Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-04-05T14:25:09Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DissertacaoAlfredo_rev_pos_defesa_2015-11-03 vDigital (1).pdf: 2027109 bytes, checksum: 01759177045949760cd95203c6ed1de9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-05T14:25:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) DissertacaoAlfredo_rev_pos_defesa_2015-11-03 vDigital (1).pdf: 2027109 bytes, checksum: 01759177045949760cd95203c6ed1de9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-31 / Projetos de desenvolvimento de software têm se tornado cada vez mais complexos, motivados, principalmente, pelo alto grau de inovação e tecnologia empregada. Associado a esses elementos, a incerteza, que é caracterizada pela deficiência de informações relacionadas a um evento, sua compreensão, seu conhecimento, sua consequência, ou sua probabilidade, quase sempre presente em projetos de desenvolvimento de software colabora para os altos indicadores de insucesso em tais projetos, pois as abordagens tradicionais em gerenciamento de projetos não consideram um ambiente instável e sujeito a diversas fontes de incerteza. Esse trabalho tem por objetivo a elaboração de uma proposta, voltada para organizações de desenvolvimento de software, avaliar sua competência em gerir a incerteza. A proposta de avaliação definida foi fundamentada através de um trabalho teórico em que é sugerido um processo para gerir a incerteza em projetos de software. A construção da proposta de avaliação utilizou a abordagem GQM (Goal/Question/Metric), a partir da qual foram apresentadas métricas para auxiliar organizações a avaliarem suas práticas em gerir a incerteza no seu processo de desenvolvimento. Através de um estudo de caso desenvolvido, a proposta de avaliação foi demonstrada e aplicada. / Software development projects have become increasingly complex, motivated mainly by the high degree of innovation and technology used. Associated with these elements, the uncertainty, which is characterized by deficiency of information associated to an event, their understanding, their knowledge, their consequence or likelihood, often present in software development projects contributes to the high failure indicators in such projects because traditional approaches in project management do not consider an environment that is unstable and exposed to several sources of uncertainty. This work aims to elaborate a proposal geared to software development organizations to evaluate their competence in managing uncertainty. The evaluation proposal as defined was based on a theoretical study in which a process is advanced to manage the uncertainty in software projects. The construction of the evaluation proposal used the approach GQM (Goal/Question/ Metric), from which were presented metrics to help organizations assess their practices in managing uncertainty in the development process. Through a case study that was developed, the evaluation proposal was demonstrated and applied.

Companies working on safety-critical projects must adhere to strict rules imposed by the domain, especially when human safety is involved. These projects need to be compliant to standard norms and regulations. Thus, all the process steps must be clearly documented in order to be verifiable for compliance in a later stage by an auditor. Nevertheless, documentation often comes in the form of manually written textual documents in different formats. Moreover, the project members use diverse proprietary tools. This makes it difficult for auditors to understand how the actual project was conducted. My research addresses the project mining problem by exploiting logs from project-generated artifacts, which come from software repositories used by the project team.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-03-15T15:42:08Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Uncertanty Management in Software Projects - Marcelo Marinho.pdf: 6691446 bytes, checksum: c11ad7bca6e24d387867ffea22b8e5ed (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T15:42:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Uncertanty Management in Software Projects - Marcelo Marinho.pdf: 6691446 bytes, checksum: c11ad7bca6e24d387867ffea22b8e5ed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-11-11 / Various projects types are proposed with different objectives; it is necessary to manage strategically, according to organizational goals. Successful projects increase sales, reduce costs, improve quality, customer satisfaction, the work environment; among other benefits. An increasing number of companies use project management as a key strategy for maintaining competitiveness, increasing the value possibility to their business. However, many projects with all the ingredients for success fail. One reason for this is related to failure in assessing the uncertainties by executives, managers and project team. In a typical software development environment it is not different. Thus, the aim of this work is to propose an approach to manage uncertainties in software projects to contribute to their better performance and influence their success. The research method used in this work is based on the principles of Evidence-Based Software Engineering. During the guide conception stage an exploratory literature research on managing uncertainty in software projects and a systematic literature review on the state of the art theme in a more structured way along with an action research conducted in a software development project were conducted. In addition, semi-structured interviews with software industry experts and researchers in the field were carried out in order to obtain improvement to the approach. In the evaluation phase a focus group was conducted to evaluate the proposed approach. The results showed that an exploratory literature review helped to characterize the difference between risk and uncertainty and mapped the uncertainty sources. The systematic literature review found 5 ways to manage uncertainties in projects; 18 practices for project management focusing on reducing uncertainties; a confirmation of the uncertainty sources mapped in primary studies and the relationship between uncertainty and innovative projects was assessed. In the action research there was an application of techniques and strategies in projects and investigation on whether those contributed to uncertainty; in semi-structured interviews the addition of the practical point of view for the approach was evaluated and added. Finally, the focus group was performed to assess the elaborated approach. The results of this research contribute to software project management by defining an approach to uncertainty management, as well as describing strategies and guidelines for team members. / Vários tipos de projetos são propostos, com diferentes objetivos, em que é preciso gerenciálos estrategicamente de acordo com metas organizacionais. Projetos bem sucedidos aumentam as vendas, reduzem os custos, melhoram a qualidade, a satisfação do cliente, o ambiente de trabalho, entre outros benefícios. Assim, um número crescente de empresas utilizam o gerenciamento de projetos como uma estratégia fundamental para manter a competitividade, aumentando a possibilidade de valor aos seus negócios. No entanto, muitos projetos com todos os ingredientes para o sucesso, falham. Um dos motivos porque isso acontece relaciona-se com a não avaliação das incertezas pelos executivos, gerentes e equipe do projeto. Em um ambiente de desenvolvimento de software típico não é diferente. Baseado nisso, o objetivo geral deste trabalho é propor uma abordagem para gerenciar as incertezas em projetos de software, contribuindo assim para um melhor desempenho dos projetos de software e influenciando no seu sucesso. O método de pesquisa adotado neste trabalho está fundamentado nos princípios da Engenharia de Software baseado em evidências. Foi realizada uma pesquisa exploratória da literatura sobre gerenciamento das incertezas em projetos de software. Em seguida, de forma mais estruturada, foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura sobre o estado da arte do tema juntamente com uma pesquisa-ação, conduzida em um projeto de desenvolvimento de software. Além disso, entrevistas semi-estruturadas foram realizadas com especialistas da indústria de software e pesquisadores na área a fim de avaliar as evidências encontradas e adicionar insumos para a abordagem. Na fase de avaliação foi realizado um grupo focal com especialistas que avaliaram a abordagem proposta. Os resultados da revisão da literatura exploratória serviu para caracterizar a diferença entre riscos e incertezas e foram mapeadas as fontes de incertezas. Da revisão sistemática da literatura encontramos 5 formas de gerenciar as incertezas nos projetos e 18 práticas para o gerenciamento de projetos focando na redução das incertezas. Foi realizada uma confirmação das fontes de incertezas mapeadas nos estudos primários e avaliada a relação entre incertezas e projetos inovadores. Na pesquisa-ação pôde-se aplicar técnicas e estratégias em projetos e investigar se essas contribuíram para gestão da incerteza. Nas entrevistas semiestruturadas foi avaliado e adicionado o ponto de vista prático para a abordagem. Finalmente, um grupo focal foi realizado para avaliar a abordagem elaborada. Os resultados desta pesquisa contribuem para a gestão de projetos de software por definir uma abordagem para o gerenciamento de incerteza, bem como descrevendo as estratégias e orientações para os membros da equipe.

Submitted by Emanuel Varela Cardoso (emanuel.varela@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-09-10T20:31:40Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MIRKO BARBOSA PERKUSICH – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC) 2018.pdf: 3631770 bytes, checksum: 855cc4a180be90ee4d3788f2b18b6141 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-10T20:31:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MIRKO BARBOSA PERKUSICH – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC) 2018.pdf: 3631770 bytes, checksum: 855cc4a180be90ee4d3788f2b18b6141 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-05 / O aumento na utilização de métodos ágeis tem sido motivado pela necessidade de respostas rápidas a demandas de um mercado volátil na área de software. Em contraste com os tradicionais processos dirigidos a planos, métodos ágeis são focados nas pessoas, orientados à comunicação, flexíveis, rápidos, leves, responsivos e dirigidos à aprendizagem e melhoria contínua. Como consequência, fatores subjetivos tais como colaboração, comunicação e auto-organização são chaves para avaliar a maturidade do desenvolvimento de software ágil. O Scrum, focado no gerenciamento de projetos, é o método ágil mais popular. Ao ser adotado por uma equipe, a aplicação do Scrum deve ser melhorada continuamente sendo complementado com práticas e processos de desenvolvimento e gerenciamento ágeis. Apesar da Reunião de Retrospectiva, evento do Scrum, ser um período reservado ao final de cada sprint para a equipe refletir sobre a melhoria do método de desenvolvimento, não há procedimentos claros e específicos para a realização da mesma. Na literatura, há diversas propostas de soluções, embora nenhuma consolidada, para tal. Desta forma, o problema em questão é: como instrumentar o Scrum para auxiliar na melhoria contínua do método de desenvolvimento com foco na avaliação do processo de engenharia de requisitos, equipe de desenvolvimento e incrementos do produto? Nesta tese, propõe-se um processo sistemático baseado em redes bayesianas para auxiliar na avaliação da aplicação do Scrum em projetos de software, instrumentando o método para auxiliar na sua melhoria contínua com foco na avaliação do processo de engenharia de requisitos, equipe de desenvolvimento e incrementos do produto. A rede bayesiana foi construída por meio de um processo de Engenharia de Conhecimento de Redes Bayesianas. Uma base de dados, elicitada de dezoito projetos reais de uma empresa, foi coletada por meio de um questionário. Essa base de dados foi utilizada para avaliar a acurácia da predição da Rede Bayesiana. Como resultado, a previsão foi correta para quatorze projetos (acurácia de 78%). Dessa forma, conclui-se que o modelo é capaz de realizar previsões com acurácia satisfatória e, dessa forma, é útil para auxiliar nas tomadas de decisões de projetos Scrum. / The use of Agile Software Development (ASD) is increasing to satisfy the need to respond to fast moving market demand and gain market share. In contrast with traditional plan-driven processes, ASD are people and communication-oriented, flexible, fast, lightweight, responsive, driven for learning and continuous improvement. As consequence, subjective factors such as collaboration, communication and self-management are key to evaluate the maturity of agile adoption. Scrum, which is focused on project management, is the most popular agile method. Whenever adopted, the usage of Scrum must be continuously improved by complementing it with development and management practices and processes. Even though the Retrospective Meeting, a Scrum event, is a period at the end of each sprint for the team to assess the development method, there are no clear and specific procedures to conduct it. In literature, there are several, but no consolidated, proposed solutions to assist on ASD adoption and assessment. Therefore, the research problem is: how to instrument Scrum to assist on the continuous improvement of the development method focusing on the requirements engineering process, development team and product increment? In this thesis, we propose a Bayesian networks-based process to assist on the assessment of Scrum-based projects, instrumenting the software development method to assist on its continuous improvement focusing on the requirements engineering process, development team and product increments. We have built the Bayesian network using a Knowledge Engineering Bayesian Network (KEBN) process that calculates the customer satisfaction given factors of the software development method. To evaluate its prediction accuracy, we have collected data from 18 industry projects from one organization through a questionnaire. As a result, the prediction was correct for fourteen projects (78% accuracy). Therefore, we conclude that the model is capable of accurately predicting the customer satisfaction and is useful to assist on decision-support on Scrum projects.

This work is a study examining the causes of fire fighting in software projects. Fire fighting is the practice of reactive management, i.e. focus being put at solving the problem of the moment. The study in the thesis is performed in two parts, one part is a literature study examining what academia considers as the reasons of fire fighting and how to minimise the problem. The other part of the thesis is an interview series performed in the industry with the purpose of finding what they consider the causes of the fire fighting phenomena. What is indicated by the interview series, as being the main causes of the problems are problems that are related to requirements, and problems caused by persons with key knowledge leaving the project. / Detta arbete undersöker orsakerna bakom "fire fighting" i mjukvaru projekt. "Fire fighting", eller brandsläckning, är utövandet av reaktivt management, dvs. att gruppen lägger fokus på att lösa de problem som för tillfället finns i projektet. Arbete är uppbyggt i två delar, den ena delen är en literaturstudie och den andra en studie av vad industrin anser orsaka "fire fighting" beteendet.

There is a lack in research on the perspectives of different managerial roles on data about software projects in software analytics tools, such as the perspectives of chief financial officers (CFOs), chief executive officers (CEOs) and compliance officers. Today, software analytics tools are mainly developed to address the needs of technical stakeholders such as developers, but research shows that there exist potentials of expanding this technical users’ scope of focus to also include higher level stakeholders, such as managers. The goal of this study is to explore what managers working in software development organizations consider to be useful data to have about software projects in software analytics tools, as well as examining how they want data about software projects to be presented to them in such tools. This study was done in four steps. First, a literature review was conducted. Second, a questionnaire was conducted with four CFOs, one CEO and one compliance officer working in six different Swedish software development organizations. Third, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three CFOs, one CEO and one compliance officer working in five different Swedish software development organizations. Fourth, a visual prototype simulating a software analytics tool was constructed based on the data gathered from the interviews. The result of this study shows that abstraction, limitation, and visualization of data about software projects, as well as presentation of useful data in software analytics tools that support the work tasks of managers, is helpful in addressing the perspectives and views of the target group.

Background: Effort estimation is one of the cornerstones in project management with the purpose of creating efficient planning and the ability to keep budgets. Despite the extensive research done within this area, one of the biggest and most complex problems in project management within software development is still considered to be the estimation process. Objectives: The main objectives of this thesis were threefold: i) firstly to define the characteristics for a large project, ii) secondly to identify factors causing inaccurate effort estimates and iii) lastly to understand how the identified factors impact the effort estimation process, all of this within the context of large-scale agile software development and from the perspective of a project team.Methods: To fulfill the purpose of this thesis, an exploratory case study was executed. The data collection consisted of archival research, questionnaire, and interviews. The data analysis was partly conducted using the statistical software toolStata.Results: The definition of a large project is from a project team’s perspective based on high complexity and a large scope of requirements. The following identified factors were identified to affect the estimation process in large projects: deficient requirements, changes in scope, complexity, impact in multiple areas, coordination, and required expertise, and the findings indicate that these are affecting estimation accuracy negatively. Conclusions: The conclusion of this study is that besides the identified factors affecting the estimation process there are many different aspects that can directly or indirectly contribute to inaccurate effort estimates, categorized as requirements, complexity, coordination, input and estimation process, management, and usage of estimates.

Agile project management emphasizes flexibility and adapting to change. Embracing change often means that specified requirements get changed, removed or replaced under the course of a software project. Another consequence of the nature of agile projects is that everything that does not directly contribute to the working software gets dropped from the product lifecycle. Traceability – the ability to trace requirements back to their origins and forward to design artifacts, code, and testcases – is one such thing that may be overlooked. At the same time, traceability may be crucial to making sure that the delivered product meets the product goals. This thesis investigates the concept of decision traceability – the ability to trace decisions that relate to the evolution of a software product, as well as the fulfillment of product goals. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the importance of decision traceability in relation to product goals and changing requirements in agile software projects. For this purpose, two research questions were developed. (1) What are the challenges of achieving decision traceability in agile projects? And (2) What are important aspects of achieving decision traceability in agile projects? An interpretive qualitative case study was conducted at an IT-consultancy firm. In the case study, two of the organization’s in-house projects were observed, and six informants were interviewed. In answer to the research questions, seven challenges and six important aspects of achieving decision traceability were identified. A conclusion that can be made from the findings is that other aspects than just well-defined processes– such as team engagement, value perception, and communication – may be essential to achieving decision traceability in agile software projects.

The subject of this thesis was agile development on ASP.NET web development platform. The main goal was to create new methodology MMSP - ASP.NET MVC by adjusting methodology MMSP for development in ASP.NET MVC framework, which was mainly achieved through the definition of new objects in the methodology. Text describes four newly created roles (eg. Database specialist) which are responsible for application development. Text also defines or modifies several tasks (eg. Database design) and work products (eg. Data model). All added objects were integrated into the methodology by adjusting its life cycle. At first, thesis was generally focused on the development of web applications, defined their characteristics and analyzed the possibilities of using agile development. Then the MMSP methodology was presented and verified its suitability for the planned extension. Furthermore, there was described the ASP.NET MVC framework, its architecture and basic characteristics. In the last chapter of this thesis methodology MMSP-ASP.NET MVC was verified on the example of development database management web application for the Anthropological Department of the National Museum in Prague.

This MSc Thesis focuses on software development management. It describes the importance of project management in IT fields and mentions its significant standards. Thesis devotes some chapters to software project life cycle models. Another part of this thesis compares instruments supporting project management and analyzes system requirements of IT project management. A part of thesis implements the designed system concerning its real use in the future. Due to the web application form, the implementation phase focuses on keeping today's standards of accessible quality website, good usability. Conclusion of this thesis evaluates reached outcomes and mentions possible solution enhancement.