Collaborative traceability management: a multiple case study from the perspectives of organization, process, and culture

Traceability is crucial for many activities in software and systems engineering including monitoring the development progress, and proving compliance with standards. In practice, the use and maintenance of trace links are challenging as artifacts undergo constant change, and development takes place in distributed scenarios with multiple collaborating stakeholders. Although traceability management in general has been addressed in previous studies, there is a need for empirical insights into the collaborative aspects of traceability management and how it is situated in existing development contexts. The study reported in this paper aims to close this gap by investigating the relation of collaboration and traceability management, based on an understanding of characteristics of the development effort. In our multiple exploratory case study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 individuals from 15 industrial projects. We explored which challenges arise, how traceability management can support collaboration, how collaboration relates to traceability management approaches, and what characteristics of the development effort influence traceability management and collaboration. We found that practitioners struggle with the following challenges: (1) collaboration across team and tool boundaries, (2) conveying the benefits of traceability, and (3) traceability maintenance. If these challenges are addressed, we found that traceability can facilitate communication and knowledge management in distributed contexts. Moreover, there exist multiple approaches to traceability management with diverse collaboration approaches, i.e., requirements-centered, developer-driven, and mixed approaches. While traceability can be leveraged in software development with both agile and plan-driven paradigms, a certain level of rigor is needed to realize its benefits and overcome challenges. To support practitioners, we provide principles of collaborative traceability management. The main contribution of this paper is empirical evidence of how culture, processes, and organization impact traceability management and collaboration, and principles to support practitioners with collaborative traceability management. We show that collaboration and traceability management have the potential to be mutually beneficial—when investing in one, also the other one is positively affected

Collaborative traceability management: a multiple case study from the perspectives of organization, process, and culture

Traceability is crucial for many activities in software and systems engineering including monitoring the development progress, and proving compliance with standards. In practice, the use and maintenance of trace links are challenging as artifacts undergo constant change, and development takes place in distributed scenarios with multiple collaborating stakeholders. Although traceability management in general has been addressed in previous studies, there is a need for empirical insights into the collaborative aspects of traceability management and how it is situated in existing development contexts. The study reported in this paper aims to close this gap by investigating the relation of collaboration and traceability management, based on an understanding of characteristics of the development effort. In our multiple exploratory case study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 individuals from 15 industrial projects. We explored which challenges arise, how traceability management can support collaboration, how collaboration relates to traceability management approaches, and what characteristics of the development effort influence traceability management and collaboration. We found that practitioners struggle with the following challenges: (1) collaboration across team and tool boundaries, (2) conveying the benefits of traceability, and (3) traceability maintenance. If these challenges are addressed, we found that traceability can facilitate communication and knowledge management in distributed contexts. Moreover, there exist multiple approaches to traceability management with diverse collaboration approaches, i.e., requirements-centered, developer-driven, and mixed approaches. While traceability can be leveraged in software development with both agile and plan-driven paradigms, a certain level of rigor is needed to realize its benefits and overcome challenges. To support practitioners, we provide principles of collaborative traceability management. The main contribution of this paper is empirical evidence of how culture, processes, and organization impact traceability management and collaboration, and principles to support practitioners with collaborative traceability management. We show that collaboration and traceability management have the potential to be mutually beneficial—when investing in one, also the other one is positively affected

A Case Study on Tool Support for Collaboration in Agile Development

We report on a longitudinal case study conducted at the Italian site of a large software company to further our understanding of how development and communication tools can be improved to better support agile practices and collaboration. After observing inconsistencies in the way communication tools (i.e., email, Skype, and Slack) were used, we first reinforced the use of Slack as the central hub for internal communication, while setting clear rules regarding tools usage. As a second main change, we refactored the Jira Scrum board into two separate boards, a detailed one for developers and a high-level one for managers, while also introducing automation rules and the integration with Slack. The first change revealed that the teams of developers used and appreciated Slack differently with the QA team being the most favorable and that the use of channels is hindered by automatic notifications from development tools (e.g., Jenkins). The findings from the second change show that 85\% of the interviewees reported perceived improvements in their workflow. Despite the limitations due to the single nature of the reported case, we highlight the importance for companies to reflect on how to properly set up their agile work environment to improve communication and facilitate collaboration.Comment: 12 page

An agile information flow consolidator for delivery of quality software projects: technological perspective from a South African start-up

In today’s knowledge-based economy, modern organisations understand the importance of technology in their quest to be considered global leaders. South African markets like others worldwide are regularly flooded with the latest technology trends which can complicate the acquisition, use, management and maintenance of software. To achieve a competitive edge, companies tend to leverage agile methods with the best possible combination of innovative supporting tools as a key differentiator. Software technology firms are in this light faced with determining how to leverage technology and efficient development processes for them to consistently deliver quality software projects and solutions to their customer base. Previous studies have discussed the importance of software development processes from a project management perspective. African academia has immensely contributed in terms of software development and project management research which has focused on modern frameworks, methodologies as well as project management techniques. While the current research continues with this tradition by presenting the pertinence of modern agile methodologies, it additionally further describes modern agile development processes tailored in a sub-Saharan context. The study also aims novelty by showing how innovative sometimes disruptive technology tools can contribute to producing African software solutions to African problems. To this end, the thesis contains an experimental case study where a web portal is prototyped to assist firms with the management of agile project management and engineering related activities. Literature review, semi-structure interviews as well as direct observations from the industry use case are used as data sources. Underpinned by an Activity Theory analytical framework, the qualitative data is analysed by leveraging content and thematic oriented techniques. This study aims to contribute to software engineering as well as the information systems body of knowledge in general. The research hence ambitions to propose a practical framework to promote the delivery of quality software projects and products. For this thesis, such a framework was designed around an information system which helps organizations better manage agile project management and engineering related activities.Information SciencePh. D. (Information Systems

Develop a generic Rules Engine to quality control a CV database

This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet.This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet

Develop a generic Rules Engine to quality control a CV database

This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet.This bachelor’s thesis presents a software solution to enhance Bouvet’s quality control process for employee CVs. By implementing a generic rule engine with extended functionalities, we identified that 90% of the CVs at Bouvet did not meet the company’s business standards. Using Scrum with Extreme Programming as our project management system, we developed a scalable and maintainable pilot, employing Microservices, Event-Driven, and Command and Query Responsibility Segregation architecture. Our pilot allows for future modifications using create, read, update and delete operations. The software solution presented in this thesis can be extended to a production-ready state by implementing an Role-based access control and an API-Gateway. When the event bus project by another group at Bouvet is completed, our implementation will be able to notify employees about their CVs’ status, further improving the quality control process. Overall, our results demonstrate the our software solution and project management system in enhancing the quality control of employee CVs at Bouvet