Towards Guidelines for Preventing Critical Requirements Engineering Problems

Context] Problems in Requirements Engineering (RE) can lead to serious consequences during the software development lifecycle. [Goal] The goal of this paper is to propose empirically-based guidelines that can be used by different types of organisations according to their size (small, medium or large) and process model (agile or plan-driven) to help them in preventing such problems. [Method] We analysed data from a survey on RE problems answered by 228 organisations in 10 different countries. [Results] We identified the most critical RE problems, their causes and mitigation actions, organizing this information by clusters of size and process model. Finally, we analysed the causes and mitigation actions of the critical problems of each cluster to get further insights into how to prevent them. [Conclusions] Based on our results, we suggest preliminary guidelines for preventing critical RE problems in response to context characteristics of the companies.Comment: Proceedings of the 42th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications, 201

What about the Less IT Literate? A Comparison of Different Postal Recruitment Strategies to an Online Panel of the General Population

Even though the proportion of individuals who are not equipped to participate in online surveys is constantly decreasing, many surveys face an under-representation of individuals who do not feel IT literate enough to participate. Using experimental data from a probability-based online panel, we study which recruitment survey mode strategy performs best in recruiting less IT-literate persons for an online panel. The sampled individuals received postal invitations to conduct the recruitment survey in a self-completion mode. We experimentally vary four recruitment survey mode strategies: one online mode strategy, two sequential mixed-mode strategies, and one concurrent mode strategy. We find the recruitment survey mode strategies to have a major effect on the sample composition of the recruitment survey, but the differences between the strategies vanish once respondents are asked to proceed with the panel online

Ground truth deficiencies in software engineering: when codifying the past can be counterproductive

Many software engineering tools build and evaluate their models based on historical data to support development and process decisions. These models help us answer numerous interesting questions, but have their own caveats. In a real-life setting, the objective function of human decision-makers for a given task might be influenced by a whole host of factors that stem from their cognitive biases, subverting the ideal objective function required for an optimally functioning system. Relying on this data as ground truth may give rise to systems that end up automating software engineering decisions by mimicking past sub-optimal behaviour. We illustrate this phenomenon and suggest mitigation strategies to raise awareness

Hybrid Software Development Approaches in Practice: A European Perspective

Agile and traditional development approaches are used in combination in todays software development. To improve the understanding and to provide better guidance for selecting appropriate development approaches, it is important to analyze such combinations in practice. Results obtained from an online survey strongly confirm that hybrid development approaches are widely used in industry. Our results show that hybrid development approaches: (i) have become reality for nearly all companies; (ii) are applied to specific projects even in the presence of company-wide policies for process usage; (iii) are neither planned nor designed but emerge from the evolution of different work practices; and, (iv) are consistently used regardless of company size or industry secto

Industry-academia collaborations in software engineering: An empirical analysis of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns in research projects

Research collaboration between industry and academia supports improvement and innovation in industry and helps to ensure industrial relevance in academic research. However, many researchers and practitioners believe that the level of joint industry-academia collaboration (IAC) in software engineering (SE) research is still relatively low, compared to the amount of activity in each of the two communities. The goal of the empirical study reported in this paper is to exploratory characterize the state of IAC with respect to a set of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns identified by a recent Systematic Literature Review study. To address the above goal, we gathered the opinions of researchers and practitioners w.r.t. their experiences in IAC projects. Our dataset includes 47 opinion data points related to a large set of projects conducted in 10 different countries. We aim to contribute to the body of evidence in the area of IAC, for the benefit of researchers and practitioners in conducting future successful IAC projects in SE. As an output, the study presents a set of empirical findings and evidence-based recommendations to increase the success of IAC projects.Supported by the National Research Fund, Luxembourg FNR/P10/03. Supported by FCT (Fundação para a Ciˆencia e Tecnologia) within the Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How does switching a Probability-Based Online Panel to a Smartphone-Optimized Design Affect

In recent years, an increasing number of online panel participants respond to surveys on smartphones. As a result, survey practitioners are faced with a difficult decision: Either they hold the questionnaire design constant over time and thus stay with the original desktop-optimized design; or they switch to a smartphone-optimized format and thus accommodate respondents who prefer participating on their smartphone. Even though this decision is all but trivial, little research thus far has been conducted on the effect of such an adjustment on panel members’ survey participation and device use. We report on the switch to a smartphone-optimized design in the German Internet Panel (GIP), an ongoing probability-based online panel that started in 2012 with a desktop-optimized design. We investigate whether the introduction of a smartphone-optimized design affected overall response rates and smartphone use in the GIP. Moreover, we examine the effect of different ways of announcing the introduction of the smartphone-optimized design in the invitation email on survey participation using a smartphone

On Evidence-based Risk Management in Requirements Engineering

Background: The sensitivity of Requirements Engineering (RE) to the context makes it difficult to efficiently control problems therein, thus, hampering an effective risk management devoted to allow for early corrective or even preventive measures. Problem: There is still little empirical knowledge about context-specific RE phenomena which would be necessary for an effective context- sensitive risk management in RE. Goal: We propose and validate an evidence-based approach to assess risks in RE using cross-company data about problems, causes and effects. Research Method: We use survey data from 228 companies and build a probabilistic network that supports the forecast of context-specific RE phenomena. We implement this approach using spreadsheets to support a light-weight risk assessment. Results: Our results from an initial validation in 6 companies strengthen our confidence that the approach increases the awareness for individual risk factors in RE, and the feedback further allows for disseminating our approach into practice.Comment: 20 pages, submitted to 10th Software Quality Days conference, 201

Catching up with Method and Process Practice: An Industry-Informed Baseline for Researchers

Software development methods are usually not applied by the book.companies are under pressure to continuously deploy software products that meet market needs and stakeholders\u27 requests. To implement efficient and effective development processes, companies utilize multiple frameworks, methods and practices, and combine these into hybrid methods. A common combination contains a rich management framework to organize and steer projects complemented with a number of smaller practices providing the development teams with tools to complete their tasks. In this paper, based on 732 data points collected through an international survey, we study the software development process use in practice. Our results show that 76.8% of the companies implement hybrid methods.company size as well as the strategy in devising and evolving hybrid methods affect the suitability of the chosen process to reach company or project goals. Our findings show that companies that combine planned improvement programs with process evolution can increase their process\u27 suitability by up to 5%

Characterizing industry-academia collaborations in software engineering: evidence from 101 projects

Research collaboration between industry and academia supports improvement and innovation in industry and helps ensure the industrial relevance of academic research. However, many researchers and practitioners in the community believe that the level of joint industry-academia collaboration (IAC) projects in Software Engineering (SE) research is relatively low, creating a barrier between research and practice. The goal of the empirical study reported in this paper is to explore and characterize the state of IAC with respect to industrial needs, developed solutions, impacts of the projects and also a set of challenges, patterns and anti-patterns identified by a recent Systematic Literature Review (SLR) study. To address the above goal, we conducted an opinion survey among researchers and practitioners with respect to their experience in IAC. Our dataset includes 101 data points from IAC projects conducted in 21 different countries. Our findings include: (1) the most popular topics of the IAC projects, in the dataset, are: software testing, quality, process, and project managements; (2) over 90% of IAC projects result in at least one publication; (3) almost 50% of IACs are initiated by industry, busting the myth that industry tends to avoid IACs; and (4) 61% of the IAC projects report having a positive impact on their industrial context, while 31% report no noticeable impacts or were “not sure”. To improve this situation, we present evidence-based recommendations to increase the success of IAC projects, such as the importance of testing pilot solutions before using them in industry. This study aims to contribute to the body of evidence in the area of IAC, and benefit researchers and practitioners. Using the data and evidence presented in this paper, they can conduct more successful IAC projects in SE by being aware of the challenges and how to overcome them, by applying best practices (patterns), and by preventing anti-patterns.The authors would like to thank the researchers and practitioners who participated in this survey. João M. Fernandes was supported by FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) within the Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013. Dietmar Pfahl was supported by the institutional research grant IUT20-55 of the Estonian Research Council. Andrea Arcuri was supported by the Research Council of Norway (grant agreement No 274385). Mika Mäntylä was partially supported by Academy of Finland grant and ITEA3 / TEKES grant