Marco metodológico para la mejora de la eficiencia de uso de los procesos software

La mejora de procesos proporciona beneficios a la organización como reducción de costes, incremento de la productividad, mejora de la calidad, satisfacción del cliente y mayor nivel competitivo. Por ello es cada vez mayor el número de empresas que abordan proyectos de mejora de procesos. Sin embargo, los proyectos de mejora de procesos requieren de un gran esfuerzo humano, son largos de ejecución, y por consiguiente, muy costosos. Estos proyectos son críticos para la organización que los aborda, puesto que implican un cambio en su proceso de producción, con el fin de lograr una mayor productividad y calidad de los productos que elaboran. En los proyectos de mejora hay dos actividades clave: la definición del proceso y la implantación del proceso definido a toda la organización, denominado despliegue del proceso. Actualmente, se puede decir que la definición de procesos está en un nivel poco maduro. Por consiguiente, la tarea de definir procesos es difícil y costosa puesto que cada vez que se aborda la definición de un nuevo proceso se parte de cero. Por otro lado, el despliegue de los procesos definidos, constituye la tarea más desafiante a la que una organización se enfrenta. Esta actividad tiene como finalidad la implantación de un nuevo proceso de manera global en la organización. La solución que plantea esta tesis doctoral es una solución práctica a la formalización de la definición y despliegue del proceso. Dicha formalización permitirá, por un lado, almacenar el conocimiento y la experiencia de los ingenieros software que han usado el proceso en proyectos anteriores y; por otro lado, permitirá la difusión, búsqueda, uso y reutilización de los activos de procesos en nuevos proyectos. La solución propuesta es un marco metodológico, orientado a la reutilización y difusión del conocimiento, que incluye: - “Patrones de Producto”, como artefacto de encapsulación de conocimiento. - “Estrategia Corporativa”, para desplegar los procesos en toda la organización. - “Plataforma Colaborativa”, para mejorar la diseminación entre los miembros de los equipos de trabajo de nuevas piezas de conocimiento obtenidas como consecuencia del uso del mismo en proyectos anteriores, así como reducir el rechazo en la adopción de estos.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Software Process Improvement (SPI) provides benefits, such as cost reduction, increased productivity, quality improvement and customer satisfaction, to organizations. As a result, more and more organizations are addressing software process improvement projects. However, a software process improvement project requires a great deal of time and effort and are consequently costly. These projects are very important for organizations because they entail a change in production processes to achieve product quality and greater productivity. There are two main activities in software process improvement projects: process definition and process deployment. Currently, process definition is under-developed, so each process must be defined from scratch, which is very difficult and costly. On the other hand, process deployment is the most challenging task because a totally new process has to be implemented throughout the organization. This thesis describes a practical approach to formalizing processes definition and deployment. This will allow the knowledge and experience of software engineers acquired from previous projects and from software engineering best practices to be gathered and the dissemination, search, use and reuse of software processes and projects. The proposed solution is a methodological framework oriented to knowledge reuse and dissemination, which has three main components: - “Product Patterns” as a knowledge artifact. - “Corporate Strategy” to deploy the processes throughout the organization. - “Collaborative Platform” to improve communication among team members, transfer of new knowledge and to reduce the number of rejections of the framework

Collaborative tools: computer science students' skills versus software industry needs

Software companies encourage and further the use of collaborative tools and skills at the workplace in pursuit of the benefits of their use: they improve communication, productivity and efficiency, and competitiveness. Besides, undergraduate and graduate software engineering computing curricula recommend subjects related to effective cooperative working and group learning. In order to align industry needs and curricula recommendations, universities should provide students with the collaborative knowledge and skills that they will require on the labour market once they finish their degrees. In this scenario, we asked three questions: Are collaborative tools beneficial to software projects? Is it easier for students with knowledge and skills of collaborative tools to find a job? Do enterprises use collaborative tools as a marketing strategy for the recruitment process or are they really empowering their employees to use collaborative tools? This paper explores these questions. We devised a survey addressing the above questions, which was administered to 86 recent computer science graduates. We applied statistical techniques to analyse the responses. From the data gathered during the survey, we conclude that the expected benefits of the use of collaborative tools are in fact corroborated, students skilled in the use of collaborative tools do find it easier to get jobs and companies are not only looking for people with collaborative skills but also use collaborative tools in their routine work processes

Smart occupational health and safety for a digital era and its place in smart and sustainable cities

As innovative technologies emerge, there is a need to evolve the environments in which these technologies are used. The trend has shifted from considering technology as a support service towards making it the means for transforming all complex systems. Smart cities focus their development on the use of technology to transform every aspect of society and embrace the complexity of these transformations towards something leading to the well-being and safety of people inhabiting these cities. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is an essential aspect to be considered in the design of a smart city and its digital ecosystems, however, it remains unconsidered in most smart city's frameworks, despite the need for a specific space for smart OHS. This paper summarizes a 9-month process of generation of a value proposition for evolving the sector of OHS based on a value-map in whose creation several stakeholders have participated. They focused on identifying the products, the methods, the organizational structures and the technologies required to develop an updated, dynamic and robust prevention model focused on workers in smart and complex contexts, and to improve the organizations' capability to guarantee safety even in the most changing, digital and disruptive settings. To assess the relevance and validity of this value-map, a study was carried out to match the set of its elements and its specific and conceptual products discovered, considering also the definition of the past needs and future trends of the sector that a set of renowned stakeholders and key opinion leaders (with mastery in OHS from several companies and industries) have recently defined for the decade of 2020. A prospective analysis of this match is presented, revealing that there is still an existing gap to be covered in the context of smart cities design: the explicit guarantee of safety for workers.This work has been supported by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M in the line of Excellence of University Professors (EPUC3M17), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation)

An instance-based-learning simulation model to predict knowledge assets evolution involved in potential digital transformation projects.

Software engineering professionals must consider the appropriate technological solutions to meet their client’s needs and the organisational impact. The decision to implement a solution is not explicitly based on how it empowers the knowledge assets. Organisational knowledge assets are the foundation of the knowledge economy and a key element in evaluating the health of an organisation. This paper provides software engineers with a simulation model which illustrates the decision-making process for the implementation of technological solutions based on an evaluation of their client’s knowledge assets and how such assets impact and are impacted by the deployment of a solution. We use an agent-based approach and implement an instance-based learning model (a cognitive approach) to represent scenarios for experience-based decisions. 11 case studies were used to train the prediction engine and validate the usefulness of the model in generating scenarios and nurturing decision-making and user experiences.pre-print1537 K

Using system dynamics to teach about dependencies, correlation and systemic thinking on the software process workflows

It is important to count on tools to help software professionals to evaluate the software process and how it may be affected by factors related to its deployment. Simulation models are a valuable means to illustrate the behaviour of such a process since scenario generation supports the prediction of potential outcomes and the prevention of undesired scenarios which are harmful to the process and the company in charge of the project to be developed. This work explores the effectiveness of introducing system dynamics (SD) models in the software engineers' process of understanding, from a management perspective, the software process dynamics. The used SD simulation model of the software process emphasises the representation of an iterative process. The COCOMO II model drivers and their main attributes were used, providing a set of reference factors that affect the software process, the estimation of project cost and the effort required. A set of 59 junior software professionals with no previous knowledge about SD participated in a validation study. For simple predictive scenarios, there was no important improvement effect, while for more complex predictive scenarios SD helped them to guess better and provide a rationale for the expected behaviour of the software process performance.This work has beensupportedby the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid‐Spain) under the Multiannual Agree-ment with UC3M in the line of Excellence of University Professors (EPUC3M17) and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation

A methodology to manage oganizational procedures through ontologies

Organizations today need to maintain relationships with actors who intervene in the execution of key processes. This creates problems for the correct administration of the organization's procedures and in administrating a shared jargon, increasing costs related to the procedures. The objective of this paper is to present the MONPRO methodology, which supports the management of organizational procedures through the creation of specific ontologies of the organizational domain (including employee jargon and natural language), allowing any person with knowledge in computer science to create ontologies, without needing to be an expert. MONPRO is composed of five phases. The activities in each of them define a series of forms and diagrams that lead the ontology developer to break down the procedure and obtain the necessary resources to build the ontology. To test the methodology, the Presentation and Defense of the Doctoral Thesis at UC3M procedure for the Carlos III University of Madrid, Leganés Campus, Spain was used. The results can, in general, have a positive impact, reducing costs for a company through their no longer requiring to hire experts to develop procedure ontologies, also reducing by approximately 43.8% the consultation time on procedures and establishing a common organizational language regardless of the jargon of a particular employee. In general, this research offers organizations the opportunity to improve operational procedures, giving their employees access to the standards of the organization using a natural language and its own jargon, increasing the quality of procedures.This work was supported in part by the SEL-PROMISE Research Group, Carlos III University of Madrid, and in part by the University of Cauca through the GTI Research Group

Smart occupational health and safety for a digital era and its place in smart and sustainable cities.

As innovative technologies emerge, there is a need to evolve the environments in which these technologies are used. The trend has shifted from considering technology as a support service towards making it the means for transforming all complex systems. Smart cities focus their development on the use of technology to transform every aspect of society and embrace the complexity of these transformations towards something leading to the well-being and safety of people inhabiting these cities. Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) is an essential aspect to be considered in the design of a smart city and its digital ecosystems, however, it remains unconsidered in most smart city’s frameworks, despite the need for a specific space for smart OHS. This paper summarizes a 9-month process of generation of a value proposition for evolving the sector of OHS based on a value-map in whose creation several stakeholders have participated. They focused on identifying the products, the methods, the organizational structures and the technologies required to develop an updated, dynamic and robust prevention model focused on workers in smart and complex contexts, and to improve the organizations’ capability to guarantee safety even in the most changing, digital and disruptive settings. To assess the relevance and validity of this value-map, a study was carried out to match the set of its elements and its specific and conceptual products discovered, considering also the definition of the past needs and future trends of the sector that a set of renowned stakeholders and key opinion leaders (with mastery in OHS from several companies and industries) have recently defined for the decade of 2020. A prospective analysis of this match is presented, revealing that there is still an existing gap to be covered in the context of smart cities design: the explicit guarantee of safety for workers.post-print650 K

Simulación del proceso de desarrollo de software: una aproximación con Dinámica de Sistemas y el Método de Larman

The implementation of any software development process involves the consumption of critical resources. Software engineers cannot experiment with different development processes before starting them in real projects, due to the time that would entail and the amount of elements that are involved, so it is vital to have tools that allow the pre-visualization of the results of executing the software development process and how the environmental variables affect it, thus being able to anticipate under what conditions the software development process will be deployed. This paper presents the modelling and simulation of a software development process using System Dynamics (SD), which allows the graphical representation of the elements intervening in the software process, and the incorporation of as many relevant elements as possible. As a software costs estimation reference, the COCOMO estimation model was used; which beyond being reliable has a theoretical-practical foundation. As an ideal, and real, software process system, the Craig Larman Software Process model was chosen, also known as the Larman Method. The simulation model developed here, allows one to make some initial estimation of the software process and its elements’ behavior in the course of the simulation time. This is possible thanks to the observation and study of the system’s state variables, empowering one to discern about the effect of changes in the parameters on the general process, hence, carrying out relevant and interesting scenario studies. This model becomes a tool for supporting Software Project Management teams and enterprises whose business care on Technological Projects Management.Poner en marcha cualquier proyecto de software involucra el consumo de recursos críticos. El ingeniero de software no puede experimentar con procesos de desarrollo sin ponerlos en marcha en proyectos reales, debido al tiempo que ello conlleva y a los elementos implicados, de modo que es importante contar con herramientas para pre-visualizar el resultado de la ejecución del proceso y cómo las variables de entorno le afectan, buscando anticipar en qué condiciones se va a desplegar el proceso. Este artículo presenta el modelado y simulación de un proceso de desarrollo de software por medio del enfoque de la Dinámica de Sistemas (DS), que permite representar gráficamente los elementos intervinientes en el proceso e incorporar la cantidad relevante de parámetros involucrados. Se tomó como referencia el modelo de estimación de costes COCOMO, que cuenta con una fundamentación teórico-práctica que avala su fiabilidad. Para la construcción del modelo, la referencia de sistema real fue el proceso software de Craig Larman (Método de Larman). El modelo de simulación presentado permite hacer estimaciones iniciales del comportamiento del proceso software, y de los elementos que lo conforman, durante el transcurso de un tiempo de simulación configurable. Se analizan variables de estado del sistema, que permiten concluir sobre efectos de los parámetros en el comportamiento del sistema en general, y se lleva a cabo un estudio de escenarios. El modelo deriva en una herramienta de soporte a los equipos de gestión, y a las empresas que hacen de la Gestión de Proyectos Tecnológicos su negocio principal

Análisis experimental de la carga de trabajo requerida para completar una asignatura universitaria de cara a la transición hacia el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior

Este artículo describe los resultados de un proyecto de innovación docente que se está realizado durante el curso 2005-2006 y financiado por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, cuyo objetivo principal es determinar experimentalmente la cantidad de horas de trabajo por parte de los alumnos que requieren las asignaturas según los planes de estudio actuales, con el propósito de proporcionar información útil para la adaptación de las asignaturas al nuevo espacio de enseñanza superior europea, así como la valoración del esfuerzo que, tanto profesores como alumnos, tendrán que afrontar para adaptar los planes de estudios y métodos pedagógicos actuales a los requeridos por este nuevo marco normativo

Metodología Lego® SeriousPlay® para mejorar la participación y consolidar el aprendizaje de conceptos

Jornada de Innovación Docente: resultados y estrategias, celebrada el 22 de junio de 2016 en la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, donde se presentan algunos de los proyectos de innovación docente del curso 2015-2016