A Hybrid Method for E-Process Selection

A number of e-Processes (i.e. software processes for developing e-Commerce information systems) are available in industry. It is difficult to select the best suited e-Process for a case at hand. At the same time this selection is important because functionality and quality of any system under development will depend on the instantiated software process. The knowledge required for the selection task cannot be easily realized. That task can be considered as an instance of multi attribute decision making and several of the attributes to consider are likely to conflict with each other. An efficient and effective approach is needed to selecting software processes for developing e-commerce systems. In this paper we propose such an approach. It is hybrid as it rests on case-based reasoning, multi attribute decision making, and social choice methods. To demonstrate how our approach works we briefly discuss a case study

Conceptual Design Model of Computerized Personal-Decision AID (ComPDA)

To date, the attentions given to the improvement of decision support at organizational level has been enormous. On the contrary, academic research in improving the performance of computerized decision aid (CDA) for personal decision is lacking, in which some are dated. Nowadays, the existence of CDA which handles personal decision is mushrooming and progressively getting attention from users. Despite that, users’ perceptions of the suitable decision strategy and technique for CDA have not been subjected to systematic investigation. Literature reviews also indicate that most users do not go for complex mathematical techniques despite the fact that these techniques are better at handling the risks and uncertainties in decisions. In fact, more often than not, the development process of CDAs does not seem to adhere to any conceptual and theoretical model. In view of that, this study aims to propose a conceptual design model for computerized personal-decision aid (ComPDA). The following objectives are outlined to support the general aim: (i) to identify appropriate decision strategy and technique for ComPDA, (ii) to incorporate identified strategy and technique in the construction of conceptual design model for ComPDA (iii) to validate the conceptual design model in different situations via prototyping method and (iv) to measure the users’ perceived helpfulness of the ComPDA prototypes. Participatory design method was implemented in order to achieve objective i and ii. The findings were incorporated into the construction of the conceptual design model of ComPDA. In achieving objective iii, the conceptual design model was validated in two different case studies via prototyping: A- choosing development methodology in mobile computing course (md-Matrix); and B- purchasing a mobile phone (ep-Matrix). In achieving objective iv, an instrument (named as Q-HELP) was developed to measure the helpfulness (HLP) of the prototypes. This study identified four relevant constructs pertinent to helpfulness; reliability (REL), decision making effort (EFF), confidence (CON), and decision awareness (AWR). Altogether, 122 respondents participated where 63 were from case study A and 59 from case study B. Eight hypotheses were formulated comprising testing for correlation between all the constructs in Q-HELP with helpfulness, testing the average time spent to make a selection with and without the proposed ComPDA and testing if the mean score of helpfulness of the proposed ComPDA is high. Paired Samples t Test, Pearson Correlation analyses and descriptive analyses were utilized to validate the hypotheses. The results show that: REL and HLP are significantly correlated, EFF and HLP are significantly correlated, CON and HLP are significantly correlated, AWR and HLP are significantly correlated, the use of md-Matrix and ep-Matrix significantly reduces the time spent to make selection, mean score of helpfulness of md-Matrix is fairly high and mean score of helpfulness of ep-Matrix is high. However, it is concluded that the overall results exhibit sufficient indication that md-Matrix and ep-Matrix were found helpful to users in terms of reliability, lessening the decision making effort, increasing confidence and also awareness in decision making. This study has produced the following outcomes, along with achieving all of its objectives: (i) a conceptual design model for ComPDA which incorporates suitable decision strategies and techniques identified via systematic investigations; (ii) two functional ComPDA prototypes to validate the conceptual design model and to demonstrate its applicability in different situations, (iii) an instrument for measuring helpfulness which includes dimensions from outcome and process aspects; and (iv) comparative analyses of decision models, strategies and techniques which provide basis for future studies.

e-Process selection using decision making methods : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The key objective of this research is to develop a selection methodology that can be used to support and aid the selection of development processes for e-Commerce Information Systems (eCIS) effectively using various decision methods. The selection methodology supports developers in their choice of an e-Commerce Information System Development Process (e-Process) by providing them with a few different decision making methods for choosing between defined e-Processes using a set of quality aspects to compare and evaluate the different options. The methodology also provides historical data of previous selections that can be used to further support their specific choice. The research was initiated by the fast growing Information Technology environment, where e-Commerce Information Systems is a relatively new development area and developers of these systems may be using new development methods and have difficulty deciding on the best suited process to use when developing new eCIS. These developers also need documentary support for their choices and this research helps them with these decision-making processes. The e-Process Selection Methodology allows for the comparison of existing development processes as well as the comparison of processes as defined by the developers. Four different decision making methods, the Value-Benefit Method (Weighted Scoring), the Analytical Hierarchy Process, Case-Based Reasoning and a Social Choice method are used to solve the problem of selecting among e-Commerce Development Methodologies. The Value-Benefit Method, when applied to the selection of an e-Process from a set of e-Processes, uses multiple quality aspects. Values are assigned to each aspect for each of the e-Processes by experts. The importance of each of the aspects, to the eCIS, is defined in terms of weights. The selected e-Process is the one with the highest score when the values and weights are multiplied and then summed. The Analytic Hierarchy Process is used to quantify a selection of quality aspects and then these are used to evaluate alternative e-Processes and thus determining the best matching solution to the problem. This process provides for the ranking and determining of the relative worth of each of the quality aspects. Case-Based Reasoning requires the capturing of the resulting knowledge of previous cases, in a knowledge base, in order to make a decision. The case database is built in such a way that the concrete factual knowledge of previous individual cases that were solved previously is stored and can be used in the decision process. Case-based reasoning is used to determine the best choices. This allows the user to either use the selection methodology or the case base database to resolve their problems or both. Social Choice Methods are based on voting processes. Individuals vote for their preferences from a set of e-Processes. The results are aggregated to obtain a final result that indicates which e-Process is the preferred one. The e-Process Selection Methodology is demonstrated and validated by the development of a prototype tool. This tool can be used to select the most suitable solution for a case at hand. The thesis includes the factors that motivated the research and the process that was followed. The e-Process Selection Methodology is summarised as well as the strengths and weaknesses discussed. The contribution to knowledge is explained and future developments are proposed. To conclude, the lessons learnt and reinforced are considered

Monitoring oriented agile based web applications development methodology for small software firms in Jordan

Small software firms (SSF) is vital to the software industry in many countries as they provide substantial growth to their economy. In Jordan, most software companies that are involved with developing Web applications are small firms. However, the extent of applying best Web applications development and management practices in these firms is limited. Besides, the existing software development methods are still lack of monitoring the quality of process and product. As a result, the Web application being developed exceeds deadlines and budget, and not meeting user requirements. Therefore, this research aims to construct a new methodology referred as Monitoring Oriented Agile Based Web Applications Development (MOGWD) Methodology for SSF. This study introduced an Extended Agile Method by extending the Scrum method with Extreme Programming (XP) elements. The Extended Agile Method was improved by combining common steps of Web design method and incorporating the Goal Oriented Monitoring Method (GOMM). The GOMM has defined twenty goals. Each goal has one or more questions. The questions are answered through the defined metrics. There are 101 qualitative metrics for monitoring the process quality, and 37 quantitative metrics for monitoring the process and product quality. Moreover, the proposed MOGWD methodology defines four phases: Plan, Do, Check and Act. The MOGWD methodology was evaluated using expert review and case study. The evaluation results show that the MOGWD methodology has gained SSF practitioners’ satisfaction and found to be practical for the real environment. This study contributes to the field of Agile based development and Web applications measurement. It also provides SSF practitioners a development methodology that monitors the quality of the process and product for Web development

SPQmm : a software product quality maturity model using ISO/IEEE standards, metrology, and sigma concepts

In the software engineering literature, there are numerous maturity models for assessing and evaluating a set of software processes. By contrast, there is no corresponding maturity model for assessing the quality of a software product. The design of such a model to assess the quality of a software product therefore represents a new research challenge in software engineering. Our main goal is to make available to industry (and consumers) a maturity model for assessing and improving the quality of the software product. This Software Product Quality Maturity Model (SPQMM) consists of three quality maturity submodels (viewpoints) that can be used not only once the software product has been delivered, but also throughout the life-cycle: • Software Product Internal Quality Maturity Model- SPIQMM, • Software Product External Quality Maturity Model - SPEQMM, and • Software Product Quality-in-Use Maturity Model- SPQiUMM In this thesis, we introduce the Software Product Quality Maturity Model (SPQMM), which could be used from three different viewpoints: the software product internal quality, the software product external quality, and the software product quality in-use. This quality maturity model is a quantitative model, and it based on the ISO 9126(software product quality measures), ISO 15026 (software integrity levels), IEEE Std. 1012 (software verification and validation) and on six-sigma concepts. To build such a quality maturity model, we have combined the set of quality measures into a single number for each quality characteristic by assuming that all the measures for a single quality characteristic have an equal weight in the computation of a single value for that quality characteristic (they all make an equal contribution), yielding a quality level for that quality characteristic. The resulting quality level is then transformed based on the software integrity level into a sigma value positioned within a quality maturity level

Metrics-based evaluation of object-oriented software development methods

The efficiency of software development (i.e. to produce good software products based on an efficient software process) must be controlled by a quantification of the software development methodologies. The description of object-oriented (OO) methods or comparisons of some of these methods are usually given by a listing of their features. These presentations describe the functionality of a particular development method, but often fail to address quality issues like efficiency, maintainability, portability, maturity etc. The quantification by means of software measurement needs a unified strategy, methodology or approach as one important prerequisite to guarantee the goals of quality assurance, improvement and controlled software management to be achieved. Nowadays, plenty of methods such as measurement frameworks, maturity models, goal-directed paradigms, process languages etc. exist to support this idea. This paper describes an object-oriented approach of a software measurement framework aimed at evaluating OO development methods themselves. It reasons the applicability of metrics-based evaluation as indicator for the quality assurance of the OO development process. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RR 4485(1997,10) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman