During the last decades, the dependency on software has increased. Many of today’s modern devices embed software to control their functions. The increasing dependency has also taken part in shaping the software development process to produce better quality software. Many researchers and practitioners have spent large investments to improve the software development process. A research area within software engineering that addresses the assessment and improvement issues in development processes is called Software Process Improvement (SPI). One of the essential aspects in software process improvement is measuring the outcome of the implemented changes. The measurement and evaluation of software process improvement provides the means for the organization to articulate the achievement level of their goals. Although the importance of measuring and evaluating the outcome of software process improvement is paramount, there exist no common guidelines or systematic methods of measuring and evaluating the improvement. This condition evokes difficulties for practitioners to implement software process improvement measurement programs. This issue has raised the challenge to develop and implement an effective framework for measuring and evaluating the outcome of software process improvement initiatives. This thesis presents a measurement and evaluation framework for software process improvement. SPI-MEF provides guidelines in the form of systematic steps to evaluate the outcome of software process improvement. The framework is based on key concepts which were elaborated in previous work. In this thesis, a validation of SPI-MEF is also conducted by involving representatives from academia and industry. The validation is aimed to judge the frameworks’ usability, applicability and usefulness. Finally, a refinement of the framework is carried out based on the input from the validation.

Project Management is the primary key to successful software development. In 1995 Caper Jones stated that the failure or cancellation rate of large software systems was over 20% in his article on patterns of large software systems. More than two thirds of the projects fail due to improper management of skills, activities, and personnel. One main reason is that software is not a tangible entity and is hard to visualize and hence to monitor. A manager has to be skilled in different CASE tools and technologies to track and manage a software development process successfully. The volume of results produced by these CASE tools is so huge that a high level manager cannot look into all the details. He has to get a high level picture of the project, to know where the project is heading, and if needed, then look into the finer level details by drilling down to locate and correct problems. The objective of this thesis is to build an Advanced Charting System (ACS), which would act as a companion to PAMPA 2 (Project Attribute Monitoring and Prediction Associate) and help a manager visualize the state of a software project over a standard World Wide Web browser. The PAMPA 2 ACS will be responsible for visualizing and tracking of resources, tasks, schedules and milestones of a software project described in the plan. PAMPA 2 ACS will have the ability to depict the status of the project through a variety of graphs and charts. PAMPA 2 ACS implements a novel charting technique called as DOT Chart to track the processes and activities of a software project. PAMPA 2 ACS provides a multilevel view of the project status. PAMPA 2 ACS will be able to track any arbitrary plan starting from a collapsed / concise view of a whole project. This can be further drilled down to the lowest level of detail. The status can be viewed at the project version level, plan and workbreakdown levels, process, sub process, and activity level. Among all the process models, the DOT charts can be applied effectively to spiral process model where each spiral represents a project version.

Project Management is the primary key to successful software development. In 1995 Caper Jones stated that the failure or cancellation rate of large software systems was over 20% in his article on patterns of large software systems. More than two thirds of the projects fail due to improper management of skills, activities, and personnel. One main reason is that software is not a tangible entity and is hard to visualize and hence to monitor. A manager has to be skilled in different CASE tools and technologies to track and manage a software development process successfully. The volume of results produced by these CASE tools is so huge that a high level manager cannot look into all the details. He has to get a high level picture of the project, to know where the project is heading, and if needed, then look into the finer level details by drilling down to locate and correct problems. The objective of this thesis is to build an Advanced Charting System (ACS), which would act as a companion to PAMPA 2 (Project Attribute Monitoring and Prediction Associate) and help a manager visualize the state of a software project over a standard World Wide Web browser. The PAMPA 2 ACS will be responsible for visualizing and tracking of resources, tasks, schedules and milestones of a software project described in the plan. PAMPA 2 ACS will have the ability to depict the status of the project through a variety of graphs and charts. PAMPA 2 ACS implements a novel charting technique called as DOT Chart to track the processes and activities of a software project. PAMPA 2 ACS provides a multilevel view of the project status. PAMPA 2 ACS will be able to track any arbitrary plan starting from a collapsed / concise view of a whole project. This can be further drilled down to the lowest level of detail. The status can be viewed at the project version level, plan and workbreakdown levels, process, sub process, and activity level. Among all the process models, the DOT charts can be applied effectively to spiral process model where each spiral represents a project version.

Lic-avh. Ronneby : Tekn. högsk.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T15:53:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo1924_1.pdf: 3478481 bytes, checksum: a0f58f98b37132402ca52683d62410df (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas / As empresas de software brasileiras buscam conquistar cada vez mais o mercado nacional e internacional, os quais estão mais competitivos. A estratégia viável é investir no aumento da qualidade e produtividade. O foco desse trabalho é investigar fatores relevantes para mensurar o Return on Investment (ROI) em Melhoria de Processo de Software (MPS). Com o objetivo de propor um framework constituído por fases baseado nos conceitos da ROI Methodology, utilizando indicadores utilizados por David Rico em ROI of SPI e uma seleção de medições utilizadas para MPS. As fases são: Identificação do problema; Diagnóstico detalhado; Estimativa de ROI; Implementação e Encerramento. Para cada fase, baseados no paradigma GQM Goal-Question-Metric foram definidos indicadores de medição para monitorar o FROISPI. As quatro primeiras fases seguem o conceito clássico do PDCA, que para cada solução sugerida de melhoria, analisa seus resultados e se os mesmos forem considerados plenamente satisfatórios, seguirá para a fase de Encerramento, caso contrário o processo cíclico continua até a necessidade de melhoria ser satisfeita. Na fase de Encerramento serão apresentados à alta direção os resultados alcançados com a utilização do FROISPI. O experimento foi executado em três organizações de maturidade bem distintas, mas somente uma organização conseguiu concluir com êxito

Abstract A fundamental problem in the software engineering community is how to achieve a state of continuous improvement. Over the last ten years a number of studies have been made concerning various tools, methods and software process improvement project life-cycle models, but the problem persists and in many cases the software process improvement program dies off within a year. This thesis takes the assumption that the answer cannot be reduced to a single tool or method, as there are no silver bullets to complex problems. Instead the entire Software Process Engineering system should be studied to find out what elements are necessary for sustaining improvement activity on a long-term basis. Through understanding the fundamental elements of a Software Process Engineering system, the organization can manage and improve the system, tune it up to the environment and make it efficient and effective. When the system is operational, the software process improvement program, which is a part of the system, can be sustained. This research studies a case in which the Software Process Engineering system of a large, multi-site telecommunications company was successfully revised to meet the increasing improvement challenges. The revised system has proven to be capable of sustaining continuous improvement and case is used here to derive architectural design models of a Software Process Engineering system. Two such models are established here. One is a system model that is independent of implementation and identifies the main elements of a Software Process Engineering system. With the help of this model, those responsible for process improvement in their organizations can design, evaluate, and revise complete Software Process Engineering systems. The other model is a design of a multi-site Software Process Engineering organization, and identifies not only the operative part of the organization but also the key non-operative elements that a Software Process Engineering system needs to work with. With the help of this model a multi-site organization can set up the operative Software Process Engineering organization and plan for strategies for managing the cooperation with the interfacing entities up front, rather than ending up managing such contacts on a reactive fashion.

Software has gained an essential role in our daily life in the last decades. This condition demands high quality software. To produce high quality software many practitioners and researchers put more attention on the software development process. Large investments are poured to improve the software development process. Software Process Improvement (SPI) is a research area which is aimed to address the assessment and improvement issues in the software development process. One of the most important aspects in software process improvement is to measure the results gained from the embarked process change. Without measuring the results, it is hard to tell whether the goals have been achieved or not. However, measurement for software process improvement is not a trivial task. Furthermore, there is no common systematic methodology that can be used to help measuring the performance of software process improvement initiatives. This thesis is intended to provide basic key concepts for the effective measurement and evaluation of the outcome of software process improvement. A major part of this thesis presents the systematic review in evaluating the outcome of software process improvement. The systematic review is aimed at the identification of the major issues in software process improvement evaluation and to gather the requirements for a software process improvement measurement and evaluation framework. Based on the results of the systematic review, a measurement and evaluation model is formulated. The objective of the model is to provide the groundwork for a software process improvement measurement and evaluation framework. The model is deemed to be applicable in a broad spectrum of scenarios by providing concepts that are independent from specific SPI initiatives.

A área de melhoria de processos de software (MPS) tem sido investigada sistematicamente, dadas as evidências de que a qualidade do processo pode influenciar significativamente na qualidade do produto final. Modelos e guias com boas práticas para a MPS têm sido sintetizados. Ainda assim, a literatura carece de trabalhos que estabeleçam estratégias de como implementar as boas práticas sugeridas por tais modelos e guias na indústria. Em paralelo, o desenvolvimento distribuído de software (DDS) tornou-se uma realidade, aumentando a complexidade e a importância do processo de desenvolvimento de software e demandando estratégias que permitam uma MPS também distribuída. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar estratégias e mecanismos que possam promover uma MPS distribuída e colaborativa. A ColabSPI, uma estratégia colaborativa e distribuída para MPS, é proposta para apoiar a evolução estruturada do processo; o tratamento de propostas de melhorias de processo; e a comunicação e participação dos desenvolvedores na MPS. Durante a investigação, fatores que podem influenciar a MPS foram identificados e a relação entre eles foi mapeada, tanto a partir da literatura quanto a partir de um estudo em campo. Dois contextos foram explorados durante a investigação: (i) a MPS em uma organização de grande porte, com unidades distribuídas; e (ii) a MPS no desenvolvimento de software livre (SL). Contribuições para a MPS no desenvolvimento de SL foram geradas no contexto do projeto internacional Qualipso, com a co-autoria do Qualipso Open Source Maturity Model (OMM) e a adequação de ColabSPI para evoluir o OMM. Em ambiente industrial, estudos experimentais foram conduzidos para validar a aplicação de ColabSPI e revelaram que algumas práticas do desenvolvimento de software, inclusive do DDS e do desenvolvimento de SL, podem ser aplicadas com sucesso à MPS, trazendo ganhos de eficácia e eficiência para a melhoria de um processo de desenvolvimento de software. A estratégia proposta está sendo base também para a definição do ambiente de MPS do processo Demoiselle, um processo livre para desenvolvimento de software / Software Process Improvement (SPI) has become an active research field, given the evidences that the quality of software processes can significantly influence the final product quality. Therefore, SPI models and guides have been disclosed. Still, there is a lack of studies establishing strategies on how to implement SPI models\' best practices. Meanwhile, distributed software development (DSD) is becoming widespread, increasing the complexity and importance of software processes and demanding distributed SPI strategies. This study aims to investigate strategies and mechanisms to promote a distributed and collaborative SPI. ColabSPI, a collaborative and distributed approach to SPI is proposed to supporting process evolution, handling process improvement proposals, and promoting the developers participation in SPI and communication. Accordingly, during the investigation possible influences to SPI programs were explored and the relationship between them has been mapped, both from the literature and from a field study. SPI was investigated in two contexts: (i) a large organization, counting on distributed development units; and (ii) the FLOSS development environment. Contributions to SPI in the FLOSS development environment took place in the international project Qualipso resulting on a ColabSPI customization to evolve the Qualipso Open Source Maturity Model (OMM) and in the co-authoring of the model. In industrial environment, experimental studies were conducted to validate ColabSPI, revealing that some of the software development practices, including DSD and FLOSS practices, can be successfully applied to SPI and yield a more efficient and effective improvement of the software development process. ColabSPI features are also being considered to the definition of a SPI environment to the Demoiselle process, an open process for software development

This thesis presents a software engineering process improvement study. The literature on software process improvement is reviewed. Then the current design verification process at one of the Software Engineering Departments of the X Company, Ankara, T&uuml / rkiye (SED) is analyzed. Static software development process metrics have been calculated for the SED based on a recently proposed approach. Some improvement suggestions have been made based on the metric values calculated according to the proposals of that study. Besides, the author&#039 / s improvement suggestions have been discussed with the senior staff at the department and then final version of the improvements has been gathered. Then, a discussion has been made comparing these two approaches. Finally, a new software design verification process model has been proposed. Some of the suggestions have already been applied and preliminary results have been obtained.

A área de melhoria de processos de software (MPS) tem sido investigada sistematicamente, dadas as evidências de que a qualidade do processo pode influenciar significativamente na qualidade do produto final. Modelos e guias com boas práticas para a MPS têm sido sintetizados. Ainda assim, a literatura carece de trabalhos que estabeleçam estratégias de como implementar as boas práticas sugeridas por tais modelos e guias na indústria. Em paralelo, o desenvolvimento distribuído de software (DDS) tornou-se uma realidade, aumentando a complexidade e a importância do processo de desenvolvimento de software e demandando estratégias que permitam uma MPS também distribuída. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar estratégias e mecanismos que possam promover uma MPS distribuída e colaborativa. A ColabSPI, uma estratégia colaborativa e distribuída para MPS, é proposta para apoiar a evolução estruturada do processo; o tratamento de propostas de melhorias de processo; e a comunicação e participação dos desenvolvedores na MPS. Durante a investigação, fatores que podem influenciar a MPS foram identificados e a relação entre eles foi mapeada, tanto a partir da literatura quanto a partir de um estudo em campo. Dois contextos foram explorados durante a investigação: (i) a MPS em uma organização de grande porte, com unidades distribuídas; e (ii) a MPS no desenvolvimento de software livre (SL). Contribuições para a MPS no desenvolvimento de SL foram geradas no contexto do projeto internacional Qualipso, com a co-autoria do Qualipso Open Source Maturity Model (OMM) e a adequação de ColabSPI para evoluir o OMM. Em ambiente industrial, estudos experimentais foram conduzidos para validar a aplicação de ColabSPI e revelaram que algumas práticas do desenvolvimento de software, inclusive do DDS e do desenvolvimento de SL, podem ser aplicadas com sucesso à MPS, trazendo ganhos de eficácia e eficiência para a melhoria de um processo de desenvolvimento de software. A estratégia proposta está sendo base também para a definição do ambiente de MPS do processo Demoiselle, um processo livre para desenvolvimento de software / Software Process Improvement (SPI) has become an active research field, given the evidences that the quality of software processes can significantly influence the final product quality. Therefore, SPI models and guides have been disclosed. Still, there is a lack of studies establishing strategies on how to implement SPI models\' best practices. Meanwhile, distributed software development (DSD) is becoming widespread, increasing the complexity and importance of software processes and demanding distributed SPI strategies. This study aims to investigate strategies and mechanisms to promote a distributed and collaborative SPI. ColabSPI, a collaborative and distributed approach to SPI is proposed to supporting process evolution, handling process improvement proposals, and promoting the developers participation in SPI and communication. Accordingly, during the investigation possible influences to SPI programs were explored and the relationship between them has been mapped, both from the literature and from a field study. SPI was investigated in two contexts: (i) a large organization, counting on distributed development units; and (ii) the FLOSS development environment. Contributions to SPI in the FLOSS development environment took place in the international project Qualipso resulting on a ColabSPI customization to evolve the Qualipso Open Source Maturity Model (OMM) and in the co-authoring of the model. In industrial environment, experimental studies were conducted to validate ColabSPI, revealing that some of the software development practices, including DSD and FLOSS practices, can be successfully applied to SPI and yield a more efficient and effective improvement of the software development process. ColabSPI features are also being considered to the definition of a SPI environment to the Demoiselle process, an open process for software development