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M.Sc. (Computer Science)

M.Com. (Informatics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This project aims to prototype formal specification in Larch. The motivation for looking at formal specifications stems from an appreciation of the problem outlined above, frustration with current methods, and a desire to practise what is preached. The aim is to implement a formal specification language, to write a non-trivial specification and to employ formal methods of specification during software development. As a result, one should have a thorough understanding of a formal specification language, and the practical implications of using it as a basis for formal methods.

Software reuse can occur in various places during the software development cycle. Reuse of existing source code is the most commonly practiced form of software reuse. One of the key requirements for software reuse is readability, thus the interest in the use of data abstraction, inheritance, modularity, and aspects of the visible portion of module specifications. This research analyzed the contents of software reuse libraries to answer the basic question of what makes a good reusable software component. The approach taken was to measure and analyze various software metrics as mapped to design characteristics. A related research question investigated the change in the design principles over time. This was measured by comparing sets of Ada reuse libraries categorized into two time periods. It was discovered that recently developed Ada reuse components scored better on readability than earlier developed components. A benefit of this research has been the development of a set of "design for reuse" guidelines. These guidelines address coding practices as well as design principles for an Ada implementation. C++ software reuse libraries were also analyzed to determine if design principles can be applied in a language independent fashion. This research used cyclomatic complexity metrics, software science metrics, and traditional static code metrics to measure design features. This research provides at least three original contributions. First it collects empirical data about existing reuse libraries. Second, it develops a readability measure for software libraries which can aid in comparing libraries. And third, this research developed a set of coding and design guidelines for developers of reusable software. Future research can investigate how design principles for C++ change over time. Another topic for research is the investigation of systems employing reused components to determine which libraries are more successfully used than others.

The Agile methodologies have attracted the software development industry's attention due to their capability to overcome the limitations of the traditional software development approaches and to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Scrum is one of the Agile software development processes broadly adopted by industry. Scrum promotes frequent customer involvement and incremental short releases. Despite its popular use, Scrum’s requirements engineering stage is inadequately defined which can lead to increase development time and cost, along with low quality or failure for the end products. This research shows the importance of activity planning of requirements engineering in improving the product quality, cost, and scheduling as well as it points out some drawbacks of Agile practices and available solutions. To improve the Scrum requirements engineering by overcoming its challenges in cases, such as providing a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s needs and addressing the effects of the challenges in other cases, such as frequent changes of requirements, the Design Thinking model is integrated into the Scrum framework in the context of requirements engineering management. The use of the Design Thinking model, in the context of requirements engineering management, is validated through an in-depth scientific study of the IBM Design Thinking framework. In addition, this research presents an Items Prioritization dEcision Support System (IPESS) which is a tool to assist the Product Owners for requirements prioritization. IPESS is built on information collected in the Design Thinking model. The IPESS tool adopts Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique and PageRank algorithm to deal with the specified factors and to achieve the optimal order for requirements items based on the prioritization score. IPESS is a flexible and comprehensive tool that focuses on different important aspects including customer satisfaction and product quality. The IPESS tool is validated through an experiment that was conducted in a real-world project / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (PhD)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Scrum is one of the Agile software development processes broadly adopted in industry. Scrum promotes frequent customer involvements and incremental short release. Sprint planning is a critical step in Scrum that sets up next release goals and lays out plans to achieve those goals. This thesis presents a Sprint Planning dEcision Support System (SPESS) which is a tool to assist the managers for Sprint planning. Among considering other Sprint planning factors, SPESS takes into consideration developer competency, developer seniority and task dependency. The results are that the assignments of the tasks of each Sprint to developers guarantee that each team member contributes to their fullest potential, and project planning is optimized for the shortest possible time. Keywords—Scrum, Sprint planning, planning poker, competence, task dependence, Hungarian algorithm, Essence. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

In new economics such as high-tech, knowledge-driven industries, the competitive game changes frequently and dramatically. Two maxims are widely accepted in these markets: 1. it pays to hit the market first. 2. it pays to have superb technology. These industries face a high change and high speed competitive business environment. Information systems of these firms often have to be modified or created based on imprecise requirements or even conceptual ideals. According to past research literature, precise requirement is one of the key success factors for software development outsourcing. Imprecise requirements indicate uncertain project scope and tend to risk. This research of imprecise requirement software development outsourcing base on Adaptive Software Development and Incomplete Contract theory. A case study is used to analyze below imprecise requirement software outsoucing issues issues in a semiconductor foundry MES project: 1. How to deliver a usable system to achieve project goals from imprecise requirements? 2. How to manage frequent change ascribed to imprecise requirements? 3. How to manage project escalation and cost issue ascribed to imprecise requirement?