The advent of agile methodologies has brought about an illuminating debate in Software Engineering, particularly with regard to software quality. Some studies have reported that agile methodologies do improve software quality when compared to traditional methodologies; other studies have been inconclusive or contradictory, while others have argued that empirical evidence is limited. This study sought to investigate the correlation between agile methodologies when compared to traditional methodologies for selected software quality parameters. The research design was causal comparative, as well as correlational. The approach was quantitative, using a survey as the data collection method. SPSS was used to conduct descriptive and correlational analysis for 106 responses received. The main findings were that there was a statistically significant relation between traditional methodology use and ease of system testing (p=0.014); a statistically significant relation between traditional methodology use and timeliness (p=0.02); a statistically significant relation between software quality standards used and ease of system testing (p=0.017); a statistically significant relation between active stakeholder participation on projects and ease of system interactivity (p=0.047); and a statistically significant relation between mandatory workshop interactivity (p=0.047); and a statistically significant relation between mandatory workshop attendance or training and ease of system navigation (p=0.031).Claims that agile methodology use leads to improved software quality for selected quality parameters could not be empirically validated. The association between most of the selected software quality criteria in relation to methodology use in general was not apparent. Agile methodologies are suitable in small environments. Scrum was the most widely used agile methodology by far. The popularity and adoption state of XP showed a significantly decreasing trend. Traditional and agile methodologies combined are being used (47%) more than any other methodology. Agile methodology use (28%) surpassed traditional methodology use (19%). A suitable consensus definition for agile methodologies did not emerge from the data collected. The most suitable project life cycle model was evolutionary, incremental and iterative. ‘Other’ methodologies, meaning customised agile or SDLC, are suitable, as the environment becomes increasingly large and complex. Only 13% of organisations surveyed have an agile experience of six years and beyond. Based on these findings and gaps in the literature, implications and recommendations for further research areas are proposed, where the findings and contributions of this study are found to be relevant to practice for application and to academia for further research / College of Engineering, Science and Technology / M. Sc. (Computing)

Requirements Engineering and Software Quality Management is nowadays considered to be one of the important parts of the software development process. This thesis deals with connecting the theoretical concept of requirements engineering and usage of functions offered by Enterprise Architect tool, which should support the requirements engineering and software quality management processes. The main goal is to propose procedures of Enterprise Architect usage during the project in such a way, which will help to raise quality of the final product. The purpose is to offer a systematic and conscious way of implementation Enterprise Architect elements into software development processes, because this tool is able to support the whole cycle of the product. The methodology was designed as a result of theoretical concept, existing requirements engineering approaches and my own experience acquired during working on projects as a business and test analyst. The contribution of the designed methodology is in bringing recommendations, practices and procedures saying how to use Enterprise Architect during the software development process in order to gain the highest possible software quality. The thesis is structured in four sections describing the appropriate theory, analyzed requirement engineering approaches, critical mistakes during this process and the methodology design.

The subject of this thesis is testing and quality assurance during software development. The theoretical part explains the meaning of software quality and then describes the metrics used to evaluate software quality. The following part explains the differences between software quality assurance in agile and traditional software development methodologies, including criteria on how to compare the methodologies. Throughout the thesis, there are briefly summarized basic concepts which then include the differences between stat-ic/dynamic testing and manual/automatic testing, as well as a role of quality assurance en-gineer in software development. The practical section extends to an existing software development methodology for small software projects (MMSP) in its testing area. New testing activities, artifacts, and roles are introduced in order to align with real requirements for software testing. They will also function in the methodology when used in the testing area for development of more robust applications in bigger teams. Test management tools and test automation tools are described and followed with recommendations for methodol-ogy usage for only a selected few.

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / X-Tools is a collection of utilities for validation, translation, editing and report generation designed to enable the Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) community to quickly adopt the XidML 3.0 meta-data standard. This paper discusses the challenges of developing such software that meets the current and future needs of the FTI community, and meets the increasingly high quality standards expected of modern software. The paper first starts by discussing the needs of the FTI community and the specific functional requirements of software. These include the ability to fit in with legacy systems, the ability to handle many tens of thousands of parameters, support for new networked-based technologies and support for hardware from any vendor. The non-functional requirements of FTI orientated software are also described and it is suggested that the key non-functional requirements include testability, modifiability, extensibility and maintainability. Finally, as a case study, the X-Tools from ACRA CONTROL are presented. The paper discusses their design, and the tactics used to meet the functional and non-functional requirements of the FTI industry. The paper then outlines how the rigorous quality standards were met and describes the specific mechanisms used to verify the quality of the software.

Context: There is an overwhelming prevalence of companies developing software in global software development (GSD) contexts. The existing body of knowledge, however, falls short of providing comprehensive empirical evidence on the implication of GSD contexts on software quality for evolving software systems. Therefore there is limited evidence to support practitioners that need to make informed decisions about ongoing or future GSD projects. Objective: This thesis work seeks to explore changes in quality, as well as to gather confounding factors that influence quality, for software systems that evolve in GSD contexts. Method: The research work in this thesis includes empirical work that was performed through exploratory case studies. This involved analysis of quantitative data consisting of defects as an indicator for quality, and measures that capture software evolution, and qualitative data from company documentations, interviews, focus group meetings, and questionnaires. An extensive literature review was also performed to gather information that was used to support the empirical investigations. Results: Offshoring software development work, to a location that has employees with limited or no prior experience with the software product, as observed in software transfers, can have a negative impact on quality. Engaging in long periods of distributed development with an offshore site and eventually handing over all responsibilities to the offshore site can be an alternative to software transfers. This approach can alleviate a negative effect on quality. Finally, the studies highlight the importance of taking into account the GSD context when investigating quality for software that is developed in globally distributed environments. This helps with making valid inferences about the development settings in GSD projects in relation to quality. Conclusion: The empirical work presented in this thesis can be useful input for practitioners that are planning to develop software in globally distributed environments. For example, the insights on confounding factors or mitigation practices that are linked to quality in the empirical studies can be used as input to support decision-making processes when planning similar GSD projects. Consequently, lessons learned from the empirical investigations were used to formulate a method, GSD-QuID, for investigating quality using defects for evolving systems. The method is expected to help researchers avoid making incorrect inferences about the implications of GSD contexts on quality for evolving software systems, when using defects as a quality indicator. This in turn will benefit practitioners that need the information to make informed decisions for software that is developed in similar circumstances.

Context. In recent years, Software Quality Assurance (SQA) has become a crucial part of software development processes. Therefore, modern software development processes led to an increase in demand for manual and automated code quality assurance. Manual code quality reviews can be a time-consuming and expensive process with varying results. Thus, automated code reviews turn out to be a preferred alternative for mitigating this process. However, commercial and open-source static code analyzer tools often offer deep analysis with long lead time. Objectives. In this thesis work, the main aim is to introduce an early code quality assurance tool, which features a combination of software metrics. The tool should be able to examine code quality and complexity of a telecommunication grade software product such as source code of specific Ericsson product by Ericsson. This tool should encapsulate complexity and quality of a software product with regards to its efficiency, scope, flexibility, and execution time. Methods. For this purpose, the background section of the thesis is dedicated to in-depth research on software metrics included in well-known static code analyzers. Then, development environment, under investigation source code of Ericsson product, and collected software metric for evaluation were presented. Next, according to each software metric’s characteristics, point of interest, and requirement, a set of steps based on a Susman’s action research cycle were defined. Moreover, SWAT, a suitable software analytics toolkit, employed to extract conducted experiment data of each software metric from a static analyzer code named Lizard in order to detect most efficient software metrics. Outcome of conducted experiment demonstrates relationship of selected software metrics with one another. Results. The chosen software metrics were evaluated based on a variety of vital factors especially actual data from number of defects of specific Ericsson product. Highly effective software metrics from investigations in this thesis work were implemented as a new model named hybrid model to be utilized as an early quality assurance. Conclusions. The proposed model, which consist of well-performing software metrics, demonstrate an impressive performance as an early code quality indicator. Consequently, the utilized model in this master thesis could be studied in a future research to further investigate the effectiveness and robustness of this tool an early quality assurance.

Aspect-Oriented Software Development (AOSD) is a new approach that addresses limitations inherent in conventional programming, especially the principle of separation of concerns by emphasizing the encapsulation and modularization of crosscutting concerns through a new abstraction, the "aspect." Aspect-oriented programming is an emerging AOSD programming paradigm that focuses on the modularization of concerns as appropriate for the host language and providing a mechanism for describing concerns that crosscut each other by congealing into a single textual structure behavior that conventional programming would otherwise distribute throughout the code. AspectJ is the most widely used aspect-oriented programming language to date and provides an extension of the Java language that includes several new concepts and constructs that differ from those in procedural and object-oriented programs. These include join points, pointcuts, advice, inter-type declarations, introduction and aspects. In AspectJ, as well as other aspect-oriented programming languages, "aspects" package pointcuts and advice into functional units in much the same way that object-oriented programming uses classes to package fields and methods into cohesive units but they offer a unique set of problems. Software inspections are considered a software engineering "best practice" for ensuring quality, but the introduction of new aspect-oriented programming language mechanisms drives the need for them to be tailored in a similar manner to how they were tailored to support object-oriented programs and the procedural programs. The identification of faults unique to aspect-oriented programming allowed for the design of an aspect fault model and the associated software inspection checklists criteria that provide a description of the typical faults associated with aspects and the clues that aid in betraying their presence. The proposed methodology for this research entailed a mixed methods approach based on a combination of descriptive and exploratory research methodologies using a normative case study. The proposed methodology resulted in the development of an understanding of the AspectJ primitive pointcut construct, identification of the typical faults associated with this construct and the subsequent development of a fault model, a set of programming rules and tailored software inspection checklist. A case study was conducted comparing defects detected by an inspection checklist tailored for AspectJ with one that was not tailored. The results of the case study demonstrated using software inspection checklists not tailored would result in many faults unique to aspect-oriented programming going undetected.

This work deals with methodologies of software development, particularly web applications. Its main objective is to propose a methodology that helps ensure quality web development and prevents a number of frequently recurring problems. The first chapter deals with characteristics of current state and defines the need for process and discipline, the need for team development and the importance of appropriate tools. The second chapter describes the specifics of the web development. It defines the quality criteria in relation to web applications, particularly the aspects of accessibility, usability and security are concerned. It deals with web frameworks and the benefits and risks arising from their usage. It also outlines requirements for the chosen methodology for web development and describes types of projects to be applied to the methodology. The third chapter analyzes the suitability of the selected life cycle models and methodologies in software development for web applications. The life cycle models consider a model of "program and repair", the waterfall model and incremental model. It also deals with the assumptions of agile methodologies and their level of satisfaction for web development. For the analysis is used the methodology evaluation system METES with which is examined Rational Unified Process, Open Unified Process, Extreme Programming, Scrum and Feature Driven Development. The fourth chapter deals with the characteristic of Open Unified Process methodology. It describes the principles, features and development process. The main chapter deals with the proposal of methodology for web development. As the basis is chosen Open Unified Process methodology, whose elements are supplemented and adapted for web development. As the elements of the methodology are elaborated principles, practices, roles, work products, tasks, delivery process, manuals and guidelines and tools. Each element is adapted to fit the specific needs of web applications. In order to achieve greater control over the quality of web applications there are also included detailed checklists as an integral part of products which are aimed at preventing the most frequently occurring errors and problems. The chapter concludes with an overview of tools that have been validated in web development.

The idea of a Future Internet platform is to deliver reusable and common functionalities to facilitate making wide ranges of software products and services.  The Future Internet platform, introduced by the Future Internet Public Private Partnership (FI-PPP) project, makes the common functionalities available through so-called Enablers to be instantly integrated into software products and services with less cost and complexity rather than a development from scratch. Quality assessment of software products and services and gaining insights into whether the quality fulfills users’ expectations within the platform are challenging. The challenges are due to the propagation of quality in the heterogeneous composite software that uses Enablers and infrastructure developed by third parties. The practical problem is how to assess the quality of such composite software as well as the impacts of the quality on users’ Quality of Experience (QoE). The research objective is to study an analytics-driven Quality-Impact approach identifying how software quality analytics together with their impact on QoE of users can be used for the assessment of software products and services in a Future Internet platform. The research was conducted with one systematic mapping study, two solution proposals, and one empirical study. The systematic mapping study is contributed to produce a map overviewing important analytics for managing a software ecosystem. The thesis also proposes a solution to introduce a holistic software-human analytics approach in a Future Internet platform. As the core of the solution, it proposes a Quality-Impact inquiry approach exemplified with a real practice. In the early validation of the proposals, a mixed qualitative-quantitative empirical research is conducted with the aim of designing a tool for the inquiry of user feedback. This research studies the effect of the instrumented feedback tool on QoE of a software product. The findings of the licentiate thesis show that satisfaction, performance, and freedom from risks analytics are important groups of analytics for assessing software products and services.  The proposed holistic solution takes up the results by describing how to measure the analytics and how to assess them practically using a composition model during the lifecycle of products and services in a Future Internet platform. As the core of the holistic approach, the Quality-Impact assessment approach could elicit relationships between software quality and impacts of the quality on stakeholders. Moreover, the early validation of the Quality-Impact approach parameterized suitable characteristics of a feedback tool. We found that disturbing feedback tools have negligible impacts on the perceived QoE of software products. The Quality-Impact approach is helpful to acquire insight into the success of software products and services contributing to the health and sustainability of the platform. This approach was adopted as a part of the validation of FI-PPP project. Future works will address the validation of the Quality-Impact approach in the FI-PPP or other real practices.

As práticas ágeis de desenvolvimento de sistemas de software são, neste trabalho, classificadas sob três aspectos: dependabilidade, domínios do ESSENCE e guidelines para redução de erro humano. A partir dessa classificação, um questionário baseado nas práticas relacionadas aos fatores humanos foi aplicado para desenvolvedores de sistemas de software com diferentes níveis de experiência com o objetivo de avaliar a interferência do ambiente na dependabilidade do sistema de software desenvolvido. O questionário foi respondido por 125 desenvolvedores. Os desenvolvedores foram separados em dois grupos e os grupos foram comparados em relação à percepção de certos guidelines para desenvolvimento de software para cada prática considerada. Os resultados do questionário mostraram que a utilização das práticas ágeis analisadas aumentou fatores que reconhecidamente facilitam a redução do erro humano. / In this work, agile software development practices are categorized using three aspects: reliability, ESSENCEs areas of concern and guidelines for human error reduction. From this categorization, it was applied to software developers with different levels of expertise a questionnaire with practices related to human factors with the goal of evaluating the interference of the environment on the reliability of the developed software. The questionnaire was answered by 125 developers. For every practice considered the developers were separated in two groups and compared in relation to the perception of certain guidelines. The results show that the use of those agile practices increase factors that help reduce human error.