This paper tries to identify and understand the human social obstacles for developing quality software. These include lip-service, cutting corners, deception and effects of internal politics. These obstacles can undermine the good intentions behind the software methodologies. The paper draws from the literature in different disciplines and uses an ethnographic research methodology to create a rich picture of the concerning aspects in the framework of one software development company in India. What stands out among the findings are that internal audits has mainly focused on finding errors in documentation procedures but study of the actual practices has often been shallow. In addition the understanding of business risks by the internal auditors have often been weak. Context. The human based obstacles affecting Software Development Methodology analysed in the context of an ISO 9000 quality system in an Indian Software Development company working mainly with Swedish companies. Objectives. Identifying and increasing the understanding of intrinsic negative social aspects such as lip service, cheating and politics which are affecting the results of Software Development Methodologies and if possible suggest some means to mitigate them. In particular to create a deeper understanding of why people cheat and pay lip service to methodologies and to try to understand the political aspects of methodology and quality systems. There are other positive social aspects, but they are not considered since the objective is about understanding the negative aspects and possibly mitigate them. Methods. Ethnographic research using analysis of ISO 9000 and design artefacts, semi-structured interviews, participation in internal audits, Results. Most focus in audits was on documentation and very less focus on underlying methodologies, some indications of lip-service to process and processes were also mainly managed on a higher level in the organization while the understanding and practices were less well established on lower level. It was hard to get a grip on the internal political aspects since the perception of the subject in the informants view was that it is mainly malicious and therefore embarrassing to speak about. Some conflicts between internal quality goals and customers’ needs were also identified. Conclusions. An ethnographic research methodology gives a rich picture. The analysis gives deeper understanding of the problem areas, but not necessary solutions. The author suggests that at the heart of the problem is a difference in world view. Software professionals generally tend to resolve [technical] problems using a reductionist approach, while these intricate challenges cannot easily be resolved by this approach. A more holistic systemic approach is required and while the software methodology is useful to structure the development it does not resolve these dysfunctions. They have to be resolved on another level. It was also found that further studies is required in particular to better understand Internal politics, the effect of Positive and Negative Incentives, the effect of software metrics on quality performance and subjectivity in customers’ perception and expectation. / Uppsatsen försöker förstå mänskliga sociala hinder för att utveckla programvara med hög kvalitet. Dessa hinder inkluderar "läpparnas bekännelser", ta genvägar, vilseleda och internpolitik. Sådana hinder kan underminera utvecklingsmetoder. Denna uppsats bygger på literatur från olika discipliner och använder etnografisk forskningsmetodik för att skapa en rik bild av dessa oroande aspekter inom ramen för ett IT-företag i Indien. Vad står ut är att intern kvalitetsrevision fokuserar för mycket på att finna fel i dokumentationsprocesser medan revision av hur utvecklingsarbetet faktiskt sker har varit för ytligt. Dessutom har de interna revisorernas förståelse av affärsrisker varit svag.

Agile software development aims to minimize risk by using a short and iterative process, a test-centric development approach by continuous integration, and test automation. Scrum aims to maximize collaboration and collective responsibility for quality by using a team approach. Regardless of this, the risk of project failure due to budget and time overruns is still a severe problem in software development projects. Despite the power that testing offers to mitigate these risks, testing remains a challenge to implement in agile teams regarding a test first or a test early context. This qualitative case study of two agile teams with differing approaches to agile methodology aims to provide some clarity on what driving forces contribute to an agile teams’ possibilities or what impediments contribute to an agile teams’ challenges pertaining to “why do we test software”.

Goal of my work is to introduce software development process metods specialized to Rational Unified Process metod from IBM. I aplicate inception and elaboration phases of RUP on practical example.

Denna studie problematiserar icke-funktionella krav (IF krav), även benämnt kvalitetskrav, i svenska mjukvaruutvecklingsprojekt. Kravhantering anses vara den mest avgörande delen i mjukvaruutveckling för att lyckas, vilket än idag är en utmaning i majoriteten av projekten. Särskilt svårt är det att lyckas med IF krav, då tvetydigheter leder till brist på dokumentation och slutligen bortprioriteras de. För att adressera dessa problem syftade denna studie att besvara hur väl de IF kraven dokumenteras inom svenska mjukvaruutvecklingsprojekt samt vem som kan ansvara för att kvalitetssäkra de IF kraven. En mixed-method har genomförts med både en kvalitativ litteraturstudie av tidigare forskning samt en kvantitativ studie. Datainsamlingen i den kvantitativa studien har skett med webbaserad enkätundersökning med 24 frågor. Enkäten skickades ut till 72 företag i Sverige vars huvudsyssla var mjukvaruutveckling. Sammanlagt samlades 43 svar in och en univariat analys genomfördes. Enkätundersökningen indikerade att respondenterna är positivt inställda till dokumentation av IF krav. De flesta saknar dessutom gedigen kunskap om IF krav. Vidare saknas tydliga ansvarsroller för dokumentationen av IF krav. En lösnings- eller mjukvaruarkitekt är bäst lämpad för att kvalitetssäkra de IF kraven. Denna studie är skriven på svenska och kan främja studenter, forskare och yrkesverksamma då den nyanserar vikten av IF krav och hur existerande brister kan förbättras. / This study examines non-functional requirements (NFRs), also known as quality requirements, in Swedish software development projects. Requirements engineering is considered the most crucial part of software development, which is still a challenge in the majority of projects today. In particular, the NFRs are the most challenging seeing as there are ambiguities concerning their definition. This in turn leads to lack of documentation and, ultimately, their deprioritization. To address these issues, this study aimed to answer how well NFRs are documented in Swedish software development projects and who can be responsible for ensuring the quality of these NFRs. A mixed-method was conducted with both a qualitative literature review of previous research and a quantitative study. The data collection in the quantitative study was conducted using a web-based survey with 24 questions. The survey was sent to 72 software development companies in Sweden. A total of 43 responses were collected, and a univariate analysis was performed. The survey indicated that respondents have a positive attitude towards documenting. Additionally, most respondents lack comprehensive knowledge about NFRs and clear roles for the NFRs are missing. Standardization, better guidelines, and clear roles are needed to ensure the quality of NFRs, which are currently lacking. A solution or software architect is best suited to ensure the quality of NFRs. This study, written in Swedish, can benefit students, researchers, and professionals as it highlights the importance of NFRs and suggests improvements for existing deficiencies.

Neue Organisationsformen, wie evolutionäre Organisationen, bilden in vielen Kooperationsszenarien sozio-technische Konstrukte mit modernen CSCW Anwendungen aus. Daher erfordern Veränderungen dieser sozialen Systeme eine kontinuierliche Anpassung der technischen Tools an die neuen sozialen Konfigurationen. Diese Dissertation ist als Design Science Research (DSR) Projekt konzipiert und addressiert die folgende Forschungsfrage (RQ): “Wie können soziotechnische, evolutionäre Organisationen die Herausforderungen der joint optimization und des organizational choice während ihrer autopoietischen Veränderungsprozesse addressieren?” Die Fallstudie Viva con Agua de St. Pauli e.V. wurde mittels qualitativer und ethnographischer Methoden im Rahmen der entsprechenden DSR Zyklen untersucht. Das Forschungsprojekt fokussiert die Entwicklung von Artefakten indem sowohl eine technische, als auch eine soziale Perspektive eingenommen wird. Aus der technische Perspektive wird die RQ durch eine Microservice-Plattform adressiert. Die Architektur dient der Verteilung von Verantwortlichkeit für die Software in einem heterogenen Netzwerk von Entwickler:innen. Dabei müssen diverse neue Herausforderungen beachtet werden, wie etwa die Verteilung des User Interface. Durch die Betrachtung der RQ aus der sozialen Perspektive wird der USMU Workshop entwickelt. Dieses Artefakt dient der Verbindung der Charakteristika evolutionärer Organisationen mit agiler Software Entwicklung und mit Methoden des partizipativen Designs. Die Studien zeigen, dass beide Artefakte die RQ adressieren. Zudem konnte ich für beide Artefakte wertvolle Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten aufzeigen. Somit motivieren die Ergebnisse den nächsten Schritt des Projekts und die vorliegende Thesis wird Bestandteil des zyklischen Ablaufs eines DSR Projekts. / The emergence of new types of organizational structures, such as evolutionary-teal organizations, almost always leads to the development of socio-technical constructs when it comes to working in collaboration with modern CSCW applications. A consequence of this is that the social system’s autopoietic change processes create challenges that compel one to adjust the implementation of the technical tool to the social system’s new configuration. This thesis is structured according to the design science research (DSR) approach and focuses on the research question (RQ): “How can socio-technical evolutionary-teal organizations address the challenges of joint optimization and organizational choice during their autopoietic processes?” For this purpose, the case study Viva con Agua de St. Pauli e.V. is investigated using a qualitative ethnographical approach during the DSR cycles. Addressing the RQ, two artifacts are designed from a technical as well as a social perspective. While the technical perspective primarily investigates the adjustments of technology, the social perspective focuses on the management of change in socio-technical evolutionary-teal organizations. I propose a microservice platform as an artifact that addresses the RQ from a technical perspective. The microservice architecture aims at spreading the responsibility for the software through a heterogeneous ecosystem of developers. The newly designed USMU workshop is addressing the RQ from the social perspective. It strives to intertwine the characteristics of evolutionary-teal organizations with agile software development and participatory design methods. In my studies, I examine the fact that both artifacts can be used to address the RQ. Additionally, I was able to identify valuable improvements for both of my artifacts. Hence, the project follows the lifecycle of a DSR project by reasoning through the results presented here for its next iteration.