A mapping study on documentation in Continuous Software Development

Context: With an increase in Agile, Lean, and DevOps software methodologies over the last years (collectively referred to as Continuous Software Development (CSD)), we have observed that documentation is often poor. Objective: This work aims at collecting studies on documentation challenges, documentation practices, and tools that can support documentation in CSD. Method: A systematic mapping study was conducted to identify and analyze research on documentation in CSD, covering publications between 2001 and 2019. Results: A total of 63 studies were selected. We found 40 studies related to documentation practices and challenges, and 23 studies related to tools used in CSD. The challenges include: informal documentation is hard to understand, documentation is considered as waste, productivity is measured by working software only, documentation is out-of-sync with the software and there is a short-term focus. The practices include: non-written and informal communication, the usage of development artifacts for documentation, and the use of architecture frameworks. We also made an inventory of numerous tools that can be used for documentation purposes in CSD. Overall, we recommend the usage of executable documentation, modern tools and technologies to retrieve information and transform it into documentation, and the practice of minimal documentation upfront combined with detailed design for knowledge transfer afterwards. Conclusion: It is of paramount importance to increase the quantity and quality of documentation in CSD. While this remains challenging, practitioners will benefit from applying the identified practices and tools in order to mitigate the stated challenges

Mittareiden käytön syyt ja seuraukset ketterissä tiimeissä teollisuudessa - Systemaattinen kirjallisuuskatsaus

Ketterät ohjelmistokehitysmenetelmät ovat lisänneet suosiotaan, mutta tutkimuksia, joissa tutkittaisiin syitä mittareiden käytölle ja niiden vaikutuksille, on varsin rajallisesti teollisen ketterän kehityksen osalta. Tämä tutkimus esittää tuloksia systemaattisesta kirjallisuuskatsauksesta. Perustuen tähän tutkimukseen, tulokset esittävät, että syyt mittarien käytölle keskittyy seuraaviin alueisiin: suunnittelu, etenemisen seuranta, laadun ymmärtäminen ja parantaminen, ja ongelmien tunnistaminen. Lisäksi, mittareiden vaikutukset keskittyvät seuraaviin alueisiin: suunnittelutoimet, reaktiiviset toimet, ihmisten motivointi ja parannusideoiden luominen. Tämä tutkimus myös listaa tärkeitä mittareita, jotka tunnistettiin kuvauksien sekä esiintymismäärien avulla. Tuloksia verrataan ketterän kehityksen periaatteisiin ja näyttää siltä, että mittareiden käyttö tukee ketteriä periaatteita lukuuottamatta muutamia poikkeuksia. Lisäksi, tämä tutkimus osoittaa, että suunnittelu- ja seurantamittareiden käytöstä on paljon näyttöä. Tutkimus tunnistaa myös tilannesidoksisia mittareita, joita käytetään yleensä ongelmien korjaamiseksi. Lopuksi, mittareiden käytön negatiiviset vaikutukset voi olla mielenkiintoinen tulevaisuuden tutkimusalue

Towards an inclusive reconceptualization of IT governance: espoused theory and theories-in-use

Includes bibliographical references.IT governance is a highly researched field with a majority of the literature focusing on structural (form) and processual (contingency) mechanisms. The theoretical foundations of agency theory, which has a strong focus on control, predominantly underpin the current IT governance practices. The field is lacking in research contributions on relational mechanisms of IT governance and how they influence governance outcomes. Despite the amount of prescriptive models and “best practice frameworks” available in the field, achieving key IT governance outcomes remains amongst the highest ranked management concerns. This paper seeks to explicate the disharmony between current practices and espoused theory through a case study within an organization in the pursuit to understand multi-stakeholder perspectives as to their impression of governance, its purpose and relevance in the organization; for the purpose of attaining a systemic, multi -perspective view on governance as a practice within organizations, as opposed to those prescribed in mainstream theory. A key objective of this research is to provide more insight on the existing gap between the various stakeholders' perspectives on IT governance in the multiple echelons of an organization, with particular emphasis on the alignment of mental models and the process of sense making; revealing a deeper understanding of current governance practices from the social/relational, structural and processual mechanisms within an organization and highlighting the as-lived perceptions on IT governance purpose, objectives, important IT mechanisms for effective IT governance and perspectives on current IT governance effectiveness within their context. The culmination of the findings from this research reveal in a need for organizations to engage in a sense-making process that enables the inclusive conceptualization of IT governance within their context. At the core, it is about IT governance vision- purpose- practice alignment, and as a (important) consequence, about business and IT alignment

Reconciling agility and architecture: a theory of agile architecture

The purpose of agile software development is to enable the software development team to respond to change and learn from change so that it can better deliver value to its customer. If an agile software development team spends too much time planning and designing architecture up-front then the delivery of value to the customer is delayed or otherwise compromised, and responding to change can become extremely difficult. Not doing enough architecture design increases exposure to risk and increases the chance of failure. The balance between architecture and agility is not well understood by agile practitioners or researchers. This thesis is based on grounded theory research involving 44 participants from 36 organisations, all working in agile software development and who are either experienced in architecture design or are closely involved with architecture. The thesis presents a theory that describes how agile software teams design an agile architecture with reduced up-front design and which is able to respond to change, helping teams find a balance between architecture and agility. The theory describes six forces that affect the agility of the architecture and up-front design, and five strategies that teams use in response to those forces to determine how much effort they put into up-front design. Understanding these forces and strategies helps agile teams to determine how much up-front design is appropriate in their contexts

A semantically-enriched quality governance framework in the system of systems context applied to cancer care

Organisations are becoming more complex with diverse businesses, and therefore accomplishing their business objectives entails the need to develop System of Systems (SoS) with new capabilities based on existing monolithic systems of different domains. Regardless of the business objectives of these organisations, they can only be achieved if the right level of quality is ensured across the SoS arrangement. In order to deliver new SoS capabilities, interoperability between the SoS’s Constituent Systems (CSs) is required. Semantic inconsistencies at different levels of SoS’s constituent systems causes various challenges which can degrade the level of quality governance among the SoS arrangement. These inconsistencies mainly are due to the domain process’ heterogeneities, multiple standards followed, policies and varying levels of quality requirements of the CSs, and hence the level of interoperability affecting the anticipated quality.To respond to the above challenges, this research is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of semantically-enriched quality governance in relation to policies, processes, standards and quality requirements of the constituent systems in a SoS arrangement. For this purpose, a semantically enriched framework for the quality governance of SoS, i.e. OntoSoS.QM.Gov (Ontology-based System of Systems Quality Management Governance) has been developed and evaluated incrementally using an adaptation of the Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM). A sufficient and representative case study has been utilised in the DSRM process increments from the SoS cancer care domain, in particular, the Cell Therapy and Applied Genomics (CTAG) at the King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC), Jordan. The OntoSoS.QM.Gov framework consists of four ontological models: (i) the SoS standards ontology model (OntoSoS.Stand), (ii) the SoS quality requirements ontology model (OntoSoS.QR), (iii) the SoS process ontology model (OntoSoS.Process), and (iv) the SoS policies ontology model (OntoSoS.Policy). They are linked together using a fit-for-purpose governance process in managing the semantics of the relevant quality governance areas.The outcomes of demonstrating the OntoSoS.QM.Gov framework using the CTAG case study and evaluating it with the cancer care domain experts revealed the following. First, semantic heterogeneities between CSs and SoS in relation to their policies, processes, quality requirements and standards have been resolved. Second, the fit- for- purpose quality governance process was observed to mostly determining and resolving conflicts with minimum human intervention. Third, the adequacy of the four ontological governance models in capturing the semantics of governance in relation to policies, processes, quality requirements and standards not only for CSs but also as stand-alone models that may further be utilised in different contexts or domains.Finally, this research has to identify further research areas to explore in relation to the governance of change management of constituent systems’ processes, policies, standards where their business processes change

The impact of multi-site software governance on knowledge management

Abstract—Software Development Governance (SDG) is an emerging field of research, under the umbrella of information technology governance. SDG challenges increase when software development activities are distributed across multiple locations. Coordination of knowledge management processes requires specific attention in multi site development. This paper outlines a multi-site software governance structure, based on three aspects: the business strategy that binds the relationship of the remote offices, the structure and composition of the remote teams and the way tasks are allocated across sites. Knowledge management processes (including knowledge creation, knowledge transfer and communication) are identified and the influence of different governance structures on these processes is discussed. We do so through a case study at Océ, a multinational company in printing systems. Keywords-Knowledge management; multi-site software development; software governance; I