Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering, FASE 2022, which was held during April 4-5, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 17 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. The proceedings also contain 3 contributions from the Test-Comp Competition. The papers deal with the foundations on which software engineering is built, including topics like software engineering as an engineering discipline, requirements engineering, software architectures, software quality, model-driven development, software processes, software evolution, AI-based software engineering, and the specification, design, and implementation of particular classes of systems, such as (self-)adaptive, collaborative, AI, embedded, distributed, mobile, pervasive, cyber-physical, or service-oriented applications

Managing Evolutionary Method Engineering by Method Rationale

This paper explores how to integrate formal meta-models with an informal method rationale to support evolutionary (continuous) method development. While the former provides an exact and computer-executable specification of a method, the latter enables concurrent learning, expansion, and refinement of method use (instances of meta-models) and meta-models (evolution of method specifications). We explain the need for method rationale by observing the criticality of evolving method knowledge in helping software organizations to learn, as well as by the recurrent failure to introduce rigid and stable methods. Like a design rationale, a method rationale establishes a systematic and organized trace of method evolution. Method rationale is located at two levels of type-instance hierarchy depending on its type of use and the scope of the changes traced. A method construction rationale garners a history of method knowledge evolution as part of the method engineering process, which designs and adapts the method to a given organizational context. A method use rationale maintains knowledge of concrete use contexts and their history and justifies further method deployment in alternative contexts, reveals limitations in its past use, and enables sharing of method use experience. The paper suggests how a method rationale helps share knowledge of methods between method users and engineers, explores how method engineers coordinate the evolution of the existing method base through it, and suggests ways to improve learning through method rationale

Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering, FASE 2022, which was held during April 4-5, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 17 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. The proceedings also contain 3 contributions from the Test-Comp Competition. The papers deal with the foundations on which software engineering is built, including topics like software engineering as an engineering discipline, requirements engineering, software architectures, software quality, model-driven development, software processes, software evolution, AI-based software engineering, and the specification, design, and implementation of particular classes of systems, such as (self-)adaptive, collaborative, AI, embedded, distributed, mobile, pervasive, cyber-physical, or service-oriented applications

How Management Control Portfolios are Developed for Modularized ISD Projects

Information Systems Development projects often modularize the work by decomposing complex tasks to enable better management and control. While the objectives are noble, modularization itself can introduce interdependencies. Using the control theory perspective and leveraging case study research approach, we examine eight projects to unearth the four types of interdependencies in modularized Information Systems Development projects. Next, for the four types of interdependencies derived through the study, corresponding control portfolio is developed, making theoretical contributions and recommendations for practice

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

Understanding Variability-Aware Analysis in Low-Maturity Variant-Rich Systems

Context: Software systems often exist in many variants to support varying stakeholder requirements, such as specific market segments or hardware constraints. Systems with many variants (a.k.a. variant-rich systems) are highly complex due to the variability introduced to support customization. As such, assuring the quality of these systems is also challenging since traditional single-system analysis techniques do not scale when applied. To tackle this complexity, several variability-aware analysis techniques have been conceived in the last two decades to assure the quality of a branch of variant-rich systems called software product lines. Unfortunately, these techniques find little application in practice since many organizations do use product-line engineering techniques, but instead rely on low-maturity \clo~strategies to manage their software variants. For instance, to perform an analysis that checks that all possible variants that can be configured by customers (or vendors) in a car personalization system conform to specified performance requirements, an organization needs to explicitly model system variability. However, in low-maturity variant-rich systems, this and similar kinds of analyses are challenging to perform due to (i) immature architectures that do not systematically account for variability, (ii) redundancy that is not exploited to reduce analysis effort, and (iii) missing essential meta-information, such as relationships between features and their implementation in source code.Objective: The overarching goal of the PhD is to facilitate quality assurance in low-maturity variant-rich systems. Consequently, in the first part of the PhD (comprising this thesis) we focus on gaining a better understanding of quality assurance needs in such systems and of their properties.Method: Our objectives are met by means of (i) knowledge-seeking research through case studies of open-source systems as well as surveys and interviews with practitioners; and (ii) solution-seeking research through the implementation and systematic evaluation of a recommender system that supports recording the information necessary for quality assurance in low-maturity variant-rich systems. With the former, we investigate, among other things, industrial needs and practices for analyzing variant-rich systems; and with the latter, we seek to understand how to obtain information necessary to leverage variability-aware analyses.Results: Four main results emerge from this thesis: first, we present the state-of-practice in assuring the quality of variant-rich systems, second, we present our empirical understanding of features and their characteristics, including information sources for locating them; third, we present our understanding of how best developers\u27 proactive feature location activities can be supported during development; and lastly, we present our understanding of how features are used in the code of non-modular variant-rich systems, taking the case of feature scattering in the Linux kernel.Future work: In the second part of the PhD, we will focus on processes for adapting variability-aware analyses to low-maturity variant-rich systems.Keywords:\ua0Variant-rich Systems, Quality Assurance, Low Maturity Software Systems, Recommender Syste

Product portfolio management as part of product lifecycle management for configure-to-order products

Abstract. Product portfolio management (PPM) research has mainly focused on PPM practices by covering the early stage of the lifecycle and not the whole lifecycle of the product. In addition, lifecycle management has been applied to individual products rather than the entire product portfolio. In this thesis, PPM research focuses on both all lifecycle phases and the entire product portfolio rather than only individual products. The research aims to study how configurable products should be arranged in the case company’s future Product lifecycle management (PLM) system. The case company of the thesis is Valmet Flow Control Oy, which delivers flow control technologies and services for different industries. The current Product data management (PDM) system in use is no longer supported and it is seen that the PDM system does not support the company’s needs anymore. Therefore, a new PLM system is needed to cover future demands in the case company. The product portfolio is composed of a product series, which refers to a certain product type and model. This thesis focuses on configure-to-order (CTO) products, which are configured based on customers’ needs with pre-defined specifications. This thesis proposes, how to present product series level object in the PLM system and what kind of product data it contains. The main result of the research is the created product series object in the future PLM system and how to manage product series through their lifecycle in one centralized system with all internal stakeholders. The availability, traceability, and data use are also essential results. Appropriate exploitation of data allows to reveal the most critical information, enabling the management of the whole product portfolio from one PLM system. This kind of procedure creates transparency in the product portfolio.Tuoteportfolion hallinta osana tuotteen elinkaaren hallintaa tilauksesta määritettäville tuotteille. Tiivistelmä. Tuoteportfolion hallinnan (PPM) tutkimukset ovat pääasiassa keskittyneet PPM:n käytäntöihin elinkaaren alkuvaiheessa eikä tuotteen koko elinkaaren hallintaan (PLM). Lisäksi PLM:ää on sovellettu yksittäisten tuotteiden tasolla eikä niinkään koko tuoteportfolion tasolla. Tässä diplomityössä PPM:n tutkimus keskittyy sekä koko tuotteen elinkaaren vaiheisiin että koko tuoteportfolioon yksittäisten tuotteiden sijasta. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on tutkia kuinka konfiguroitavat tuotteet pitäisi järjestellä tulevaan PLM-järjestelmään tapausyrityksessä. Diplomityön tapausyrityksenä on Valmet Flow Control Oy, joka toimittaa virtauksensäätöratkaisuja ja -palveluja eri teollisuudenaloille. Nykyistä käytössä olevaa tuotetiedonhallinta järjestelmää (PDM) ei enää ylläpidetä eikä PDM-järjestelmä tue yrityksen tarpeita enää. Tästä johtuen PLM-järjestelmää tarvitaan, jotta voidaan kattaa tulevaisuuden tarpeet tapausyrityksessä. Tuoteportfolio koostuu tuotesarjoista, joilla viitataan tiettyyn tuotetyyppiin ja malliin. Tämä diplomityö keskittyy tilauksesta määritettäviin tuotteisiin eli konfiguroitaviin tuotteisiin, jossa tuote konfiguroidaan asiakkaan tarpeiden mukaisesti ennalta määrättyjen spesifikaatioiden avulla. Tässä työssä esitetään kuinka tuotesarjatason objekti kuvataan PLM-järjestelmässä ja mitä tuotetietoja sille tarvitaan. Tutkimuken päätuloksena luodaan tuotesarjaobjekti tulevaisuuden PLM-järjestelmään ja tehdään kehitysehdotus siitä, kuinka tuotesarjoja tulisi hallita niiden koko elinkaaren ajan yhdessä järjestelmässä, ja kaikkien sisäisten sidosryhmien kanssa. Tiedon saatavuus, jäljitettävyys sekä hyödyntäminen ovat myös pääasiallisia työn tuloksia. Tiedon oikeanlainen hyödyntäminen mahdollistaa kriittisimmän tiedon esittämisen ja siten mahdollistaa koko tuoteportfolion hallinnan yhdestä PLM-järjestelmästä

Metodološki okvir za obogaćivanje upravljanja projektnih portfelja agilnim i lean metodama

Predmet istraživanja su metodike upravljanja projektnim portfeljem i mogućnost njihovog poboljšanja, na temelju obogaćivanja agilnim i lean (vitkim, okretnim) konceptima i metodama. Postojeći modeli i procesi upravljanja projektnim portfeljima koriste tradicionalne principe, procedure, planiranje i metode nadzora. Međutim, iako se radi o području intenzivnih istraživanja, agilno i lean upravljanje je relativno novo područje za koje još uvijek nedostaju odgovarajuće spoznaje i praktični rezultati vezani uz utjecaj agilnog pristupa i metodika na procese upravljanja, rizike i kvalitetu. Istraživanje je potvrdilo da predloženi konceptualni okvir upravljanja, koji proizlazi kao jedan od glavnih znanstvenih doprinosa ovog istraživanja, može poboljšati izvedbu menadžmenta procesa projektnih portfelja te smanjiti rizike izvedbe komponenata portfelja (projekata i programa).The subject of this research is project portfolio governance, and its improvement based on agile and lean methods and concepts. The existing project portfolio frameworks and governance processes use traditional principles, regulation, planning, and control methods. Whilst this is an area of intensive research, the agile and lean governance is a relative new domain, for which a certain cognizance and practical results related to influence of agile approach and methods on governance processes, risks, and quality are missing. This research confirms that the new proposed conceptual governance framework, emerging as one of the main scientific contributions from this research, improves the management of project portfolio processes’ execution and reduces the risks of portfolio components’ (projects and programs) implementation. The expected scientific contribution from this research is foremost methodological in introducing of agile and lean project portfolio governance concepts, methods, and processes, followed by creation of the referent agile process governance framework and its taxonomy, and finally in the evaluation of the possibility for the application of the agile governance framework, with the aim of the portfolio components’ implementation risks reduction

Metodološki okvir za obogaćivanje upravljanja projektnih portfelja agilnim i lean metodama

Predmet istraživanja su metodike upravljanja projektnim portfeljem i mogućnost njihovog poboljšanja, na temelju obogaćivanja agilnim i lean (vitkim, okretnim) konceptima i metodama. Postojeći modeli i procesi upravljanja projektnim portfeljima koriste tradicionalne principe, procedure, planiranje i metode nadzora. Međutim, iako se radi o području intenzivnih istraživanja, agilno i lean upravljanje je relativno novo područje za koje još uvijek nedostaju odgovarajuće spoznaje i praktični rezultati vezani uz utjecaj agilnog pristupa i metodika na procese upravljanja, rizike i kvalitetu. Istraživanje je potvrdilo da predloženi konceptualni okvir upravljanja, koji proizlazi kao jedan od glavnih znanstvenih doprinosa ovog istraživanja, može poboljšati izvedbu menadžmenta procesa projektnih portfelja te smanjiti rizike izvedbe komponenata portfelja (projekata i programa).The subject of this research is project portfolio governance, and its improvement based on agile and lean methods and concepts. The existing project portfolio frameworks and governance processes use traditional principles, regulation, planning, and control methods. Whilst this is an area of intensive research, the agile and lean governance is a relative new domain, for which a certain cognizance and practical results related to influence of agile approach and methods on governance processes, risks, and quality are missing. This research confirms that the new proposed conceptual governance framework, emerging as one of the main scientific contributions from this research, improves the management of project portfolio processes’ execution and reduces the risks of portfolio components’ (projects and programs) implementation. The expected scientific contribution from this research is foremost methodological in introducing of agile and lean project portfolio governance concepts, methods, and processes, followed by creation of the referent agile process governance framework and its taxonomy, and finally in the evaluation of the possibility for the application of the agile governance framework, with the aim of the portfolio components’ implementation risks reduction

Metodološki okvir za obogaćivanje upravljanja projektnih portfelja agilnim i lean metodama

Predmet istraživanja su metodike upravljanja projektnim portfeljem i mogućnost njihovog poboljšanja, na temelju obogaćivanja agilnim i lean (vitkim, okretnim) konceptima i metodama. Postojeći modeli i procesi upravljanja projektnim portfeljima koriste tradicionalne principe, procedure, planiranje i metode nadzora. Međutim, iako se radi o području intenzivnih istraživanja, agilno i lean upravljanje je relativno novo područje za koje još uvijek nedostaju odgovarajuće spoznaje i praktični rezultati vezani uz utjecaj agilnog pristupa i metodika na procese upravljanja, rizike i kvalitetu. Istraživanje je potvrdilo da predloženi konceptualni okvir upravljanja, koji proizlazi kao jedan od glavnih znanstvenih doprinosa ovog istraživanja, može poboljšati izvedbu menadžmenta procesa projektnih portfelja te smanjiti rizike izvedbe komponenata portfelja (projekata i programa).The subject of this research is project portfolio governance, and its improvement based on agile and lean methods and concepts. The existing project portfolio frameworks and governance processes use traditional principles, regulation, planning, and control methods. Whilst this is an area of intensive research, the agile and lean governance is a relative new domain, for which a certain cognizance and practical results related to influence of agile approach and methods on governance processes, risks, and quality are missing. This research confirms that the new proposed conceptual governance framework, emerging as one of the main scientific contributions from this research, improves the management of project portfolio processes’ execution and reduces the risks of portfolio components’ (projects and programs) implementation. The expected scientific contribution from this research is foremost methodological in introducing of agile and lean project portfolio governance concepts, methods, and processes, followed by creation of the referent agile process governance framework and its taxonomy, and finally in the evaluation of the possibility for the application of the agile governance framework, with the aim of the portfolio components’ implementation risks reduction