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Many good software practices are often discarded because of the syndrome “there is not enough time, do it later”, or “it is in our head and there is no time to write it down.” As a consequence, projects are late, time frames to complete software modules are unrealistic and miscalculated, and traceability to required documents and their respective stakeholders do not exist. It is not until the release of the application that it is determined the functionalities do not meet the expectations of the end users and stakeholders. The effect of this can be detrimental to the individuals of the development team and the organization. Associating measurement and metrics to internal software processes and tasks, followed by analysis and continual evaluation, are key elements to close many of the repeated gaps in the life cycle of software engineering, regardless of the software methodology. This report presents a usability case study of a customized application during its development. The application contains internal indicator modules for performance measurement processes captured at the level of a Request System application within a horizontal organizational group. The main goals for the usability surveys and case study were (1st) to identify, define and evaluate the current gaps in the system and (2nd) find new approaches and strategies with the intent to move the project in the right direction. Gaps identified throughout the development process are included as indicators for process improvement. The result of the usability case study creates new goals and gives clear direction to the project. Goal-driven measurements and the creation of a new centralized collaborative web system for communication with other teams are parts of the solution. The processes and techniques may provide benefits to companies interested in applying similar tactics to improve their own software project processes. / text

Abstract Software and ICT companies fail due less to technological factors than socioorganizational factors, among which the most common is unrealistic goals and objectives. The socioorganizational factors are present in companies and organizations of all sizes. Organizations need to know whether their goals and strategies are working and whether the strategies are effectively providing a reasonable return on investment for the effort that is being applied, i.e. to understand how valuable they are for the organization. In addition, organizations need to recognize what the risks are in achieving those goals and evaluate their probability. And, when goals are set properly then they have directive and energizing functions, they tend to utilize available resources better and serve as activators of cognitive processes and knowledge sharing cycles. In this dissertation the GQM+Strategies approach was used. The approach was designed to help organizations to align goal-driven measurement schemes, i.e. GQM, with organizational goal hierarchy. The extensions developed in this dissertation (i.e., the solution proposed here) evolve the GQM+Strategies approach by providing an organization with capabilities to: (1) apply the work of value-based software engineering to directly address the return on investment (ROI) of their goals and strategies via evaluation of the costs and benefits of the goals and strategies chosen, (2) calculate a set of earned value metrics that allows organizations to effectively monitor the implementation of the organizational goals and strategies, (3) identify the risks associated with not achieving various sub-goals in a grid by analyzing goal risk exposures and acceptable risk levels, and (4) assess the threats of risky goals on other goals in the grid via evaluation of goal dependencies using the formal goal-strategies-goals models. The GQM+Strategies approach was piloted in four different organizations involving more than 60 participants. The feedback from the participants was used to identify the research questions posed in this dissertation. The research approach (solution development process) adopted the design science framework and utilized analytical and empirical paradigms in different phases of the solution development. The analytical paradigms were used for solution development and evaluation, while empirical paradigms where used for evaluating certain aspects of the solution. / Tiivistelmä Ohjelmisto- ja tietotekniikkayritysten epäonnistumiset johtuvat useimmin sosio-organisationaalisista tekijöistä kuin teknologisista tekijöistä. Näistä sosio-organisationaalisista tekijöistä yleisin on epärealististen tavoitteiden asettaminen. Sosio-organisatoriset tekijät ovat läsnä kaiken kokoisissa yrityksissä ja organisaatioissa. Organisaatioiden tulee tietää ovatko heidän tavoitteensa ja strategiansa toimivia ja tarjoavatko heidän strategiansa kohtuullisen tuoton suhteessa käytettyihin investointeihin. Toisin sanoen, organisaatioiden tulee ymmärtää kuinka arvokkaita heidän strategiansa ovat. Tämän lisäksi organisaatioiden täytyy kyetä tunnistamaan riskit asetettujen tavoitteiden saavuttamisessa sekä arvioimaan näiden riskien todennäköisyys. Kun tavoitteet on asetettu asianmukaisesti niillä on ohjaava ja energisoiva vaikutus. Ne sekä ohjaavat hyödyntämään tehokkaammin käytettävissä olevia rerursseja että toimivat kognitiivisten prosessien ja tiedonjakosyklien aktivaattoreina. Tässä väitöskirjassa käytettiin GQM+Strategies lähestymistapaa. Tämä lähestymistapa on suunniteltu auttamaan organisaatiota linjaamaan tavoitelähtöisiä mittausmenetelmiä, kuten GQM, organisaation tavoitehierarkian suhteen. Tässä väitöskirjassa esitetty laajennus kehittää GQM+Strategies lähestymistapaa tarjoamalla organisaatioille kyvykkyyksiä: (1) soveltaa arvoperustaisen ohjelmistotuotannon menetelmiä tavoitteiden ja strategioiden investoinnin tuottojen tarkasteluihin arvioimalla valittujen tavoitteiden ja strategioiden kustannuksia ja hyötyjä, (2) laskea joukko saavutetun arvon mittareita jotka mahdollistavat organisaatioille toteutettujen organisationaalisten tavoitteiden ja strategioiden tehokkaan seurannan, (3) identifioida riskejä jotka liittyvät eri alitavoitteiden saavuttamattomuuteen analysoimalla tavoiteriskeihin altistumista ja hyväksyttäviä riskitasoja ja (4) arvioida riskejä sisältävien tavoitteiden uhkia suhteessa muihin tavoitteisiin arvioimalla tavoitteiden riippuvuuksia käyttäen formaaleja tavoite-strategiat-tavoite -malleja. GQM+Strategies lähestymistapaa pilotoitiin neljässä organisaatiossa yhteensä yli 60 osallistujan kanssa. Tutkimuksen osallistujilta saatua palautetta käytettiin väitöskirjan tutkimuskysymysten identifiointiin. Tutkimuksen lähestymistavassa (ratkaisun kehittämisprosessi) sovellettiin design science -kehikkoa ja ratkaisun kehittämisen eri vaiheissa hyödynnettiin analyyttisiä ja empiirisiä paradigmoja. Analyyttisiä paradigmoja käytettiin ratkaisun kehittämisessä ja arvioinnissa ja empiirisiä paradigmoja ratkaisujen määrättyjen aspektien arvioinnissa.

This thesis study presents a software measurement program. The literature on software measurement is reviewed. Conditions for an effective implementation are investigated. A specific measurement system is designed and implemented in ASELSAN, Inc. This has involved organizational as well as technical work. A software tool has been developed to assist in aggregating measurements obtained from various CASE tools in use. Results of the implementation have started to be achieved. Lots of useful feedbacks have been returned to the organization as a result of analyzing of the measurement data.

Information is a valuable asset for organizations and a source of competitive advantage nowadays. Therefore it is necessary to retain information security characteristics of processes and systems in required limits and continuously evaluate the state using measurement. The problem in measurement shows to be in the selection of suitable characteristics and measures of the processes or the products, which are subject to measurement.The main aim of the dissertation thesis is to design methodic for evaluating information security in information systems and formulate conclusions and recommendations for its use in practice. The situation in The Czech Republic was obtained based on a quantitative survey in which data was collected by means of a questionnaire survey (N=785; n=101) and qualitative research was conducted in the 3 organizations from financial sector in the Czech Republic. Results showed that at present an absolute majority of surveyed organizations evaluate information systems from the perspective of risk to valuable information (58.49%). Organizations evaluating information security are most often to identify weaknesses and emerging issues (41.5%). Only a 17.6% of them measure. The designed methodic identifies behavioral model of the organization, defines measurable characteristics of the system and the organization based on extended security model, defines process of development of the measures based on GQM tool, engages measurement process compatible with ISO 27004 and presents evaluation procedure using measured values. The proposed procedures and constructs focused on improvement of field detected by the survey, the "information classification" and "difference between perception of information value between owner and processor". The procedures were validated on two anonymous organizations and are presented in form of case studies. One of the conclusions is, that proposed methodic is applicable mostly in organizations with strong technical and financial base, where it is possible to overcome requirements of measures development processes and measurement application. Also the methodic of evaluation has its own limits of applicability.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-03-15T13:44:42Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DISSERTACAO_MESTRADO_ALVARO_MAGNUM_2015.pdf: 2738529 bytes, checksum: 1954d6163f8ba9074e68546e0f003f12 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T13:44:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DISSERTACAO_MESTRADO_ALVARO_MAGNUM_2015.pdf: 2738529 bytes, checksum: 1954d6163f8ba9074e68546e0f003f12 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-22 / Criado por Dan North, o BDD (Behavior Driven Development) é uma técnica de desenvolvimento ágil de software baseada no TDD (Test Driven Development) e que foca no teste de software orientado por comportamentos, isto é, concentra-se nas razões pelo qual o software é criado e nos requisitos de comportamento do negócio. A utilização da técnica traz uma série de benefícios para projetos de desenvolvimento de software, contudo, ela não tem uma aceitação tão grande no mercado e é, muitas vezes, preterida em relação ao TDD. Esse trabalho faz uma análise dessa situação e também propõe um ambiente que visa facilitar a adoção do BDD através da análise dos seguintes questionamentos: quais características devem fazer parte de uma ferramenta para que ela facilite e dinamize a utilização do BDD no contexto de um projeto de desenvolvimento de software? Como permitir o uso da mesma por um cliente leigo em testes, e, ao mesmo tempo, agregar valor para o gerente do projeto, os testadores e os desenvolvedores de software? Como o cliente poderia acompanhar em tempo real se o que ele espera obter está, de fato, sendo construído? Como medir o impacto da ferramenta? Através de análises e resultados obtidos em mais de 12 anos de experiência profissional no setor de tecnologia de instituições públicas e privadas, além de pesquisas na literatura, entrevistas com profissionais de TI e avaliações de ferramentas BDD no mercado, foi concebido um plugin: o BDD Plugin for Mantis (BDDPM), uma ferramenta cujo objetivo é facilitar a adoção do BDD em projetos de desenvolvimento de software. Para avaliar o plugin quanto ao cumprimento dos objetivos, foi utilizada uma técnica denominada GQM (Goal/Question/Metric), que permite, através de objetivos bem estabelecidos, planejar e mensurar métricas de avaliação. O BDDPM foi avaliado com sucesso dentro de um ambiente de produção real, uma autarquia do Governo do Estado da Paraíba: a Paraíba Previdência. Este trabalho descreve, em detalhes, todo o ciclo de vida do projeto, desde sua concepção, passando por sua criação, tecnologias utilizadas, recursos incluídos, etc. / Created by Dan North, BDD (Behavior Driven Development) is a software agile development technique based on TDD (Test Driven Development). The BDD focuses on software testing oriented by behaviors, that is, it focuses on the reasons why a software is created and its business behavior. The use of the technique brings a number of benefits for software development projects; however, BDD does not have such a great market as the TDD: the first choice of the majority. This work brings an analysis of this situation and also proposes an environment to facilitate the adoption of BDD by examining the following questions: what characteristics should be part of a tool so that it facilitate and streamline the use of BDD in a context of project software development? How can it be used by an unexperienced client, and, at the same time, add value to project managers, testers and developers? How the customer could follow, in real time, if what he expects to, is really being built? How to measure the impact of the tool? Through analysis and results obtained from over 12 years of professional experience in the technology sector of public and private institutions, as well as research in the literature, interviews with IT professionals and reviews of BDD tools on the market, a plugin was developed: the BDD Plugin for Mantis (BDDPM), a tool which aims to facilitate the adoption of BDD in software development projects. To assess the plugin in meeting the goals, a technique called GQM (Goal / Question / Metric) was used; it allows, through well-established objectives, plan and measure evaluation metrics. The BDDPM was successfully evaluated in a real production environment, a company called Paraíba Previdência. This paper describes in detail the entire life cycle of the project: from its conception, through its creation, the technologies used, features included, etc.

Context. Most organizations are aware of the significance of software measurement programs to help organizations assess and improve the ways they develop software. Measurement plays a vital role in improving software process and products. However, the number of failing measurement programs is high and the reasons are vary. A recent approach for planning measurement programs is GQM+Strategies, which makes an important extension to existing approaches, it links measurements and improvement activities to strategic goals and ways to achieve this goals. However, concrete guides of how to collect the information needed to use GQM+strategies is not provided in the literature yet. Objectives. The contribution of this research is to propose and assess an elicitation approach (The Goal Strategy Elicitation (GSE) approach) for the information needed to apply GQM+strategies in an organization, which also leads to a partial evaluation of GQM+strategies as such. In this thesis, the initial focus is placed on eliciting the goals and strategies in the most efficient way. Methods. The primary research approach used is action research, which allows to flexibly assess a new method or technique in an iterative manner, where the feedback of one iteration is taken into the next iteration, thus improving on the method or technique proposed. Complementary to that, we used literature review with the primary focus to position the work, explore GQM+strategies, and to determine which elicitation approach for the support of measurement programs have been proposed. Results. The Goal Strategy Elicitation (GSE) approach as a tool for eliciting goals and strategies within the software organization to contribute in planning a measurement program has been developed. The iterations showed that the approach of elicitation may not be too structured (e.g. template/notation based), but rather shall support the stakeholders to express their thoughts relatively freely. Hence, the end-result was an interview guide, not based on notations (as in the first iteration), and asking questions in a way that the interviewees are able to express themselves easily without having to e.g. distinguish definitions for goals and strategies. Conclusions. We conclude that the GSE approach is a strong tool for the software organization to be able to elicit the goals and strategies to support GQM+Strategies. GSE approach evolved in each iteration and the latest iteration together with the guideline is still used within the studied company for eliciting goals and strategies, and the organization acknowledged that they will continue to do so. Moreover, we conclude that there is a need for further empirical validation of the GSE approach in further full-scale industry trials.

Measurement processes are vital for any organization as they are used to asses, analyze, monitor and control the processes, products and resources. The measurement programs are used in different ways in different organizations. Most of the measurement programs fail to provide the expected results; therefore it‘s needed to consider the success factors and reasons of failures for the measurement programs. The GQM is the most widely used model for measurement programs having various extensions to overcome its shortcomings in different scenarios. The Goals, Questions and metrics are defined and used in different ways at different levels in the organizations. There is a need of improving the measurement programs and one of the solutions is to provide a framework that can define the goals, questions and measures in a structured way. The prioritization, traceability and re-usability of goals and questions provide the effectiveness in the measurement program. The optimization of the measures and building a measurement repository makes the measurement collection process precise. In this thesis, the results of a systematic review on the current literature on software measurement programs are presented. An assessment of the current state of art on measurement programs, their usability and success factors is done. The study of measurement models, frameworks, tools and standards is done later on to know the different ways of goals, questions definition and measurement collection methods. The systematic review of the research work is done over the period 1997 – 2009. In order to understand and explore the difficulties in application of measurement programs in the industrial settings, interviews are conducted within a CMMI Level 3 company. On the basis of the systematic review analysis results and industrial interviews, a framework for a more effective measurement process is defined and within the framework, a model called ‗Structured Prioritized Goal Question Metrics (SPGQM)‘ is developed. This framework extends the well-known Goal Question Metric paradigm and basically comprises of two models; the Optimum Measures Set Decision (OMSD) model developed within a Master of Science thesis study at the Blekinge Institute of Technology and the SPGQM. This framework defines the process in order to define structured goals and questions with the help of templates and to prioritize them with the help of OMSD model. This framework has been validated in a CMMI Level 3 company. The validation was done by means of conducting a case study.

Business process improvement for increased product quality is of continuous importance in the software industry. Quality managers in this sector need effective, hands-on tools for decision-making in engineering projects and for rapidly spotting key improvement areas. Measurement programs are a widespread approach for introducing quality improvement in software processes, yet employing all-embracing state-of-the art quality assurance models is labor intensive. Unfortunately, these do not primarily focus on measures, revealing a need for an instant and straightforward technique for identifying and defining measures in projects without resources or need for entire measurement programs. This thesis explores and compares prevailing quality assurance models using measures, rendering the Measurement Discovery Process constructed from selected parts of the PSM and GQM techniques. The composed process is applied to an industrial project with the given prerequisites, providing a set of measures that are subsequently evaluated. In addition, the application gives foundation for analysis of the Measurement Discovery Process. The application and analysis of the process show its general applicability to projects with similar constraints as well as the importance of formal target processes and exhaustive project domain knowledge among measurement implementers. Even though the Measurement Discovery Process is subject to future refinement, it is clearly a step towards rapid delivery of tangible business performance indicators for process improvement. / Vikten av förbättringar i affärsprocesser i syfte att öka produktkvaliteten i mjukvaruindustrin ökar stadigt. Kvalitetsansvariga i industrin behöver effektiva och påtagliga verktyg för beslutsfattande i utvecklingsprojekt och för lokalisering av förbättringsområden. Mätningsprogram är en utbredd ansats för kvalitetsförbättring i mjukvaruprocesser men användning av heltäckande kvalitetsmodeller är resurskrävande. Dessa fokuserar inte primärt på mätpunkter vilket blottar behovet av en snabb och direkt teknik för identifiering och definiering av mätpunkter i projekt som saknar resurser eller behov av heltäckande mätningsprogram. Denna uppsats undersöker och jämför rådande kvalitetssäkringsmodeller med mätpunkter, vilket resulterar i Measurement Discovery Process utifrån valda delar av PSM- och GQM-modellerna. Processen appliceras på ett industriellt projekt med nämnda förutsättningar, vilket skapar en uppsättning mätpunkter som sedan utvärderas. Detta ligger även till grund för utvärdering av Measurement Discovery Process. Appliceringen och utvärderingen av processen synliggör dess generella applicerbarhet på projekt med liknande begränsningar såväl som vikten av formella processer i målprojektet och omfattande domänkunskap hos de som implementerar mätningarna. Measurement Discovery Process är föremål för framtida förbättringar men samtidigt ett tydligt steg mot snabbt framtagande av konkreta prestandamått för kvalitetsförbättring i affärsprocesser. / Mattias Axelsson: +46 708 67 53 81 Johan Sonesson: +46 709 72 74 30 / +46 40 12 48 03

Machine Learning (ML) is nowadays being offered as a service by several cloud providers. Consumers require metrics to be able to evaluate and compare between multiple ML cloud services. There aren’t many established metrics that can be used specifically for these types of services. In this paper, the Goal-QuestionMetric paradigm is used to define a set of metrics applicable for ML cloud services. The metrics are created based on goals expressed by professionals who use or are interested in using these services. At the end, a questionnaire is used to evaluate the metrics based on two criteria: relevance and ease of use.