Managing the Inner Workings of Collective Intelligence Approaches for Wicked Problems – An Assessment Model and Evaluation

Ill-defined and complex problems that affect multiple stakeholders with potentially conflicting perspectives are often referred to as wicked problems. The utilization of collective intelligence (CI) via web-based platforms is a promising approach for addressing such wicked problems. The management of these information systems would benefit from evidence-based decision support regarding facilitation and improvement efforts. However, to date, there is no suitable model to guide such efforts. Existing approaches address specific applications or cover certain assessment areas but do not provide a holistic perspective. Meanwhile, research offers substantial insights into best practices for addressing wicked problems and running CI applications. This paper develops an assessment model comprising five central success dimensions for information systems that address wicked problems. Their subdimensions and associated measurement metrics allow for evidence-driven facilitation and improvement of CI applications for wicked problems. Apart from the model’s capability to improve future runs and processes, it also offers the potential to provide immediate insights for facilitation efforts during runtime. The model was validated with a platform dealing with the assessment of risks presented by global climate change. This evaluation generated strong evidence for the model’s applicability and usefulness

Exploring Software Product Management decision problems with constraint solving - opportunities for prioritization and release planning

Decision-making is central to Software Product Management (SPM) and includes deciding on requirements priorities and the content of coming releases. Several algorithms for prioritization and release planning have been proposed, where humans with or without machine support enact a series of steps to produce a decision outcome. Instead of applying some specific algorithm to find an acceptable solution to a decision problem, we propose to model SPM decision-making as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP), where relative and absolute priorities, interdependencies, and other constraints are expressed as relations among variables representing entities such as feature priorities, stakeholder preferences, and resource constraints. The solution space is then explored with the help of a constraint solver without humans needing to care about specific algorithms. This paper discusses advantages and limitations of CSP modeling in SPM and gives principal examples as a proof-of-concept of CSP modeling in requirements prioritization and release planning. A discussion of further research on constraint solving in SPM is also given

Maps of Lessons Learnt in Requirements Engineering

Both researchers and practitioners have emphasized the importance of learning from past experiences and its consequential impact on project time, cost, and quality. However, from the survey we conducted of requirements engineering (RE) practitioners, over 70\% of the respondents stated that they seldom use RE lessons in the RE process, though 85\% of these would use such lessons if readily available. Our observation, however, is that RE lessons are scattered, mainly implicitly, in the literature and practice, which obviously, does not help the situation. We, therefore, present ``maps” of RE lessons which would highlight weak (dark) and strong (bright) areas of RE (and hence RE theories). Such maps would thus be: (a) a driver for research to ``light up” the darker areas of RE and (b) a guide for practice to benefit from the brighter areas. To achieve this goal, we populated the maps with over 200 RE lessons elicited from literature and practice using a systematic literature review and survey. The results show that approximately 80\% of the elicited lessons are implicit and that approximately 70\% of the lessons deal with the elicitation, analysis, and specification RE phases only. The RE Lesson Maps, elicited lessons, and the results from populating the maps provide novel scientific groundings for lessons learnt in RE as this topic has not yet been systematically studied in the field

Linking Long-Term Product Planning and Requirements Prioritization to Customer Value Creation

Creating value for different customer segments is essential to the business of a company. Thus, software product development companies' ability to implement the most valuable requirements in their products has been seen as critical. The literature offers requirements prioritization methods for selecting requirements, but their suitability for solving practical challenges is not clear. The state of the practice in long-term product planning and requirements prioritization, and the practical challenges involved is not thoroughly analysed. Therefore, the connection between the selection of product features and customer value creation is also an area that needs more investigation. This thesis investigates the current state of long-term product planning and requirements prioritization, and their linkages to customer value creation in market-driven software product development. The results are based on the experience gathered from 7 Finnish software product development companies that had recognized the importance to improve their long-term product planning and requirements prioritization practices. To gain a deep understanding in real product development context, we conducted longitudinal case studies using an action research approach. In addition, we evaluated the suitability of requirements prioritization methods in product development projects. The thesis provides a systematic analysis of long-term product planning and requirements prioritization activities and challenges involved in the market-driven software product development companies. According to our results product planning activities are at a low-level, focusing on the individual features of individual products in short term. Practitioners have challenges in drawing different viewpoints together into product planning. Both integrating business and customer viewpoints to the project level as well as integrating the understanding about technical limitations and possibilities to product level planning was difficult in practice. The requirements prioritization methods did not solve the practical challenges. On the basis of our findings we also propose a set of practices that support the link from long-term product planning and requirements prioritization to customer value creation. The essence of the suggested practices is 1) in the shift of planning focus from individual product features towards understanding the processes of customers and users and in describing the solutions from the customer viewpoint as a whole and 2) in the cross-functional effort to be able to combine the three main viewpoints of customer value creation (company's own business, customers and users, and implementation).Arvon luominen eri asiakassegmenteille on elintärkeää yrityksen liiketoiminnalle. Ohjelmistotuoteyrityksen kyvykkyys toteuttaa tuotteisiinsa asiakkaiden näkökulmasta katsoen arvokkaimmat ominaisuudet onkin siksi nähty kriittisenä. Kirjallisuudessa esitellään erilaisia priorisointimenetelmiä tuoteominaisuuksien valintaan, mutta niiden soveltuvuudesta käytännön ohjelmistotyöhön ei juuri tiedetä. Myöskään pitkäntähtäimen suunnittelun ja vaatimusten priorisoinnin nykytilaa sekä niihin liittyviä käytännön haasteita ei ole syvällisesti analysoitu. Siksi yhteyttä ominaisuusvalintojen ja asiakasarvon luomisen välillä onkin tärkeää tutkia lisää. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, miten pitkäntähtäimen tuotesuunnittelu ja vaatimusten priorisointi tukevat arvon luontia asiakkaille ja käyttäjille markkinaohjautuvassa ohjelmistotuotekehityksessä. Tulokset perustuvat seitsemästä suomalaisesta ohjelmistotuoteyrityksestä kerättyihin kokemuksiin. Saadaksemme tuotesuunnittelusta ja ominaisuusvalintojen tekemisestä niin pitkällä kuin lyhyelläkin tähtäimellä syvällisen ymmärryksen, toteutimme pitkittäisiä tapaustutkimuksia käyttäen toimintatutkimuslähestymistapaa. Lisäksi kokeilimme vaatimusten priorisointimenetelmiä todellisessa tuotekehitysympäristössä. Tutkimus esittelee systemaattisen nykytila-analyysin ohjelmistoyritysten tuotesuunnittelun käytännöistä ja haasteista. Tulokset paljastavat, että ohjelmistotuotteita suunnitellaan pirstaleisesti, lyhyellä aikajänteellä ja yksittäisen tuotteen ominaisuuksiin kerralla keskittyen. Yritysten työntekijöillä on vaikeuksia käytännössä yhdistää arvonluonnin kannalta tärkeitä näkökulmia. Sekä liiketoiminta- ja asiakasnäkökulman tuominen tuotekehitysprojektien päätöksentekoon että toisaalta teknisten rajoitteiden ja mahdollisuuksien huomioiminen jo tuotesuunnittelun aiemmissa vaiheissa ovat erityisen haastavia. Tutkimuksen tuloksena syntyi käytäntöjä, joiden avulla asiakasarvon luomista voisi tukea tuotesuunnittelussa. Näiden käytäntöjen keskiössä ovat 1) suunnittelun fokuksen siirtäminen yksittäisistä tuoteominaisuuksista asiakkaan ja loppukäyttäjän prosessien ymmärtämiseen, sekä ratkaisujen kuvaaminen asiakkaan näkökulmasta kokonaisuuksina, sekä 2) yli organisaatiorajojen ulottuva työskentely, jonka avulla voidaan paremmin yhdistää kolme tärkeintä asiakasarvon luonnin näkökulmaa (yrityksen oma liiketoiminta, asiakkaat ja käyttäjät, sekä tuotteen toteuttaminen)

Supporting the grow-and-prune model for evolving software product lines

207 p.Software Product Lines (SPLs) aim at supporting the development of a whole family of software products through a systematic reuse of shared assets. To this end, SPL development is separated into two interrelated processes: (1) domain engineering (DE), where the scope and variability of the system is defined and reusable core-assets are developed; and (2) application engineering (AE), where products are derived by selecting core assets and resolving variability. Evolution in SPLs is considered to be more challenging than in traditional systems, as both core-assets and products need to co-evolve. The so-called grow-and-prune model has proven great flexibility to incrementally evolve an SPL by letting the products grow, and later prune the product functionalities deemed useful by refactoring and merging them back to the reusable SPL core-asset base. This Thesis aims at supporting the grow-and-prune model as for initiating and enacting the pruning. Initiating the pruning requires SPL engineers to conduct customization analysis, i.e. analyzing how products have changed the core-assets. Customization analysis aims at identifying interesting product customizations to be ported to the core-asset base. However, existing tools do not fulfill engineers needs to conduct this practice. To address this issue, this Thesis elaborates on the SPL engineers' needs when conducting customization analysis, and proposes a data-warehouse approach to help SPL engineers on the analysis. Once the interesting customizations have been identified, the pruning needs to be enacted. This means that product code needs to be ported to the core-asset realm, while products are upgraded with newer functionalities and bug-fixes available in newer core-asset releases. Herein, synchronizing both parties through sync paths is required. However, the state of-the-art tools are not tailored to SPL sync paths, and this hinders synchronizing core-assets and products. To address this issue, this Thesis proposes to leverage existing Version Control Systems (i.e. git/Github) to provide sync operations as first-class construct

Supporting the grow-and-prune model for evolving software product lines

207 p.Software Product Lines (SPLs) aim at supporting the development of a whole family of software products through a systematic reuse of shared assets. To this end, SPL development is separated into two interrelated processes: (1) domain engineering (DE), where the scope and variability of the system is defined and reusable core-assets are developed; and (2) application engineering (AE), where products are derived by selecting core assets and resolving variability. Evolution in SPLs is considered to be more challenging than in traditional systems, as both core-assets and products need to co-evolve. The so-called grow-and-prune model has proven great flexibility to incrementally evolve an SPL by letting the products grow, and later prune the product functionalities deemed useful by refactoring and merging them back to the reusable SPL core-asset base. This Thesis aims at supporting the grow-and-prune model as for initiating and enacting the pruning. Initiating the pruning requires SPL engineers to conduct customization analysis, i.e. analyzing how products have changed the core-assets. Customization analysis aims at identifying interesting product customizations to be ported to the core-asset base. However, existing tools do not fulfill engineers needs to conduct this practice. To address this issue, this Thesis elaborates on the SPL engineers' needs when conducting customization analysis, and proposes a data-warehouse approach to help SPL engineers on the analysis. Once the interesting customizations have been identified, the pruning needs to be enacted. This means that product code needs to be ported to the core-asset realm, while products are upgraded with newer functionalities and bug-fixes available in newer core-asset releases. Herein, synchronizing both parties through sync paths is required. However, the state of-the-art tools are not tailored to SPL sync paths, and this hinders synchronizing core-assets and products. To address this issue, this Thesis proposes to leverage existing Version Control Systems (i.e. git/Github) to provide sync operations as first-class construct

Evolution, testing and configuration of variability intensive systems

Tesis descargada desde ResearchGateOne of the key characteristics of software is its ability to be adapted and configured to different scenarios. Recently, software variability has been studied as a first-class concept in different domains ranging from software product lines to pervasive systems. Variability is the ability of a software product to vary depending on different circumstances. Variability intensive systems are those software products where variability management is a core engineering activity. The varying parts of those systems are commonly modeled by us- ing different variability model flavors, being feature modeling one of the most common ones. Feature models were first introduced by Kang et al. back in 1990 and are a compact representation of a set of configurations in a variability intensive system. The large number of configurations that a feature model can encode makes the manual analysis of feature models an error prone and costly task. Then, computer-aided mechanisms appeared as a solution to extract useful information from feature models. This process of extracting information from feature models is known as ¿Automated Analysis of Feature models¿ that has been one of the main areas of research in the last years where more than thirty analysis operations have been proposed.Premio Extraordinario de Doctorado U

Arcabouço de arquitetura da informação para ciclo de vida de projeto de vocabulário controlado : uma aplicação em Engenharia de Software

Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Ciência da Informação, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Informação, 2017.A pesquisa que resultou nesta tese investigou processos de desenvolvimento e de avaliação de vocabulários controlados. Esta tese inclui os seguintes elementos: resultado de pesquisa bibliográfica sobre arquitetura da informação, recuperação da informação, organização da informação e representação da informação; proposta de arcabouço para ciclo de vida de projeto de vocabulário controlado; e exemplo de uso de elementos desse arcabouço na construção de um protótipo de vocabulário controlado no domínio da Engenharia de Software. O arcabouço proposto é composto por arquitetura de referência, modelo de domínio, modelo de qualidade e lista de atividades. Entre os elementos do modelo de qualidade proposto, existe uma lista de características de qualidade de vocabulários controlados. Os modelos propostos estão parcialmente alinhados a ferramentas semânticas existentes.The research that resulted in this thesis has investigated development and evaluation processes of controlled vocabularies. This thesis includes the following elements: results of a bibliographic research on information architecture, information recovery, information organization and information representation; proposal of a framework for controlled vocabulary project life cycle; and example of use of this framework during the construction of a prototype of a controlled vocabulary on the Software Engineering domain. The proposed framework is composed of reference architecture, domain model, quality model and list of activities. Among the elements of the proposed quality model, there is a list of controlled vocabulary quality characteristics. The proposed models are partially aligned to existing semantic tools