Business Model Canvas Should Pay More Attention to the Software Startup Team

Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a tool widely used to describe startup business models. Despite the various business aspects described, BMC pays a little emphasis on team-related factors. The importance of team-related factors in software development has been acknowledged widely in literature. While not as extensively studied, the importance of teams in software startups is also known in both literature and among practitioners. In this paper, we propose potential changes to BMC to have the tool better reflect the importance of the team, especially in a software startup environment. Based on a literature review, we identify various components related to the team, which we then further support with empirical data. We do so by means of a qualitative case study of five startups

Hard Competencies Satisfaction Levels for Software Engineers : A Unified Framework

Software engineer’s/developer’s competency has long been established as a key pillar for the development of software. Nevertheless, the satisfaction levels derived from using a competency needs more investigation. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework for identifying hard competencies and their satisfaction levels. The paper contributes to the software engineering competency research by highlighting the satisfaction levels of hard competence for the benefit of the educators (academia), software engineers and users of software competence (practitioner).peerReviewe

Towards a Security Competence of Software Developers : A Literature Review

Software growth has been explosive as people depend heavily on software on daily basis. Software development is a human-intensive effort, and developers' competence in software security is essential for secure software development. In addition, ubiquitous computing provides an added complexity to software security. Studies have treated security competences of software developers as a subsidiary of security engineers' competence instead of software engineers' competence, limiting the full knowledge of the security competences of software developers. This presents a crucial challenge for developers, educators, and users to maintain developers' competences in security. As a first step in pushing for the developers' security competence studies, this chapter utilises a literature review to identify the security competences of software developers. Thirteen security competences of software developers were identified and mapped to the common body of knowledge for information security professional framework. Lastly, the implications for, with, and without the competences are analysed and presented.peerReviewe

Determining the Essential Competencies of Software Professionals: A Unified Framework

The competencies of software professionals have been under the radar of software engineering research and practice for decades. Different models and frameworks, as well as identification and assessment criteria, have been developed to understand and manage software engineering competencies (SEC). Although research on software engineering competencies is not lacking, there appears to be insufficient measures for stakeholders (software professionals, educators, and the software industry) to identify and assess SEC based on different software development projects. Previous studies have portrayed SEC as static in software projects; thus, their evolution is not covered in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, no holistic software engineering competence model or framework has been presented to identify competencies, competence satisfaction levels, and the essential competencies to be used in different software projects. In light of these observations, we first conducted a mapping study to understand the state of research on SEC, revealing gaps in the knowledge. We then attempted to address some of the gaps by building models and frameworks for managing SEC using findings from the literature and several rounds of stakeholder consultations. Data from interviews with supervisors in software development were used to construct a holistic framework to identify competencies, competence satisfaction levels, and the essential competencies for software projects or software development assignments. The outcome of this dissertation is an in-depth analysis of SEC and frameworks for managing SEC. We identified 62 hard competencies, 63 soft competencies, and a combination of 25 essential SEC competencies. We propose three stakeholder satisfaction levels for SEC assessment: basic, performance, and delighter. The most significant contribution of our study is the holistic SEC framework for both software engineering research and practice. However, based on empirical observations, we also report 27 competencies not mentioned in the reviewed literature, 11 of which are considered essential competencies for software professionals.Ohjelmistoammattilaisten osaamista eli kompetensseja (Software Engineering Competence, SEC) on tarkasteltu ohjelmistotuotannon tutkimuksessa ja käytännössä vuosikymmeniä. Niiden ymmärtämiseksi ja hallitsemiseksi on kehitetty malleja ja viitekehyksiä sekä tunnistus- ja arviointikriteereitä. Vaikka alan tutkimus on ollut laajaa, eri sidosryhmillä (ohjelmistoammattilaiset, kouluttajat ja ohjelmistoteollisuus) ei kuitenkaan näytä olevan riittävästi keinoja tunnistaa ja arvioida ohjelmistokehitysprojekteissa tarvittavaa osaamista. Ennen kaikkea tarvittavat kompetenssit on ollut tapana kuvata pysyviksi, joten niiden muutosta ei kirjallisuudessa juurikaan käsitellä. Kokonaisvaltaista ohjelmistokehityksen osaamisen hallintamallia tai viitekehystä ei näytä tutkimuskirjallisuudesta löytyvän osaamisen, eri ohjelmistoprojekteissa tarvittavien olennaisten kompetenssien ja tyytyväisyystasojen tunnistamiseksi. Väitöstutkimuksessa kartoitimme ensin kompetenssitutkimusta. Tämä toi esiin tutkimusaukkoja, joita täyttääksemme rakensimme asteittain malleja tai kehyksiä osaamisen hallintaan kirjallisuuden sekä sidosryhmien kuulemisen pohjalta. Tästä syntyi lopuksi kokonaisvaltainen ohjelmistokompetenssien kehys. Tutkimusaineistosta eli ohjelmistokehitystyön esimiestehtävissä olevien henkilöiden haastatteluista tunnistimme kokonaisvaltaista viitekehystä käyttäen eri kompetenssit ja ohjelmistoprojektien kannalta olennaiset kompetenssit sekä tyytyväisyystasot. Tutkimuksen tuloksena saimme syvällisen analyysin kompetensseista sekä niiden hallinnan malleista ja viitekehyksistä. Lisäksi tunnistimme 62 ns. ”kovaa” kompetenssia (hard competencies) ja 63 ns. pehmeää kompetenssia (soft competencies) sekä 25 olennaisen kompetenssin yhdistelmän. Arviointia varten määritimme perus-, suoritus- ja ilahduttavuustason. Kokonaisvaltainen kehys on väitöstutkimuksen keskeisin tulos. Empiiristen havaintojen perusteella raportoimme myös 27 kompetenssia, joita tarkastelemamme kirjallisuus ei sisällä. Niistä 11 katsotaan ohjelmistoalan ammattilaisille välttämättömiksi kompetensseiksi

The state of research on software engineering competencies : A systematic mapping study

Considering the critical role of software in modern societies, we face an urgent need to educate more competent software professionals. Software engineering competencies (SEC) are considered the backbone of successfully developing software products. Consequently, SEC has become a hotspot for software engineering research and practice. Although scientific literature on SEC is not lacking, to our knowledge, a comprehensive overview of the current state of SEC research is missing. To that end, we conducted an extensive and systematic review of the SEC literature. We provide an overview of the current state of research on SEC, with a particular focus on common SEC research areas. In addition to reporting the available SEC models and frameworks, we compile a list of 49 unique essential competencies of software professionals. Finally, we highlight several gaps in the literature that deserve further research. In particular, we call for a better understanding of how the essential competencies of software professionals change over time, as well as fresh accounts of the essential competencies of software professionals. Additionally, considering recent shifts toward Agile and DevOps methods, future research must explore the competencies required for developing software products in modern development environments.peerReviewe

The Essential Competencies of Software Professionals: A Unified Competence Gate Framework

Context : Developing high-quality software requires skilled software professionals equipped with a set of basic and essential software engineering competencies (SEC). These competencies and the satisfaction levels derived from them change over a project's lifecycle, or as software professionals move from one project to another. Objective : Previous studies suggest a lack of means enabling SEC stakeholders to identify and assess competencies suitable for different projects. Additionally, previous research has mainly portrayed SEC to be static and overlooked their evolution over time and across projects. We investigate how we could effectively identify and match the competencies of software professionals necessary for different projects. Method : We follow a mixed-method approach to iteratively develop and evaluate a framework for identifying and managing SEC. In so doing, we use the results of an extensive literature review, focus group discussions with experts from academia and industry, and data collected through interviews with 138 individuals with a supervisory role in the software industry. Results : Drawing on the Kano model and Competency Framework for Software Engineers, we propose a Unified Competence Gate for Software Professionals (UComGSP), a framework for identifying and managing SEC. The UComGSP consists of 62 hard competencies, 63 soft competencies, and 25 essential SEC competencies. Additionally, we propose three stakeholders’ satisfaction levels for SEC assessment: basic, performance, and delighter. Furthermore, based on empirical observation, we report 27 competencies not mentioned in the reviewed literature; 11 of them are considered essential competencies. Conclusion : Competence development involves different stakeholders, including software professionals, educators, and the software industry. The UComGSP framework enables SEC stakeholders to (i) identify SE competencies, (ii) identify the essential SEC, and (iii) assess the satisfaction levels that can be derived from different competencies. Future research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed framework across software development projects.Peer reviewe

Artificial intelligence for cybersecurity: a systematic mapping of literature

Due to the ever-increasing complexities in cybercrimes, there is the need for cybersecurity methods to be more robust and intelligent. This will make defense mechanisms to be capable of making real-time decisions that can effectively respond to sophisticated attacks. To support this, both researchers and practitioners need to be familiar with current methods of ensuring cybersecurity (CyberSec). In particular, the use of artificial intelligence for combating cybercrimes. However, there is lack of summaries on artificial intelligent methods for combating cybercrimes. To address this knowledge gap, this study sampled 131 articles from two main scholarly databases (ACMdigital library and IEEE Xplore). Using a systematic mapping, the articles were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methods. It was observed that artificial intelligent methods have made remarkable contributions to combating cybercrimes with significant improvement in intrusion detection systems. It was also observed that there is a reduction in computational complexity, model training times and false alarms. However, there is a significant skewness within the domain. Most studies have focused on intrusion detection and prevention systems, and the most dominant technique used was support vector machines. The �findings also revealed that majority of the studies were published in two journal outlets. It is therefore suggested that to enhance research in artificial intelligence for CyberSec, researchers need to adopt newer techniques and also publish in other related outlets