ESE (e.g., using t-test or ANOVA), as well as relevant trends in usage of specific statistical methods (e.g., nonparametric tests and effect size measures) and, ii) develop a conceptual model for a statistical analysis workflow with suggestions on how to apply different statistical methods as well as guidelines to avoid pitfalls. Lastly, we confirm existing claims that current ESE practices lack a standard to report practical significance of results. We illustrate how practical significance can be discussed in terms of both the statistical analysis and in the practitioner's context. © 2019 Elsevier Inc.
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