An auction-based serious game for bug tracking

Today, one of the challenges in software engineering is utilizing application lifecycle management (ALM) tools effectively in software development. In particular, it is hard for software developers to engage with the work items that are appointed to themselves in these ALM tools. In this study, we have focused on bug tracking in ALM where one of the most important metrics is mean time to resolution that is the average time to fix a reported bug. To improve this metric, we developed a serious game application based on an auction-based reward mechanism. The ultimate aim of this approach is to create an incentive structure for software practitioners to find and resolved bugs that are auctioned where participants are encouraged to solve and test more bugs in less time and improve quality of software development in a competitive environment. We conduct hypothesis tests by performing a Monte Carlo simulation. The preliminary results of this research support the idea that using a gamification approach for an issue tracking system enhances the productivity and decreases mean time to resolution

Modeling Software Product Line Engineering with Essence Framework

Although several software product line engineering (SPLE) methods have been described in the literature, adopting these methods in practice is often not straightforward. Thorough understanding of the methods and their artefacts is necessary to apply the methods in a proper manner, and likewise realize the expected goals of SPLE. Recently the Essence framework has been proposed to model the essential elements of a method and to support the modeling of a broad set of software development methods including plan-driven methods and agile methods. So far, the Essence framework has been applied to single system development methods and not yet for SPLE methods. To enhance the understanding of SPLE methods and support a vision for tailoring SPLE methods, we provide a mapping of an SPLE method to the Essence framework. We present experiences about modeling an SPLE method using the Essence framework within the industrial context of Havelsan

Systematic approach for mapping software development methods to the essence framework

The Essence framework has been recently defined as a basis for modeling various kinds of software development methods. The framework includes the necessary concepts to instantiate the software development methods. In this way a new method can be better understood, learned and compared with other methods. In practice, it is not straightforward to model a given software development method using the Essence framework. In this paper we provide a systematic approach for mapping methods to the elements of the Essence framework. To illustrate our approach, we use the mapping of the Nexus, a scaled agile approach, to the Essence framework. We report on the lessons learned and provide our conclusions

Adopting integrated application lifecycle management within a large-scale software company : An action research approach

Context: Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a paradigm for integrating and managing the various activities related to the governance, development and maintenance of software products. In the last decade, several ALM tools have been proposed to support this process, and an increasing number of companies have started to adopt ALM. Objective: We aim to investigate the impact of adopting ALM in a real industrial context to understand and justify both the benefits and obstacles of applying integrated ALM. Method: As a research methodology, we apply action research that we have carried out within HAVELSAN, a large-scale IT company. The research was carried out over a period of seven years starting in 2010 when the ALM initiative has been started in the company to increase productivity and decrease maintenance costs. Results: The paper presents the results of the action research that includes the application of ALM practices. The transitions among the different steps are discussed in detail, together with the identified obstacles, benefits and lessons learned. Conclusions: Our seven-year study shows that the adoption of ALM processes is not trivial and its success is related to many factors. An important conclusion is that a piecemeal solution as provided by ALM 1.0 is not feasible for the complex process and tool integration problems of large enterprises. Hence the transition to ALM 2.0 was found necessary to cope with the organizational and business needs. Although ALM 2.0 appeared to be a more mature ALM approach, there are still obstacles that need attention from both researchers and practitioners.</p

Uygulama yasam döngüsü yönetimi - Sistematik esleme çalismasi

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) can be defined as an approach that is starting from the idea of a software application and continuing with development, deployment and maintenance process. The overall objective of this study is evaluating the publications about Application Lifecycle Management by using an Evidence-Based method as Systematic Mapping Study. This systematic mapping aims to investigate the publications according to type and publication year, figure out the answers of the specified research questions and make suggestions for future work. Using a well-planned review protocol, related publications seen in the digital libraries (IEEE Explorer, ACM Digital Library etc.), white papers and industrial reports from search engines were classified by publication type, study type and related ALM area. Our study shows that industrial researches about conceptual ALM and benefits of ALM tools are heavily discussed whereas academic publications and experimental researches are less published.</p