Q-Rapids: Quality-Aware Rapid Software Development: an H2020 Project

This work reports the objectives, current state, and outcomes of the Q-Rapids H2020 project. Q-Rapids (Quality-Aware Rapid Software Development) proposes a data-driven approach to the production of software following very short development cycles. The focus of Q-Rapids is on quality aspects, represented through quality requirements. The Q-Rapids platform, which is the tangible software asset emerging from the project, mines software repositories and usage logs to identify candidate quality requirements that may ameliorate the values of strategic indicators like product quality, time to market or team productivity. Four companies are providing use cases to evaluate the platform and associated processes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Influence of developer factors on code quality: a data study

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Automatic source-code inspection tools help to assess, monitor and improve code quality. Since these tools only examine the software project’s codebase, they overlook other possible factors that may impact code quality and the assessment of the technical debt (TD). Our initial hypothesis is that human factors associated with the software developers, like coding expertise, communication skills, and experience in the project have some measurable impact on the code quality. In this exploratory study, we test this hypothesis on two large open source repositories, using TD as a code quality metric and the data that may be inferred from the version control systems. The preliminary results of our statistical analysis suggest that the level of participation of the developers and their experience in the project have a positive correlation with the amount of TD that they introduce. On the contrary, communication skills have barely any impact on TD.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Data-driven elicitation, assessment and documentation of quality requirements in agile software development

Quality Requirements (QRs) are difficult to manage in agile software development. Given the pressure to deploy fast, quality concerns are often sacrificed for the sake of richer functionality. Besides, artefacts as user stories are not particularly well-suited for representing QRs. In this exploratory paper, we envisage a data-driven method, called Q-Rapids, to QR elicitation, assessment and documentation in agile software development. Q-Rapids proposes: 1) The collection and analysis of design and runtime data in order to raise quality alerts; 2) The suggestion of candidate QRs to address these alerts; 3) A strategic analysis of the impact of such requirements by visualizing their effect on a set of indicators rendered in a dashboard; 4) The documentation of the requirements (if finally accepted) in the backlog. The approach is illustrated with scenarios evaluated through a questionnaire by experts from a telecom company.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Measuring and improving Agile Processes in a small-size software development company

Context: Agile software development has become commonplace in software development companies due to the numerous benefits it provides. However, conducting Agile projects is demanding in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), because projects start and end quickly, but still have to fulfil customers' quality requirements. Objective: This paper aims at reporting a practical experience on the use of metrics related to the software development process as a means supporting SMEs in the development of software following an Agile methodology. Method: We followed Action-Research principles in a Polish small-size software development company. We developed and executed a study protocol suited to the needs of the company, using a pilot case. Results: A catalogue of Agile development process metrics practically validated in the context of a small-size software development company, adopted by the company in their Agile projects. Conclusions: Practitioners may adopt these metrics in their Agile projects, especially if working in an SME, and customise them to their own needs and tools. Academics may use the findings as a baseline for new research work, including new empirical studies.The authors would like to thank all the members of the QRapids H2020 project consortium.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Continuously assessing and improving software quality with software analytics tools: a case study

In the last decade, modern data analytics technologies have enabled the creation of software analytics tools offering real-time visualization of various aspects related to software development and usage. These tools seem to be particularly attractive for companies doing agile software development. However, the information provided by the available tools is neither aggregated nor connected to higher quality goals. At the same time, assessing and improving software quality has also been a key target for the software engineering community, yielding several proposals for standards and software quality models. Integrating such quality models into software analytics tools could close the gap by providing the connection to higher quality goals. This study aims at understanding whether the integration of quality models into software analytics tools provides understandable, reliable, useful, and relevant information at the right level of detail about the quality of a process or product, and whether practitioners intend to use it. Over the course of more than one year, the four companies involved in this case study deployed such a tool to assess and improve software quality in several projects. We used standardized measurement instruments to elicit the perception of 22 practitioners regarding their use of the tool. We complemented the findings with debriefing sessions held at the companies. In addition, we discussed challenges and lessons learned with four practitioners leading the use of the tool. Quantitative and qualitative analyses provided positive results; i.e., the practitioners’ perception with regard to the tool’s understandability, reliability, usefulness, and relevance was positive. Individual statements support the statistical findings and constructive feedback can be used for future improvements. We conclude that potential for future adoption of quality models within software analytics tools definitely exists and encourage other practitioners to use the presented seven challenges and seven lessons learned and adopt them in their companies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Software development metrics prediction using time series methods

The software development process is an intricate task, with the growing complexity of software solutions and inflating code-line count being part of the reason for the fall of software code coherence and readability thus being one of the causes for software faults and it’s declining quality. Debugging software during development is significantly less expensive than attempting damage control after the software’s release. An automated quality-related analysis of developed code, which includes code analysis and correlation of development data like an ideal solution. In this paper the ability to predict software faults and software quality is scrutinized. Hereby we investigate four models that can be used to analyze time-based data series for prediction of trends observed in the software development process are investigated. Those models are Exponential Smoothing, the Holt-Winters Model, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN). Time-series analysis methods prove a good fit for software related data prediction. Such methods and tools can lend a helping hand for Product Owners in their daily decision-making process as related to e.g. assignment of tasks, time predictions, bugs predictions, time to release etc. Results of the research are presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Software Runtime Data: Visualization and Integration with Development Data – A Case Study

Tarkvara kvaliteet on tarkvaraarenduse protsessi üks peamisi aspekte. Kuigi tarkvaraarenduse ja kasutuse (käitusaja) protsessid toodavad erinevat tüüpi andmeid, on ettevõtetel vähe toetust, et saada õigel ajal andmete põhjal arusaadavat ja tegutsema panevat teavet. Praktikud seisavad silmitsi tarkvaraprobleemide kindlakstegemise väljakutsega varase tarkvaraarenduse etappide ajal. Magistritöö eesmärk oli pakkuda reaalajas tegutsevat teavet tarkvarasüsteemide kasutamise ajal esinevate käitusvigade ja krahhide kohta ning uurida selle integreerimist arendusteabega. See töö on tehtud projekti Q-Rapids raames Fraunhoferi Eksperimentaalse Tarkvaratehnika Instituudis (IESE). Valitud juhtum on sise-nutika küla projekt - Digitale Dörfer (DD). Uurimistöö peamisteks panusteks on: a) DD projektist saadaolevate käitusaja andmete kogumine; b) sprintide planeerimise käigus otsuste tegemiseks juhtpaneelide loomine; c) CRISP-DM meetodi rakendamine tarkvara käitusaja ja arendusteabe integreerimiseks. Pakutavad ühendused ja integratsiooni skriptid on korduvkasutatavad. Edasisteks uuringuteks võib kasutada kaudseid raskusi ja õppetunde, mis on saadud tarkvara käitusaja ja arendusteabe integreerimisest.Software quality is one of the key aspects of the software development process. Although software development and usage (runtime) processes produce a different type of data, there is little support for companies to obtain insightful and actionable information from data at the right time. Practitioners face a challenge in identifying software problems during the early software development stages. The goal of the master thesis was to provide actionable real-time information about runtime errors and crashes during the usage of software systems and explore its integration with development data. This work has been done within the project Q-Rapids at Fraunhofer IESE. The selected case is the internal smart village project - Digitale Dörfer (DD). The main contributions of the thesis are: a) collecting available runtime data from the DD the project; b) creating dashboards to make decisions during sprint planning; c) applying CRISP-DM method to the integration of software runtime and development data. The provided connectors and integration scripts are reusable. Reported challenges and lessons learned from the integration of software runtime and development data may be used for further research

Quality measurement in agile and rapid software development: A systematic mapping

Context: In despite of agile and rapid software development (ARSD) being researched and applied extensively, managing quality requirements (QRs) are still challenging. As ARSD processes produce a large amount of data, measurement has become a strategy to facilitate QR management. Objective: This study aims to survey the literature related to QR management through metrics in ARSD, focusing on: bibliometrics, QR metrics, and quality-related indicators used in quality management. Method: The study design includes the definition of research questions, selection criteria, and snowballing as search strategy. Results: We selected 61 primary studies (2001-2019). Despite a large body of knowledge and standards, there is no consensus regarding QR measurement. Terminology is varying as are the measuring models. However, seemingly different measurement models do contain similarities. Conclusion: The industrial relevance of the primary studies shows that practitioners have a need to improve quality measurement. Our collection of measures and data sources can serve as a starting point for practitioners to include quality measurement into their decision-making processes. Researchers could benefit from the identified similarities to start building a common framework for quality measurement. In addition, this could help researchers identify what quality aspects need more focus, e.g., security and usability with few metrics reported.This work has been funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program through the Q-Rapids project (grant no. 732253). This research was also partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad through the DOGO4ML project (grant PID2020-117191RB-I00). Silverio Martínez-Fernández worked in Fraunhofer IESE before January 2020.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Software analytics tools: an intentional view

Software analytic tools consume big amounts of data coming from either (or both) the software development process or the system usage and aggregate them into indicators which are rendered to different types of stakeholders, also offering them a portfolio of techniques and capabilities such as what-if analysis, prediction and alerts. Precisely, the variety of stakeholders and the different goals they pursue justifies the convenience of performing an intentional analysis of the use of software analytics tools. With this aim, we first enumerate the different stakeholders and identify their intentional relationships with software analytics tools in the form of dependencies. Then, we focus on one particular stakeholder, namely the requirements engineer, and identify further intentional elements represented in a strategic rationale model. The resulting model provides an abstract view of the domain which may help stakeholders when deciding on the adoption of software analytic tools in their particular context.This paper has been funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under project / funding scheme PID2020-117191RB-I00 / AEI/10.13039/501100011033.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Primary Care Assessment and Interventions to Improve Physical Activity Among Insufficiently Active Adults Ages 18 Through 64 Years Old

A number of chronic and debilitating conditions such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, anxiety, depression, pain, osteoporosis, and falls are known to be delayed, improved, or prevented by increasing physical activity (PA) levels. The numbers of those affected form a substantial portion of the US population. As of 2011, for example, 26 million adults in the U.S. were diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (DM) alone. Another 79 million people had elevated blood glucose measurements putting them at risk for DM. Despite knowledge of the connection with chronic disease, PA levels are not consistently and quantitatively assessed during primary care office visits. Healthcare providers often believe lifestyle change intervention with sedentary adults is futile and encounter barriers to regular PA for many low-income, inner-city clients. Barriers are potentially reduced through partnership with the YMCA (Y), which cooperates with local churches and community organizations to open sites that offer nutrition and exercise classes at no cost to participants. Healthcare providers at the Grand Valley State University Family Health Center (FHC) did not previously refer sedentary clients to the Y. Referral to the Y became an innovative part of an evidencebased intervention set. Quality enhancements were put in place at the FHC, guided by a logic model to improve PA assessment and intervention. A policy was written that specifies the process to be used to evaluate and document clients\u27 PA levels and application of interventions for those clients who were assessed and found to have suboptimal habitual PA levels. Assessment uses the International Physical Activity Questionnaire self-report, short-form because it yields numeric and categorical results that allow tracking of progress and determination of the need for PA intervention. A low to moderate PA level result now triggers implementation of an evidence-based intervention set consisting of counseling, printed educational materials, and an offer of referral to Y community outreach programs. The electronic health record-embedded educational material was written to facilitate teaching and client self-review