Understanding Manager and Developer Perceptions of the Relative Advantage, Compatibility, and Complexity of Function Points and Source Lines of Code

Software measures are recommended for the effective management of software development projects. Innovation diffusion theory (IDT) provides perspective for understanding managers’ and software developers’ perceptions of the relative advantage, complexity, and compatibility of software measures. This paper describes the results of a survey in which software developers and managers identified a software measure and then answered IDT-based questions about the measure. Two of the most commonly identified measures were source lines of code (SLOC) and function points (FP). Overall, participants indicated that FP have greater relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity than SLOC. Developers indicated that FP have greater relative advantage, compatibility, and complexity than SLOC. Managers, however, did not perceive a significantly greater relative advantage and compatibility for FP over SLOC, but did perceive FP to be more complex than SLOC

Market Structure and Energy Efficiency: The Case of New Commercial Buildings

This is a report on why commercial office buildings aren’t more energy efficient. Several decades of energy efficiency programs have resulted in some gains, but overall increases in the energy efficiency of buildings have fallen far short of the 30 to 50 percent improvement that many efficiency advocates believe is possible. The purpose of this study is to consider the “why” question by empirically examining the dynamics of new commercial building markets. To do so, the authors used multiple research techniques, including qualitative field observation and interview methods that allow for a more in-depth understanding of complicated market processes. Their research focused primarily on new office buildings and centered in four regional markets: Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. The authors identify key dynamics of commercial office building markets, describe how change and innovation occurs in commercial development, discuss the implications for energy efficiency, and suggest next steps

Built to Last or Built Too Fast? Evaluating Prediction Models for Build Times

Automated builds are integral to the Continuous Integration (CI) software development practice. In CI, developers are encouraged to integrate early and often. However, long build times can be an issue when integrations are frequent. This research focuses on finding a balance between integrating often and keeping developers productive. We propose and analyze models that can predict the build time of a job. Such models can help developers to better manage their time and tasks. Also, project managers can explore different factors to determine the best setup for a build job that will keep the build wait time to an acceptable level. Software organizations transitioning to CI practices can use the predictive models to anticipate build times before CI is implemented. The research community can modify our predictive models to further understand the factors and relationships affecting build times.Comment: 4 paged version published in the Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 14th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR) Pages 487-490. MSR 201

A Longitudinal Study of Identifying and Paying Down Architectural Debt

Architectural debt is a form of technical debt that derives from the gap between the architectural design of the system as it "should be" compared to "as it is". We measured architecture debt in two ways: 1) in terms of system-wide coupling measures, and 2) in terms of the number and severity of architectural flaws. In recent work it was shown that the amount of architectural debt has a huge impact on software maintainability and evolution. Consequently, detecting and reducing the debt is expected to make software more amenable to change. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of a healthcare communications product created by Brightsquid Secure Communications Corp. This start-up company is facing the typical trade-off problem of desiring responsiveness to change requests, but wanting to avoid the ever-increasing effort that the accumulation of quick-and-dirty changes eventually incurs. In the first stage of the study, we analyzed the status of the "before" system, which indicated the impacts of change requests. This initial study motivated a more in-depth analysis of architectural debt. The results of this analysis were used to motivate a comprehensive refactoring of the software system. The third phase of the study was a follow-on architectural debt analysis which quantified the improvements made. Using this quantitative evidence, augmented by qualitative evidence gathered from in-depth interviews with Brightsquid's architects, we present lessons learned about the costs and benefits of paying down architecture debt in practice.Comment: Submitted to ICSE-SEIP 201

Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering

Get the most out of this foundational reference and improve the productivity of your software teams. This open access book collects the wisdom of the 2017 "Dagstuhl" seminar on productivity in software engineering, a meeting of community leaders, who came together with the goal of rethinking traditional definitions and measures of productivity. The results of their work, Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, includes chapters covering definitions and core concepts related to productivity, guidelines for measuring productivity in specific contexts, best practices and pitfalls, and theories and open questions on productivity. You'll benefit from the many short chapters, each offering a focused discussion on one aspect of productivity in software engineering. Readers in many fields and industries will benefit from their collected work. Developers wanting to improve their personal productivity, will learn effective strategies for overcoming common issues that interfere with progress. Organizations thinking about building internal programs for measuring productivity of programmers and teams will learn best practices from industry and researchers in measuring productivity. And researchers can leverage the conceptual frameworks and rich body of literature in the book to effectively pursue new research directions. What You'll Learn Review the definitions and dimensions of software productivity See how time management is having the opposite of the intended effect Develop valuable dashboards Understand the impact of sensors on productivity Avoid software development waste Work with human-centered methods to measure productivity Look at the intersection of neuroscience and productivity Manage interruptions and context-switching Who Book Is For Industry developers and those responsible for seminar-style courses that include a segment on software developer productivity. Chapters are written for a generalist audience, without excessive use of technical terminology. ; Collects the wisdom of software engineering thought leaders in a form digestible for any developer Shares hard-won best practices and pitfalls to avoid An up to date look at current practices in software engineering productivit

Changing Minds, Building Communities: Advancing Affordable Housing through Communications Campaigns

"Americans are caught in an image of housing that's over 20 years old -- they are really surprised when they see what affordable housing is now." Nancy Belden of Belden Russonello & Stewart elegantly captured the challenge of the perception gap between public opinion and the reality of affordable housing. On May 5 and 6, 2004, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, in partnership with The Campaign for Affordable Housing, analyzed the challenge of closing that gap in its fourth NeighborWorks Symposium on Multifamily Excellence.The symposium, held in Minneapolis, was entitled "Changing Minds, Building Communities: Advancing Affordable Housing through Communications Campaigns." The symposium brought together 300 local and national affordable housing leaders from across many organizational and institutional sectors to engage in a day of candid exchange on one issue key to strengthening communities and expanding housing opportunities. The issue? How we can better communicate publicly and through marketing campaigns to advance the development of homes all Americans can afford.While affordable housing stories are often filled with conflict, and projects are completed against the odds, participants were energized and enthused to find that successes are happening across the country. Fifteen successful cases were used as a backdrop against which key issues were discussed and debated. The context for these successes was demonstrated through opinion research that shows untapped opportunities for support -- a kind of new "silent majority" that recognizes and is concerned about the corrosive effect affordability problems have on families and communities.However, the affordable housing industry will only tap that support if it learns to employ professional communications tools to move its message from simply "housing" to "homes, family and community."From case studies, research, and the candid reactions and debate from participants, 10 key points emerged that suggest a communications strategy for the affordable housing community

Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering

Get the most out of this foundational reference and improve the productivity of your software teams. This open access book collects the wisdom of the 2017 "Dagstuhl" seminar on productivity in software engineering, a meeting of community leaders, who came together with the goal of rethinking traditional definitions and measures of productivity. The results of their work, Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, includes chapters covering definitions and core concepts related to productivity, guidelines for measuring productivity in specific contexts, best practices and pitfalls, and theories and open questions on productivity. You'll benefit from the many short chapters, each offering a focused discussion on one aspect of productivity in software engineering. Readers in many fields and industries will benefit from their collected work. Developers wanting to improve their personal productivity, will learn effective strategies for overcoming common issues that interfere with progress. Organizations thinking about building internal programs for measuring productivity of programmers and teams will learn best practices from industry and researchers in measuring productivity. And researchers can leverage the conceptual frameworks and rich body of literature in the book to effectively pursue new research directions. What You'll Learn Review the definitions and dimensions of software productivity See how time management is having the opposite of the intended effect Develop valuable dashboards Understand the impact of sensors on productivity Avoid software development waste Work with human-centered methods to measure productivity Look at the intersection of neuroscience and productivity Manage interruptions and context-switching Who Book Is For Industry developers and those responsible for seminar-style courses that include a segment on software developer productivity. Chapters are written for a generalist audience, without excessive use of technical terminology. ; Collects the wisdom of software engineering thought leaders in a form digestible for any developer Shares hard-won best practices and pitfalls to avoid An up to date look at current practices in software engineering productivit

Leadership In Technical Resources And Teams

In today\u27s business environment, organizations look to technology to solve a myriad of issues. These issues range from 24 X 7 X 365 shopping hours via the internet to dashboards that indicate the health of the business to knowledge management implementations where timely, accurate access to organizational knowledge is available. In all cases, the technology enables the business functions. Because of this reliance, technical resources and technical teams are expected to display leadership in actions, in thinking and on an equal plane as their business person counterparts. Most Master of Business Administration programs require a Ëœmanagement\u27 or a Ëœleadership\u27 section where students are exposed to leadership principles and practices. This is a major difference in technical master\u27s programs. In most of those programs, a leadership section is not even offered much less required. Technical leadership has suffered tremendously because of this disparity. In today\u27s environment, technical resources are not the people locked in the server room simply making sure that servers and computers are up and running. The technical resources are on the front lines, enhancing business decisions with technical possibilities. This lack of leadership training hurts from two angles. First, the employees have not had exposure to leadership skills so they are unsure of how or when to apply them in different situations. Second, when these resources are promoted to management positions, they do not know how to attract and retain resources with leadership skills and they do not know how to build an environment where those resources can do their best work. This project will define the reasons why leading technical resources is different, define a process of how to build and manage a successful, empowered team of leaders and propose master\u27s level coursework to expose technical students to the same leadership concepts as their MBA level counterparts