Context: Software development in a setting in which the development sites are dispersed across geographical areas, either close proximity or globally, is fast becoming a widespread trend. This software development arrangement is also known as Global Software Development (GSD) or Distributed Software Development (DSD) or Global Software Engineering (GSE). Projects executed by a dispersed team have been noted as a more risky and challenging venture than projects run with teams under the same roof. Therefore the knowledge of the potential challenges and the probable mitigation strategies for GSD is vital for running a successful project. Objectives: The study entails the identification of GSD related challenges as well as their mitigation strategies. The collected challenges and mitigation strategies are later compiled into checklists. The developed checklists can be incorporated into risk management process particularly risk identification and risk mitigation planning. Methods: This research extends an existing systematic literature study conducted on empirical research on GSD, which was based on a review of publications from 2000 to 2007. The previous research is incorporated in this research and, in addition, papers between 2007 and 2009 are reviewed. In contrast to the previous research was aimed at gathering empirical evidence in GSD, however in this research the focus is specifically on challenges associated with GSD projects as well as the mitigation strategies that can be employed. An industrial survey was also conducted to validate the checklists and determine if the identified challenges and mitigation strategies were pervasive in industry. Furthermore interviews were also conducted to further validate the usefulness and usability of the developed checklists. Result: As a result, from the systematic literature review for publications between 2000 and 2009, a total of 48 challenges and 42 mitigation strategies were identified and placed in two separate categorized checklists. These challenges and mitigation strategies are elaborated in this paper. From the survey result, no additional challenges and 4 strategies were identified in the survey. Meanwhile from the interviews, all interviewees reported that the checklists are useful and easy to use. Conclusion: The absence of new challenges being identified from the study did not merit a conclusion that all possible challenges in GSD have been revealed. Therefore we conclude that more empirical research still needs to be done on identifying the challenges and mitigation strategies associated with GSD settings. Furthermore the checklists can be useful and valuable in identifying challenges and the potential mitigation strategies for communication, control and coordination mechanisms in distributed software development projects.

Context: Over the past few years, Global Software Development (GSD) has emerged as an evolving trend in the software industry. The reasons behind this evolution are globalization, economic benefits, time to market, organizational and strategic location, access to skilled labor and reduction of costs. But despite its benefits, GSD also has challenges associated with communication, coordination and control. The challenges are mainly due to temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distances. Due to flexibility, and emphasis on frequent communication in agile methods, researchers have shown interest in incorporating agile methods in GSD. Extreme Programming (XP) is one of the most widely known agile methodologies that values simplicity, communication, courage and feedback. In this research study, we have investigated the suitability of XP in GSD by exploring its benefits and challenges in the state of art and state of practice. Objectives: This study aims at investigating the benefits and challenges associated with the combination of XP and GSD both in the research literature and in practice. The study also explores practices or solutions adopted in order to address the challenges of XP-GSD combination. Moreover, this study compares challenges of XP-GSD combination with the traditional GSD challenges. Methods: This research study has been accomplished with the help of a systematic literature review (SLR) and an industrial survey. For the systematic review, the snowballing approach was applied, and an initial set of papers was selected from IEEE Xplore and Google Scholar. After selecting the initial set of papers, backward snowballing was conducted by searching the reference list of the selected articles. Then, forward snowballing was conducted by looking for the citations of the selected articles. After completing the systematic review, the industrial survey was conducted to complement the findings of the literature review. The data collected from both SLR and survey was analyzed both separately and collectively. Results: Through SLR, we have identified 21 benefits, 17 challenges, and 18 solutions to the identified challenges. The benefits and challenges have been classified according to communication, coordination and control in correspondence with temporal, socio-cultural and geographical distance. From the survey, we have identified 19 benefits, 20 challenges, and 17 solutions to the identified challenges. However, 13 benefits, 9 challenges, and 8 solutions were in common. The majority of challenges found in both literature review and survey were however traditional GSD challenges. Conclusions: The scarcity of research literature in the area suggests that more work needs to be done to successfully implement XP in GSD projects. The benefits and challenges extracted from literature and industry suggest that the application of XP can be beneficial for GSD since the majority of the reported challenges are traditional GSD challenges. Nevertheless, application of XP practices can alleviate these challenges. Based on the results, we conclude that XP can be successfully adopted in GSD projects.

For the last decade the IT industry has been transitioning to Agile software development due to the impending need for a more flexible development process. China’s IT industry is growing drastically, but to stay competitive in the global market the Chinese organizations have to constantly adapt and reorient to today’s market needs. The purpose of this study is to determine if Agile methodologies and practices are suitable for the software industry in China. The study describes the fundamentals of Agile software development and analyzes the success factors of Agile adoption. Further analysis of Agile and its relation to culture is conducted, as well as an analysis of China, its national and organizational culture, and its software industry. Several hypothesis regarding potential barriers of Agile adoption in China were constructed to guide the design of the survey questionnaire. In the analysis of the survey data it was concluded that the communication aspect does pose as a barrier for Agile adoption in China, whereas the cognitive, social, organizational culture, competence and recruitment and managerial aspects all are concluded to not be barriers for Agile adoption. The overall result indicates that Agile methodologies are suitable, and should be favorable for the software development organizations in China. / IT-branschen har under det senaste decenniet anammat Agila metoder för att fylla ett behov av en mer flexibel utvecklingsprocess. Kinas IT-industri växer kraftigt, men för att öka sin globala konkurrenskraft måste den utvecklas och ständigt kunna anpassa sig efter marknadens behov. Syftet med denna studie är att avgöra om Agila metoder och arbetssätt är lämpliga för den Kinesiska mjukvaruindustrin. Studien beskriver grunderna i Agil mjukvaruutveckling och analyserar viktiga faktorer vid införandet av Agila metoder. Vidare undersöker den Kinas kultur, organisationskultur samt dess mjukvaruindustri. I studien utformades några hypoteser om möjliga hinder vid anammandet av Agila metoder, som vidare användes för utformandet av en enkätundersökning. I analysen av enkätdata konstaterades det att kommunikationsaspekten är ett hinder, medan de kognitiva, sociala och organisationskulturella aspekterna samt kompetens- och rekryteringsaspekten och organisationsledningsaspekten samtliga ej anses som hinder för införandet av Agila metoder. Slutsatsen är att Agila metoder är lämpliga, och bör adopteras av kinesiska mjukvaruföretag.

User experience (UX) design is becoming increasingly crucial for developing successful software today. It can determine whether or not users stay engaged with a product or service and it can also affect the time spent completing tasks which can make a large difference to employees when they try to get their job done. It is therefore important that organizations have their users in mind when developing software and that there is a maturity for UX and user-centered work. Since there are organizations where UX is not highly valued and where the maturity for UX is low it is interesting to find out what can be done to increase the UX work within these organizations, which was the aim of this thesis. The problem was addressed by studying a specific organization that expressed difficulty getting UX work to fit in their working routines, partly due to the fact that they were also working with agile software development. The organization’s maturity for UX was evaluated using Nielsen’s UX maturity model which is a model that describes eight different stages of UX maturity. Data was collected through a survey where questions were based on the UX maturity model and was then followed up with five semi-structured interviews. The results showed that the highest level of maturity yet reached within the organization was stage four, where there is a budget and plan for UX in some projects and where some teams have defined UX roles. A lower level of maturity could also be identified for some teams. Based on these findings, actions for how the organization can increase their UX maturity were discussed. These actions were concluded to be: plan for UX, find a way to show UX results, meet with real users, have UX professionals lead the way and structure UX work to fit with agile processes. / Användarupplevelsen (UX) är ytterst viktig vid utvecklingen av framgångrika produkter. En bra användarupplevelse kan vara avgörande för om användaren väljer att fortsätta använda en produkt eller tjänst. Den kan också ha en påverkan på tiden som det tar för en användare att slutföra en uppgift vilket kan göra stor skillnad för effektiviteten hos t.ex. anställda. Det är därför av vikt att system utvecklas med användaren i fokus och att det finns en mognad för UX och användar-centrerat arbete inom organisationer. Eftersom att det finns organisationer där användarupplevelsen inte värderas högt och där UX-mognaden är låg så är det intressant att ta reda på vad som kan göras för att denna UX-mognad ska öka. Målet med den här masteruppsatsen var att ta reda på just det. I det här arbetet studerades en specifik organisation som upplevde svårigheter med att få användar-centrerat arbete att passa ihop med deras övriga arbetsrutiner, bl.a. agil utveckling. Organisationens UX-mognad utvärderades med hjälp utav Nielsens UX-mognads modell som är en modell som beskriver åtta steg av UX-mognad. Data samlades in genom en enkät som var baserad på den här mognadsmodellen samt fem stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultaten visade att den högsta mognadsgraden som hittills hade uppnåtts inom organisationen var steg fyra, där det finns UX-budget och planering för UX i vissa projekt och där vissa team har utnämnda UX-roller. En lägre mognadsgrad kunde även identifieras för vissa team. Baserat på resultaten diskuterades fem stycken handlingar fram som kan bidra till en ökad UX-mognad för organisationen. Dessa handlingar var: planera för UX, hitta sätt att visa UX-resultat, träffa riktiga användare, låt de med UX-kompetens visa vägen samt strukturera UX-arbetet så att det passar med agila arbetsprocesser.

Due to Internet, the IT industry have seen rapid changes and to compete in the digital work, the organizations need more vigilance than ever before to respond to market changes and customer needs. Some organizations have opted to go agile to be more efficient in their software development but still deploying agile methodology and reaping its fruits further needs more research and empirical evidence.This research is a case study to evaluate the deployment of agile methodology in Easypark and explore its efficiency focusing on their structure and organization. Certain criterions are chosen to evaluate software development efficiency against that and to analyse what the deployment in the organization has led to.The method chosen for this study is a case study, where the empirical data is gathered through semi structured, and qualitative interviews from five senior employees in Easypark. The responses were analysed and reviewed under the light of theoretical background to elaborate the research question.The results of this case study revealed that efficiency in general have greatly been improved after adopting agile methods in Easypark and the core contributor is the permanent teams for different projects. There have been quite a few complications to deploy agile and that must be taken into consideration when other organizations plan to adopt agile methodologies.

The complexity of software development projects makes estimation and management very difficult. There is a need for improved cost estimation methods and new models of lifecycle processes other than the common waterfall process. This work has developed a new simulation model of the spiral development lifecycle as well as an approach for using simulation for cost and schedule estimation. The goal is to provide a tool that can analyze the effects of a spiral development process as well as a tool that illustrates the difficulties management faces in forecasting budgets at the beginning of a project which may encourage more realistic approaches to budgetary planning. A new discrete event process model of the incremental spiral development lifecycle approach was developed in order to analyze the effects this development approach has on the estimation process as well as cost and schedule for a project. The input data for the key variables of size, productivity, and defect injection rates in the model was based on analysis of Software Engineering Laboratory data and provided for analysis of the effects of uncertainty in early project estimates. The benefits of combining a separate system dynamics model with a discrete event process models was demonstrated as was the effects of turnover on the cost and schedule for a project. This work includes a major case study of a cancelled NASA software development project that experienced cost and schedule problems throughout its history. Analysis was performed using stochastic simulation with derived probability distributions for key software development factors. A system dynamics model of human resource issues was also combined with the process model to more thoroughly analyze the effects of turnover on a project. This research has demonstrated the benefits of using a simulation model when estimating to allow for more realistic budget and schedule determination including an interval estimate to help focus on the uncertainty of early estimates.

<p>Software engineering tools are being used in the industry in order to improve the productivity and the quality of the software development process. The properties of those tools are being perceived to be unsatisfactory. For example, researchers have found that some problems are due to deficient integration among the tools. Furthermore, a continuing problem is that there is a gap between the IT education and real demand of tool-skills form IT industry. Consequently, knowledge is needed of the properties of software development tools as well an understanding of demanded tool-skill from the industry. </p><p>The purpose of this study is to survey commercial software development environment (SDEs) that are used today in professional software engineering and discuss their advantages adn disadvantages. A secondary goal of the study is to identify the actual requirements from the industry on the IT-education. </p><p>A questionnaire was sent out to 90 software developers and IT managers of 30 IT companies in Sweden. The results of the survey show that IT companies, for most part, use SDEs from commercial software vendors. Respondents report that common problems of the SDEs are the following: bad integration among the tools, problems to trace software artifacts in the different phases of the programming cycle, and deficient support for version control and system configuration. Furthermore, some tools are difficult to use which results in a time-consuming development process. </p><p>We conclude that future software development environments need to provide better support for integration, automation, and configuration management. Regarding the required tool-skills, we believe that the IT education would gain from including commercial tools that cover the whole software product lifecycle in the curriculum.</p>

Software engineering tools are being used in the industry in order to improve the productivity and the quality of the software development process. The properties of those tools are being perceived to be unsatisfactory. For example, researchers have found that some problems are due to deficient integration among the tools. Furthermore, a continuing problem is that there is a gap between the IT education and real demand of tool-skills form IT industry. Consequently, knowledge is needed of the properties of software development tools as well an understanding of demanded tool-skill from the industry. The purpose of this study is to survey commercial software development environment (SDEs) that are used today in professional software engineering and discuss their advantages adn disadvantages. A secondary goal of the study is to identify the actual requirements from the industry on the IT-education. A questionnaire was sent out to 90 software developers and IT managers of 30 IT companies in Sweden. The results of the survey show that IT companies, for most part, use SDEs from commercial software vendors. Respondents report that common problems of the SDEs are the following: bad integration among the tools, problems to trace software artifacts in the different phases of the programming cycle, and deficient support for version control and system configuration. Furthermore, some tools are difficult to use which results in a time-consuming development process. We conclude that future software development environments need to provide better support for integration, automation, and configuration management. Regarding the required tool-skills, we believe that the IT education would gain from including commercial tools that cover the whole software product lifecycle in the curriculum.

Background: Software Development Effort Estimation is a process that focuses on estimating the required effort to develop a software project with a minimal budget. Estimating effort includes interpretation of required manpower, resources, time and schedule. Project managers are responsible for estimating the required effort. A model that can predict software development effort efficiently comes in hand and acts as a decision support system for the project managers to enhance the precision in estimating effort. Therefore, the context of this study is to increase the efficiency in estimating software development effort. Objective: The main objective of this thesis is to identify an effective ensemble method to build and implement it, in estimating software development effort. Apart from this, parameter tuning is also implemented to improve the performance of the model. Finally, we compare the results of the developed model with the existing models. Method: In this thesis, we have adopted two research methods. Initially, a Literature Review was conducted to gain knowledge on the existing studies, machine learning techniques, datasets, ensemble methods that were previously used in estimating Software Development Effort. Then a controlled Experiment was conducted in order to build an ensemble model and to evaluate the performance of the ensemble model for determining if the developed model has a better performance when compared to the existing models.   Results: After conducting literature review and collecting evidence, we have decided to build and implement stacked generalization ensemble method in this thesis, with the help of individual machine learning techniques like Support vector regressor (SVR), K-Nearest Neighbors regressor (KNN), Decision Tree Regressor (DTR), Linear Regressor (LR), Multi-Layer Perceptron Regressor (MLP) Random Forest Regressor (RFR), Gradient Boosting Regressor (GBR), AdaBoost Regressor (ABR), XGBoost Regressor (XGB). Likewise, we have decided to implement Randomized Parameter Optimization and SelectKbest function to implement feature section. Datasets like COCOMO81, MAXWELL, ALBERCHT, DESHARNAIS were used. Results of the experiment show that the developed ensemble model performs at its best, for three out of four datasets. Conclusion: After evaluating and analyzing the results obtained, we can conclude that the developed model works well with the datasets that have continuous, numeric type of values. We can also conclude that the developed ensemble model outperforms other existing models when implemented with COCOMO81, MAXWELL, ALBERCHT datasets.

This thesis explores the integration of gamification into the Software Development Process (SDP) at Saab, a defense and aerospace company. The thesis aims to address some of the complexities of the SDP standard used in the industry, DO-178C. The research primarily focuses on how gamification principles can enhance the usability of software development processes in aerospace. The method includes a pre-study, an inception phase, and two sprints, where a gamified tool is designed, implemented, and revised based on feedback from developers at Saab. The results of interviews after these sprints, along with insights from the inception phase, are discussed to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the gamified tool.  The findings indicate that gamification can make the SDP more approachable and engaging for developers, with elements like real-time progress tracking, quizzes, and certificates being well-received. However, the effectiveness of these gamification elements varies among individuals, underscoring the importance of tailoring these elements to user preferences and the specific context of aerospace software development. This research contributes to the understanding of gamification's role in improving SDP usability in the aerospace industry, highlighting the need for careful customization of gamification to individuals and the context. Although the study provides valuable insights, it also acknowledges limitations, including the hypothetical nature of the gamified tool used and the reliance on user feedback, suggesting future research should involve more practical implementations and a focus on long-term impacts on productivity and user satisfaction.