92 research outputs found
The application of metrics to industrial prototyping processes: An empirical study
A key problem in the development of information systems is understanding features of the development process. To this end, in recent years, considerable interest has been focused on modelling processes. In this paper, the results of an empirical investigation into the use of prototyping in information systems development is described. Nine prototyping processes across eight different sites of varying size were analysed and data relating to each process collected. The notation of Role Activity Diagrams (RADs) was used to capture each of the nine processes. Analysis of the interactions in each process revealed that the project manager interacted with the prototyper far more often in large developments than in small or medium-sized developments. However, significantly more interactions between the project manager and end-user were found in small-sized developments than for any other sized site. The study demonstrates how measures of business models can aid analysis of the process rather than the product and highlights the need for more empirical investigation into this and other facets of the development process. A number of lessons have been learnt from our analysis; these we also explain
Using Counts as Heuristics for the Analysis of Static Models
The upstream activities of software development are often viewed as both the most
important, in terms of cost, and the yet the least understood, and most problematic, particularly in terms of satisfying customer requirements. Business process modelling is
one solution that is being increasingly used in conjunction with traditional software
development, often feeding in to requirements and analysis activities. In addition,
research in Systems Engineering for Business Process Change, highlights the importance
of modelling business processes in evolving and maintaining the legacy systems that
support those processes. However, the major use of business process modelling, is to
attempt to restructure the business process, in order to improve some given aspect, e.g.,
cost or time. This restructuring may be seen either as separate activity or as a pre-cursor
to the development of systems to support the new or improved process. Hence, the
analysis of these business models is vital to the improvement of the process, and as a
consequence to the development of supporting software systems. Supporting this analysis
is the focus of this paper.
Business processes are typically described with static (diagrammatic) models. This paper
proposes the use of measures (counts) to aid analysis and comparison of these static
process descriptions. The proposition is illustrated by showing how measures can be
applied to a commonly used process-modelling notation, Role Activity Diagrams (RADs).
Heuristics for RADs are described and measures suggested which support those
heuristics. An example process is used to show how a coupling measure can be used to
highlight features in RADs useful to the process modeller.
To fully illustrate the proposition the paper describes and applies a framework for the
theoretical validation of the coupling measure. An empirical evaluation follows. This is
illustrated by two case studies; the first based on the bidding process of a large
telecommunications systems supplier, and the second a study of ten prototyping processes
across a number of organisations.
These studies found that roles of the same type exhibited similar levels of coupling across
processes. Where roles did not adhere to tentative threshold values, further investigation
revealed unusual circumstances or hidden behaviour. Notably, study of the prototyping
roles, which exhibited the greatest variation in coupling, found that coupling was highly
correlated with the size of the development team. This suggests that prototyping in large
projects had a different process to that for small projects, using more mechanisms for
communication. Hence, the empirical studies support the view that counts (measures)
may be useful in the analysis of static process models
Assessing the Influence of Environmental and CEO Characteristics for
Information System literature has identified several factors that impact the adoption and implementation of IT. This study presents a meta-analysis of the findings of past literature on IT adoption to verify the significance of competitive pressure, government support, external pressure, CEO attitude, manager’s tenure, CEO innovativeness and CEO IT knowledge in the adoption of IT in organizations. The study found that except for manager’s tenure, all attributes had considerable influence on the adoption of IT. Amongst the factors considered, external pressure or the demands from the trading partners and potential customers were found to be most influential in the adoption process. The study also examined the effect of two moderating conditions for the relationship between the attributes and IT adoption
Raising Awareness In Distributed Agile Development - A Case Study Perspective
Raising and maintaining awareness in distributed agile cross-cultural teams is a challenging process, especially as the tenets of agile methods rely heavily on physical proximity, face-to-face communication, coordination and close collaboration. This paper reports on preliminary findings on how a distributed agile team within the financial sector, engages in raising awareness to carry out collaborative activities to accomplish project tasks. We have adapted the use of 3C Collaboration model as an evaluative mechanism to examine how the different dimensions (communication, coordination and cooperation) of the model stimulate awareness within a distributed agile team. The insights gained from the case study, suggest there is a constant interplay between the offshore and onshore teams to try and raise and maintain awareness in order to achieve project goal
Applying knowledge elicitation to improve web effort estimation: A case study
OBJECTIVE - The objective of this paper is to describe a case study where Bayesian Networks (BNs) were used to construct an expert-based Web effort model. METHOD - We built a single-company BN model solely elicited from expert knowledge, where the domain expert was an experienced Web project manager from a small Web company in Auckland, New Zealand. This model was validated using data from 22 past finished Web projects. RESULTS - The BN model has to date been successfully used to estimate effort for numerous Web projects. CONCLUSIONS - Our results suggest that, at least for the Web Company that participated in this case study, the use of a model that allows the representation of uncertainty, inherent in effort estimation, can outperform expert-based estimates. Another nine companies have also benefited from using Bayesian Networks, with very promising results. © 2012 IEEE
An Empirical Investigation of Code Smell ‘Deception’ and Research Contextualisation through Paul’s Criteria
Code smells represent code decay and as such should be eradicated from a system to prevent future maintenance problems. A range of twenty smells described by Fowler and Beck each require varying numbers and combinations of refactorings in order to be eradicated
— but exactly how many are needed when we consider related, nested refactorings is unclear. In this paper, we enumerate these refactorings when categorised according to Mantyla’s smell taxonomy. We then show how, ironically, the ‘smelliest’ of smells (and hence most difficult to eradicate) are actually those best understood by developers. So, code smells are not only unpleasant
to have around, but are deceptive in their nature and make-up. The study is thus a warning against attempting to eradicate what are seemingly easily eradicated smells — these are often the smells the developer needs to be most wary of. Finally, we incorporate the answers to six questions suggested by Paul for ‘How to write a paper
properly’ to position the paper in a reflective way
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