Software industry experiments: a systematic literature review

There is no specialized survey of experiments conducted in the software industry. Goal: Identify the major features of software industry experiments, such as time distribution, independent and dependent variables, subject types, design types and challenges. Method: Systematic literature review, taking the form of a scoping study. Results: We have identified 10 experiments and five quasi-experiments up to July 2012. Most were run as of 2003. The main features of these studies are that they test technologies related to quality and management and analyse outcomes related to effectiveness and effort. Most experiments have a factorial design. The major challenges faced by experimenters are to minimize the cost of running the experiment for the company and to schedule the experiment so as not to interfere with production processes

Do Pair Programming Approaches Transcend Coding? Measuring Agile Attitudes in Diverse Information Systems Courses

Agile methods and approaches such as eXtreme programming (XP) have become the norm for successful organizations not only in the software industry but also for businesses seeking to improve internal software processes. Pair programming in some form is touted as a major functionality and productivity improvement. However, numerous studies show that simply placing two programmers side by side in front of a single computer screen is not enough. We must look at other factors such as programmer expertise, project preparation, and perceived solution quality to understand pair programming’s promises and pitfalls. In our study, we apply tailored programming challenges to a multifaceted group of first-year through senior Information Systems (IS) and non-IS majors to analyze how participant attitudes and perceived benefits of pair programming change from pre- to post-study, as well as determine whether the quality and functionality of the solutions differ across education levels and disciplines. Our findings show a strong interaction effect of gender and major composition (CIS vs. non-CIS majors) in all four dimensions of the ATMI attitude scale. Findings also suggest that experience in problem solving and solution formation are more important than prior specific domain knowledge. Finally, participants’ perceived ability, sense of accomplishment, and completion of the assigned work, regardless of background or demographic, determined their performance outcome on the pair-programming tasks, which suggests that not all forms of attitude and perceived benefits contribute to the performance outcome

Pair programming teams and high-quality knowledge sharing: A comparative study of coopetitive reward structures

© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York. There has been a growing research interest in understanding knowledge sharing in agile development. Yet, empirical research that sheds light on its underlying practices, such as pair programming, is evolving. This study uses insights from coopetition and software literature to focus inquiry on the relation between coopetitive rewards and high-quality knowledge sharing in pair programming teams. Theoretical hypotheses are developed and validated, suggesting that: ‘coopetitive rewards influence high-quality knowledge sharing both directly and over time through their impact on the level of knowledge sharing satisfaction’, and, ‘the impact of coopetitive rewards on high-quality knowledge sharing is dependent upon task complexity and the history of working under similar reward structure’. This study generates new understanding related to the use of rewards in pair programming teams, and offers a rigorous and replicable seven-step experimental process for simulating coopetitive structures and investigating their role in pair programming and in similar collaborative contexts

An exploratory study on current software development practices in Malaysia focusing on agile based software development

Agile based software development has gained much interest among practitioners and researchers due its ability to produce high quality software in a shorter time of period. Even though its importance has been revealed, nevertheless, only few studies were conducted regarding its current practices in Malaysian software industry.Thus, a survey was conducted to study the practices and perception on the agile based software development in real-world projects.This paper discusses on the findings from the study.Structured questionnaire was used for data collection purpose.For data analysis, simple statistical methods were used which are frequency and cross tabulation. Outcome from this study reveals that agile based software development practices are important to produce high quality software. Thus, it prolonged to the needs of incorporating agile based software development practices as the reference standard in the process based software certification model which will be proposed

A process based approach software certification model for agile and secure environment

In today’s business environment, Agile and secure software processes are essential since they bring high quality and secured software to market faster and more cost effectively. Unfortunately, some software practitioners are not following the proper practices of both processes when developing software. There exist various studies which assess the quality of software process; nevertheless, their focus is on the conventional software process. Furthermore, they do not consider weight values in the assessment although each evaluation criterion might have different importance. Consequently, software certification is needed to give conformance on the quality of Agile and secure software processes. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to propose Extended Software Process Assessment and Certification Model (ESPAC) which addresses both software processes and considers the weight values during the assessment. The study is conducted in four phases: 1) theoretical study to examine the factors and practices that influence the quality of Agile and secure software processes and weight value allocation techniques, 2) an exploratory study which was participated by 114 software practitioners to investigate their current practices, 3) development of an enhanced software process certification model which considers process, people, technology, project constraint and environment, provides certification guideline and utilizes the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for weight values allocation and 4) verification of Agile and secure software processes and AHP through expert reviews followed by validation on satisfaction and practicality of the proposed model through focus group discussion. The validation result shows that ESPAC Model gained software practitioners’ satisfaction and practical to be executed in the real environment. The contributions of this study straddle research perspectives of Software Process Assessment and Certification and Multiple Criteria Decision Making, and practical perspectives by providing software practitioners and assessors a mechanism to reveal the quality of software process and helps investors and customers in making investment decisions

Quality definitions and measurements in software engineering experiments on pair programming

Oppgaven analyserer 15 forskningsartikler og presenterer en oversikt over hvordan kvalitet er definert og målt i disse artiklene. Alle artiklene omhandler par programmering. Stikkord: Par programmering, programvareutvikling, kvalitetsdefinisjon, kvalitetsmål, produktkvalitetesmål, prosesskvalitetsmål, subjektive og objektive mål

Revisión sistemática de la calidad del software en prácticas ágiles

El desarrollo de software ágil representa un alejamiento importante de los enfoques tradicionales basados en una detallada planificación. Una pregunta fundamental para la mayoría de las organizaciones es saber cuáles prácticas ágiles ayudan, en menor o mayor grado, a mejorar la calidad del producto software. En este trabajo se muestra el resultado de una revisión sistemática de la literatura que intenta presentar los resultados de estudios empíricos relativos a la evaluación de la calidad en prácticas ágiles publicadas hasta el año 2014. Los estudios encontrados se analizaron siguiendo los requerimientos de calidad definidos en estándares como el ISO/IEC 25010, se catalogaron en cinco grupos: programación en pares, desarrollos guiados por pruebas, extreme programming, scrum y otras prácticas ágiles; finalmente los hallazgos se compararon e interpretaron. Los resultados de la mayoría de los estudios sugieren que las prácticas ágiles pueden ayudar a mejorar la calidad del producto si son aplicadas correctamente. Los hallazgos significativos de este estudio pueden ser usados como directrices para los interesados en sus propios escenarios.Tesi