Refactoring software development process terminology through the use of ontology

In work that is ongoing, the authors are examining the extent of software development process terminology drift. Initial findings suggest there is a degree of term confusion, with the mapping of concepts to terms lacking precision in some instances. Ontologies are concerned with identifying the concepts of relevance to a field of endeavour and mapping those concepts to terms such that term confusion is reduced. In this paper, we discuss how ontologies are developed. We also identify various sources of software process terminology. Our work to date indicates that the systematic development of a software development process ontology would be of benefit to the entire software development community. The development of such an ontology would in effect represent a systematic refactoring of the terminology and concepts produced over four decades of software process innovation

Refactoring software development process terminology through the use of ontology

peer-reviewedIn work that is ongoing, the authors are examining the extent of software development process terminology drift. Initial findings suggest there is a degree of term confusion, with the mapping of concepts to terms lacking precision in some instances. Ontologies are concerned with identifying the concepts of relevance to a field of endeavour and mapping those concepts to terms such that term confusion is reduced. In this paper, we discuss how ontologies are developed. We also identify various sources of software process terminology. Our work to date indicates that the systematic development of a software development process ontology would be of benefit to the entire software development community. The development of such an ontology would in effect represent a systematic refactoring of the terminology and concepts produced over four decades of software process innovation

Using Simulation to Aid Decision Making in Managing the Usability Evaluation Process

Context: This paper is developed in the context of Usability Engineering. More specifically, it focuses on the use of modelling and simulation to help decision-making in the scope of usability evaluation. Objective: The main goal of this paper is to present UESim: a System Dynamics simulation model to help decision-making in the make-up of the usability evaluation team during the process of usability evaluation. Method: To develop this research we followed four main research phases: a) study identification, b) study development, c) running and observation and finally, d) reflexion. In relation with these phases the paper describes the literature revision, the model building and validation, the model simulation and its results and finally the reflexion on it. Results: We developed and validated a model to simulate the usability evaluation process. Through three different simulations we analysed the effects of different compositions of the evaluation team on the outcome of the evaluation. The simulation results show the utility of the model in the decision making of the usability evaluation process by changing the number and expertise of evaluators employed. Conclusion: One of the main advantages of using such a simulation model is that it allows developers to observe the evolution of the key indicators of the evaluation process over time. UESim represents a customisable tool to help decision-making in the management of the usability evaluation process, since it makes it possible to analyse how the key process indicators are affected by the main management options of the Usability Evaluation Process

Using a coach to improve team performance when the team uses a Kanban process methodology

Teams are increasing their use of the Kanban process methodology across a range of information system projects, including software development and data science projects. While the use of Kanban is growing, little has been done to explore how to improve team performance for teams that use Kanban. One possibility is to introduce a Kanban Coach (KC). This work reports on exploring the use of a Kanban Coach, with respect to both how the coach could interact with the team as well as how the use of a coach impacts team results. Specifically, this paper reports on an experiment where teams either had, or did not have, a Kanban Coach. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data collected during the experiment found that introducing KC led to significant improvement of team performance. Coordination Theory and Shared Mental Models were then employed to provide an explanation as to why a KC leads to better project results. While this experiment was done within a data science project context, the results are likely applicable across a range of information system projects

Using a coach to improve team performance when the team uses a Kanban process methodology

Teams are increasing their use of the Kanban process methodology across a range of information system projects, including software development and data science projects. While the use of Kanban is growing, little has been done to explore how to improve team performance for teams that use Kanban. One possibility is to introduce a Kanban Coach (KC). This work reports on exploring the use of a Kanban Coach, with respect to both how the coach could interact with the team as well as how the use of a coach impacts team results. Specifically, this paper reports on an experiment where teams either had, or did not have, a Kanban Coach. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data collected during the experiment found that introducing KC led to significant improvement of team performance. Coordination Theory and Shared Mental Models were then employed to provide an explanation as to why a KC leads to better project results. While this experiment was done within a data science project context, the results are likely applicable across a range of information system projects

Promoting Bright Patterns

User experience designers are facing increasing scrutiny and criticism for creating harmful technologies, leading to a pushback against unethical design practices. While clear-cut harmful practices such as dark patterns have received attention, trends towards automation, personalization, and recommendation present more ambiguous ethical challenges. To address potential harm in these "gray" instances, we propose the concept of "bright patterns" - persuasive design solutions that prioritize user goals and well-being over their desires and business objectives. The ambition of this paper is threefold: to define the term "bright patterns", to provide examples of such patterns, and to advocate for the adoption of bright patterns through policymaking.Comment: For associated website, see https://brightpatterns.org/. Published to the CHI '23 Workshop: Designing Technology and Policy Simultaneousl

Challenges and Success Factors for Metrics in Large-Scale Agile Development

Contemporary organizations widely use agile software development to react to unpredictable changes in their business environment. Due to the success of agile methods in contexts similar to the agile sweet spot, organizations have been applying them on a larger scale. However, maintaining oversight in large-scale agile development remains a problem. Metrics can tackle this problem by increasing transparency, but organizations have struggled with their adoption. Furthermore, extant research on large-scale agile development lacks publications investigating metric challenges and success factors. Against this backdrop, we conducted an expert interview study with 23 experts from 13 organizations. The most mentioned challenges are data collection challenges, lack of metric usefulness, and metric calculation challenges. On the other hand, the most occurring success factors are context-dependent metric adoption, implementing an agile metric management process, and ensuring understanding of the metric purpose

A Risk Management Approach for Software Product Line Engineering

Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering is a software development paradigm that fosters systematic reuse. It is focused on improving software practices, leading companies to experience benefits, such as reduced time-to-market and effort, and higher quality for the products delivered to customers. However, establishing a SPL is neither a simple nor a cheap task, and may affect several aspects of a software company. Besides, it involves a range of risks that may hinder project success. These have to be managed accordingly, so as to minimize the likelihood of project failure. Despite the importance of Risk Management (RM) for SPL Engineering, little has been published in terms of suitable and structured practices to cope with that. This present paper reports an approach for RM in SPL Engineering, named RiPLERM (Rise Product Line Engineering – Risk Management). The approach presents activities to structure RM in SPL projects, The design of the RiPLE-RM approach elaborated on results from empirical investigations, and was proposed to facilitate the management and provide significant insights that can be used to avoid and solve risks

Software Engineering Applications enabled by Blockchain Technology: A Systematic Mapping Study

The novel, yet disruptive blockchain technology has witnessed growing attention, due to its intrinsic potential. Besides the conventional domains that benefit from such potential, such as finance, supply chain and healthcare, blockchain use cases in software engineering have emerged recently. In this study, we aim to contribute to the body of knowledge of blockchain-oriented software engineering by providing an adequate overview of the software engineering applications enabled by blockchain technology. To do so, we carried out a systematic mapping study and identified 22 primary studies. Then, we extracted data within the research type, research topic and contribution type facets. Findings suggest an increasing trend of studies since 2018. Additionally, findings reveal the potential of using blockchain technologies as an alternative to centralized systems, such as GitHub, Travis CI, and cloud-based package managers, and also to establish trust between parties in collaborative software development. We also found out that smart contracts can enable the automation of a variety of software engineering activities that usually require human reasoning, such as the acceptance phase, payments to software engineers, and compliance adherence. In spite of the fact that the field is not yet mature, we believe that this systematic mapping study provides a holistic overview that may benefit researchers interested in bringing blockchain to the software industry, and practitioners willing to understand how blockchain can transform the software development industry.publishedVersio