Software Process Evaluation from User Perceptions and Log Data

Companies often claim to follow specific software development methodologies (SDM) when performing their software development process. These methodologies are often supported by dedicated tools that keep track of work activities carried out by developers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a novel approach that integrates analytical insights from both the perceptions of SDM stakeholders and software development tools logs to provide SDM improvement recommendations. This paper develops a new process improvement approach that combines two significantly different sources of data on the same phenomenon. First, it uses a questionnaire to gather software development stakeholder SDM perceptions (managers and developers). Second, it leverages process mining to analyze software development tools logs to obtain additional information on software development activities. Finally, it develops recommendations based on concurrent analysis of both sources. Our novel process improvement approach is evaluated in three directions: Does the presented approach (RQ1) enable managers to gain additional insights into employees' performance, (RQ2) deliver additional insights into project performance, and (RQ3) enable development of additional SDM improvement recommendations? We find that integrated analysis of software development perception data and software development tools logs opens new possibilities to more precisely identify and improve specific SDM elements. The evaluation of our novel process improvement approach follows a single case study design. Our approach can only be used in enterprises in which software development tools logs are available. The study should be repeated in different cultural settings. We practically show how concurrently analyzing data about developer SDM perceptions and event log data from software development tools enables management to gain additional insights in the software development process regarding the performance of individual developers. The main theoretical contribution of our paper is a novel process improvement approach that effectively integrates data from management and developer perspectives and software development tools logs.Einstein Foundation Berlin http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100006188Peer Reviewe

The use of incentives to promote Technical Debt management

When developing software, it is vitally important to keep the level of technical debt down since it is well established from several studies that technical debt can, e.g., lower the development productivity, decrease the developers' morale, and compromise the overall quality of the software. However, even if researchers and practitioners working in today's software development industry are quite familiar with the concept of technical debt and its related negative consequences, there has been no empirical research focusing specifically on how software managers actively communicate and manage the need to keep the level of technical debt as low as possible

Process mining and digital transformation of organizations: A literature review

It is unquestionable that digital transformation impacts directly on organizations and the way they do business. With the emergence of Business Intelligence techniques, such as Process Mining, it was generated an expectation that the use of these techniques could allow organizations to obtain competitive advantages and optimize their results. The soaring availability and volume of event logs volume suggests that Process Mining will increasingly assume an important part in the organizations developments. The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze, through a literature review, the role of Process Mining on the digital transformation process of organizations

Applying Process Mining Algorithms in the Context of Data Collection Scenarios

Despite the technological progress, paper-based questionnaires are still widely used to collect data in many application domains like education, healthcare or psychology. To facilitate the enormous amount of work involved in collecting, evaluating and analyzing this data, a system enabling process-driven data collection was developed. Based on generic tools, a process-driven approach for creating, processing and analyzing questionnaires was realized, in which a questionnaire is defined in terms of a process model. Due to this characteristic, process mining algorithms may be applied to event logs created during the execution of questionnaires. Moreover, new data that might not have been used in the context of questionnaires before may be collected and analyzed to provide new insights in regard to both the participant and the questionnaire. This thesis shows that process mining algorithms may be applied successfully to process-oriented questionnaires. Algorithms from the three process mining forms of process discovery, conformance checking and enhancement are applied and used for various analysis. The analysis of certain properties of discovered process models leads to new ways of generating information from questionnaires. Different techniques for conformance checking and their applicability in the context of questionnaires are evaluated. Furthermore, new data that cannot be collected from paper-based questionnaires is used to enhance questionnaires to reveal new and meaningful relationships

Technical Debt: An empirical investigation of its harmfulness and on management strategies in industry

Background: In order to survive in today\u27s fast-growing and ever fast-changing business environment, software companies need to continuously deliver customer value, both from a short- and long-term perspective. However, the consequences of potential long-term and far-reaching negative effects of shortcuts and quick fixes made during the software development lifecycle, described as Technical Debt (TD), can impede the software development process.Objective: The overarching goal of this Ph.D. thesis is twofold. The first goal is to empirically study and understand in what way and to what extent, TD influences today’s software development work, specifically with the intention to provide more quantitative insight into the field. Second, to understand which different initiatives can reduce the negative effects of TD and also which factors are important to consider when implementing such initiatives.Method: To achieve the objectives, a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are used, including interviews, surveys, a systematic literature review, a longitudinal study, analysis of documents, correlation analysis, and statistical tests. In seven of the eleven studies included in this Ph.D. thesis, a combination of multiple research methods are used to achieve high validity.Results: We present results showing that software suffering from TD will cause various negative effects on both the software and the developing process. These negative effects are illustrated from a technical, financial, and a developer’s working situational perspective. These studies also identify several initiatives that can be undertaken in order to reduce the negative effects of TD.Conclusion: The results show that software developers report that they waste 23% of their working time due to experiencing TD and that TD required them to perform additional time-consuming work activities. This study also shows that, compared to all types of TD, architectural TD has the greatest negative impact on daily software development work and that TD has negative effects on several different software quality attributes. Further, the results show that TD reduces developer morale. Moreover, the findings show that intentionally introducing TD in startup companies can allow the startups to cut development time, enabling faster feedback and increased revenue, preserve resources, and decrease risk and thereby contribute to beneficial\ua0effects. This study also identifies several initiatives that can be undertaken in order to reduce the negative effects of TD, such as the introduction of a tracking process where the TD items are introduced in an official backlog. The finding also indicates that there is an unfulfilled potential regarding how managers can influence the manner in which software practitioners address TD