| 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. |
- Alahyari, Hiva, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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An exploratory study of waste in software development organizations using agile or lean approaches : A multiple case study at 14 organizations
- 2019
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Ingår i: Information and Software Technology. - : Elsevier B.V.. - 0950-5849 .- 1873-6025. ; 107, s. 78-94
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: The principal focus of lean is the identification and elimination of waste from the process with respect to maximizing customer value. Similarly, the purpose of agile is to maximize customer value and minimize unnecessary work and time delays. In both cases the concept of waste is important. Through an empirical study, we explore how waste is approached in agile software development organizations. Objective: This paper explores the concept of waste in agile/lean software development organizations and how it is defined, used, prioritized, reduced, or eliminated in practice Method: The data were collected using semi-structured open-interviews. 23 practitioners from 14 embedded software development organizations were interviewed representing two core roles in each organization. Results: Various wastes, categorized in 10 different categories, were identified by the respondents. From the mentioned wastes, not all were necessarily waste per se but could be symptoms caused by wastes. From the seven wastes of lean, Task-switching was ranked as the most important, and Extra-features, as the least important wastes according to the respondents’ opinion. However, most companies do not have their own or use an established definition of waste, more importantly, very few actively identify or try to eliminate waste in their organizations beyond local initiatives on project level. Conclusion: In order to identify, recognize and eliminate waste, a common understanding, and a joint and holistic view of the concept is needed. It is also important to optimize the whole organization and the whole product, as waste on one level can be important on another, thus sub-optimization should be avoided. Furthermore, to achieve a sustainable and effective waste handling, both the short-term and the long-term perspectives need to be considered. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.
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| 3. |
- Alégroth, Emil, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Maintenance of automated test suites in industry: An empirical study on Visual GUI Testing
- 2016
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Ingår i: Information and Software Technology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0950-5849 .- 1873-6025. ; 73, s. 66-80
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: Verification and validation (V&V) activities make up 20-50% of the total development costs of a software system in practice. Test automation is proposed to lower these V&V costs but available research only provides limited empirical data from industrial practice about the maintenance costs of automated tests and what factors affect these costs. In particular, these costs and factors are unknown for automated GUI-based testing. Objective: This paper addresses this lack of knowledge through analysis of the costs and factors associated with the maintenance of automated GUI-based tests in industrial practice. Method: An empirical study at two companies, Siemens and Saab, is reported where interviews about, and empirical work with, Visual GUI Testing is performed to acquire data about the technique's maintenance costs and feasibility. Results: 13 factors are observed that affect maintenance, e.g. tester knowledge/experience and test case complexity. Further, statistical analysis shows that developing new test scripts is costlier than maintenance but also that frequent maintenance is less costly than infrequent, big bang maintenance. In addition a cost model, based on previous work, is presented that estimates the time to positive return on investment (ROI) of test automation compared to manual testing. Conclusions: It is concluded that test automation can lower overall software development costs of a project while also having positive effects on software quality. However, maintenance costs can still be considerable and the less time a company currently spends on manual testing, the more time is required before positive, economic, ROI is reached after automation.
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| 4. |
- Alégroth, Emil, et al.
(författare)
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On the long-term use of visual gui testing in industrial practice : a case study
- 2017
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Ingår i: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer. - 1382-3256 .- 1573-7616. ; 22:6, s. 2937-2971
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Visual GUI Testing (VGT) is a tool-driven technique for automated GUI-based testing that uses image recognition to interact with and assert the correctness of the behavior of a system through its GUI as it is shown to the user. The technique’s applicability, e.g. defect-finding ability, and feasibility, e.g. time to positive return on investment, have been shown through empirical studies in industrial practice. However, there is a lack of studies that evaluate the usefulness and challenges associated with VGT when used long-term (years) in industrial practice. This paper evaluates how VGT was adopted, applied and why it was abandoned at the music streaming application development company, Spotify, after several years of use. A qualitative study with two workshops and five well chosen employees is performed at the company, supported by a survey, which is analyzed with a grounded theory approach to answer the study’s three research questions. The interviews provide insights into the challenges, problems and limitations, but also benefits, that Spotify experienced during the adoption and use of VGT. However, due to the technique’s drawbacks, VGT has been abandoned for a new technique/framework, simply called the Test interface. The Test interface is considered more robust and flexible for Spotify’s needs but has several drawbacks, including that it does not test the actual GUI as shown to the user like VGT does. From the study’s results it is concluded that VGT can be used long-term in industrial practice but it requires organizational change as well as engineering best practices to be beneficial. Through synthesis of the study’s results, and results from previous work, a set of guidelines are presented that aim to aid practitioners to adopt and use VGT in industrial practice. However, due to the abandonment of the technique, future research is required to analyze in what types of projects the technique is, and is not, long-term viable. To this end, we also present Spotify’s Test interface solution for automated GUI-based testing and conclude that it has its own benefits and drawbacks.
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| 5. |
- Alégroth, Emil, et al.
(författare)
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Replicating Rare Software Failures with Exploratory Visual GUI Testing
- 2017
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Ingår i: IEEE Software. - : IEEE Computer Society. - 0740-7459 .- 1937-4194. ; 34:5, s. 53-59
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Saab AB developed software that had a defect that manifested itself only after months of continuous system use. After years of customer failure reports, the defect still persisted, until Saab developed failure replication based on visual GUI testing. © 1984-2012 IEEE.
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| 6. |
- Alégroth, Emil, 1984, et al.
(författare)
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Visual GUI testing in practice: challenges, problemsand limitations
- 2015
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Ingår i: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1573-7616 .- 1382-3256. ; 20:3, s. 694-744
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In today's software development industry, high-level tests such as Graphical User Interface (GUI) based system and acceptance tests are mostly performed with manual practices that are often costly, tedious and error prone. Test automation has been proposed to solve these problems but most automation techniques approach testing from a lower level of system abstraction. Their suitability for high-level tests has therefore been questioned. High-level test automation techniques such as Record and Replay exist, but studies suggest that these techniques suffer from limitations, e.g. sensitivity to GUI layout or code changes, system implementation dependencies, etc. Visual GUI Testing (VGT) is an emerging technique in industrial practice with perceived higher flexibility and robustness to certain GUI changes than previous high-level (GUI) test automation techniques. The core of VGT is image recognition which is applied to analyze and interact with the bitmap layer of a system's front end. By coupling image recognition with test scripts, VGT tools can emulate end user behavior on almost any GUI-based system, regardless of implementation language, operating system or platform. However, VGT is not without its own challenges, problems and limitations (CPLs) but, like for many other automated test techniques, there is a lack of empirically-based knowledge of these CPLs and how they impact industrial applicability. Crucially, there is also a lack of information on the cost of applying this type of test automation in industry. This manuscript reports an empirical, multi-unit case study performed at two Swedish companies that develop safety-critical software. It studies their transition from manual system test cases into tests automated with VGT. In total, four different test suites that together include more than 300 high-level system test cases were automated for two multi-million lines of code systems. The results show that the transitioned test cases could find defects in the tested systems and that all applicable test cases could be automated. However, during these transition projects a number of hurdles had to be addressed; a total of 58 different CPLs were identified and then categorized into 26 types. We present these CPL types and an analysis of the implications for the transition to and use of VGT in industrial software development practice. In addition, four high-level solutions are presented that were identified during the study, which would address about half of the identified CPLs. Furthermore, collected metrics on cost and return on investment of the VGT transition are reported together with information about the VGT suites' defect finding ability. Nine of the identified defects are reported, 5 of which were unknown to testers with extensive experience from using the manual test suites. The main conclusion from this study is that even though there are many challenges related to the transition and usage of VGT, the technique is still valuable, flexible and considered cost-effective by the industrial practitioners. The presented CPLs also provide decision support in the use and advancement of VGT and potentially other automated testing techniques similar to VGT, e.g. Record and Replay.
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| 7. |
- Berntsson Svensson, Richard, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Selecting creativity techniques for creative requirements: An evaluation of four techniques using creativity workshops
- 2015
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Ingår i: 23rd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, RE 2015, Ottawa, Canada, 24-28 August. - : IEEE. - 9781467369053 ; , s. 66-75
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Requirements engineering is recognized as a creative process where stakeholders jointly discover new creative ideas for innovative and novel products that eventually are expressed as requirements. This paper evaluates four different creativity techniques, namely Hall of Fame, Constraint Removal, Brainstorming, and Idea Box, using creativity workshops with students and industry practitioners. In total, 34 creativity workshops were conducted with 90 students from two universities, and 86 industrial practitioners from six companies. The results from this study indicate that Brainstorming can generate by far the most ideas, while Hall of Fame generates most creative ideas. Idea Box generates the least number of ideas, and the least number of creative ideas. Finally, Hall of Fame was the technique that led to the most number of requirements that was included in future releases of the products. © 2015 IEEE.
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| 8. |
- Bertoni, Alessandro, et al.
(författare)
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Value Modelling in Aerospace Sub-System Design: Linking Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED15), Milan, Italy, 27.-30.07.2015. - : The Design Society. - 2220-4334. - 9781904670650 ; Vol 2: Design Theory, s. 421-430
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The paper presents a prototype of a value model where engineering design teams can play with cost and value data in a semi-structured way. In particular, the value model serves to facilitate communication of multidimensional information during preliminary design analysis and to visualize such information in a unique environment. The model first automatically generates, from the output of a computer-based simulation, a quantitative assessment of manufacturer costs and customer cost savings of a set on different configurations of the same design concept. Second, it couples to the results a qualitative assessment of concept risks and product and process commonalities. Third, it allows an assessment of the concept impact on the customers' ilities (maintainability, survivability, scalability, flexibility). The model has been developed in collaboration with an aerospace sub-system manufacturer and it ultimately aims to enable the maturation of the knowledge about cost and value aspects among the design team since the preliminary stages of design.
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| 9. |
- Bertoni, Alessandro, et al.
(författare)
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Virtual Modeling for Lifecycle Performance Assessment in Aerospace Design
- 2016
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Ingår i: Procedia CIRP. - Elsevier : Elsevier BV. - 2212-8271. ; 47, s. 335-340, s. 335-340
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of the paper is to present an approach for the multidisciplinary evaluation of alternative modular concepts in preliminary design with the intent of enhancing engineers’ capability to simulate alternative scenarios with different design configurations, so to derive decisions about the most valuable design concepts to further develop. The research contribution is novel in the way that it expands the Set-Based-Engineering approach by addressing the “servitization” challenge in two ways: firstly by the use of value models and sustainability models as decision making support, making possible a preliminary assessment of the value contribution and of the sustainability performances of a design concept; secondly, by the use of functional modelling modules and configurable systems elements for platform-based design, to manage the complex relationships within and between parts of the platform throughout the lifecycle. The paper presents the main features of the approach and introduces an industrial case concerning the development of a module component for an aircraft engine in which the approach is applied for demonstration. The paper finally elaborates on the benefits and implications of the approach in the design process.
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| 10. |
- Bertoni, Marco, 1980-, et al.
(författare)
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A model-based approach for sustainability and value assessment in the aerospace value chain
- 2015
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Ingår i: Advances in Mechanical Engineering. - : SAGE Publications. - 1687-8132 .- 1687-8140. ; 7:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the aerospace industry, systems engineering practices have been exercised for years, as a way to turn high-level designobjectives into concrete targets on system functionality (e.g. range, noise, and reliability). More difficult is to decomposeand clarify sustainability implications in the same way and to compare them against performance-related capabilitiesalready during preliminary design. This article addresses the problem of bringing the important—yet typically high leveland complex—sustainability aspects into engineering practices. It proposes a novel integrated model-based method thatprovides a consistent way of addressing the well-known lack of generic and integrated ways of clarifying both cost andvalue consequences of sustainability in early phases. It further presents the development and implementation of suchapproach in two separate case studies conducted in collaboration with a major aero-engine sub-system manufacturer.The first case concerns the assessment of alternative business configurations to maintain scarce materials in closed loops, while the second one concerns the production technology of an aero-engine component. Eventually, this article highlights the learning generated by the development and implementation of these approaches and discusses opportunities for further development of model-based support.
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