Software Process Improvement (Computer Science)

International Conference on Emerging Practices in Software Process & Architecture (SOFTPA 2022) is an emerging practice in Software Development life cycle adopted by various software organizations to develop an environment of continuous deployment and delivery within time. There are several software development processes that practice the concept of continuous improvement and automation to maintain the operational stability and smooth flow of software delivery.

Software Engineering (SE) is a wide domain, where ontologies are useful instruments for dealing with Knowledge Management (KM) related problems. When SE ontologies are built and used in isolation, some problems remain, in particular those related to knowledge integration. The goal of this paper is to provide an integrated solution for better dealing with KM-related problems in SE by means of a Software Engineering Ontology Network (SEON). SEON is designed with mechanisms for easing the development and integration of SE domain ontologies. The current version of SEON includes core ontologies for software and software processes, as well as domain ontolo-gies for the main technical software engineering subdomains, namely requirements , design, coding and testing. We discuss the development of SEON and some of its envisioned applications related to KM.

Integrated Software Management (ISM) and Software Product Engineering (SPE) are the two key process areas (KPA) of interest in the current study. They are both at the defined level of software process maturity. Following the clamor for software companies with high levels of maturity, the study examined the level of performance and relationship between ISM and SPE practices in the software industry of a typical developing country, with Nigeria as the case study. The study was conducted using survey research, case study and action research methodologies. The study covered 30 software companies spanning across several different geographical zones. The results of the research revealed a strong relationship between the ISM and SPE KPAs and a poor performance of the key practices associated with the respect KPAs in the industry. To improve the current level of performance of the respective KPAs, software companies have been advised to procure the services of professional ISM and SPE service providers and to properly equip their software product engineers and integrated software managers with the specialized skills and knowledge necessary for properly discharging their duties.

Quality is a key factor today in international business competition.
And quality, most people would now agree, is not something added to the product during testing at the end of the development process.
It is something everyone owns and is responsible for throughout that process.

"Quality is Job 1"

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is made up of 5 maturity levels namely Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, and Optimizing. Each maturity level consists of Key Process Areas (KPA) each of which in turn consists of key practices. Recent studies have shown that many developing countries rank poorly on this maturity model. The current study evaluated the level of performance of the practices associated with the two KPAs at maturity level 4 in a typical Nigerian software-house. The SEI CMMI Organizational Process Performance and Quantitative Project Management KPAs at maturity level 4 (Quantitatively Managed) are depicted as Software Quality Management (SQM) and Quantitative Process Management (QPM) respectively in the SEI maturity questionnaire employed in conducting the study. The survey study was conducted across 30 different software-houses within the country. The study equally employed the action research approach with some of the selected companies which were nominated for more detailed investigation. The study revealed weak performances in both KPAs but with a better performance of the practices associated with the SQM KPA. The findings from the current study were observed to be consistent with findings from similar studies in other developing countries. The causes of the observed weak performances, including unawareness of the existence of laid down international standards, non-adherence to such standards and inadequate knowledge about the required process improvement techniques, were discussed. Solutions, such as the institutionalisation of formal standard indicators for QPM and SQM with associated functional definitions, measurement methods, and analysis models, were proffered to address the causes of the weak performances experienced in both KPAs. Also, adequate resources in terms of time, budget, bureaucracy, tools, training, organisational framework, senior management support, common understanding and patience was equally advocated for QPM and SQM practices so as to forestall the occurrence of any unforeseen overhead. It was equally suggested that quality reviews for assessing software quality should be performed as often as possible and should secure the full support of organisational top management. Quality management activities should also be separated from project management activities so as to guarantee the independence of the quality management reviews. Finally, organizational top managements were encouraged to enforce strict adherence to QPM and SQM practices across the length and breadth of the organization. It is believed that if the proffered solutions are adopted, the software-houses will rank higher on the CMMI maturity scale and most likely experience better patronage.

In the literature about software process improvement
there are a number of papers that identify success factors and
barriers to such initiatives, but those works do not analyze or
propose possible organizational actions to manage them. The
implementation of improvements to software practices and
processes is a particular case of organizational change, and as in any proposed change, human resources are usually the key
parameter for its successful implementation. On its side, the People CMM model is a roadmap for implementing management
practices of human resources that contributes to continuously
improve the capacity of the workforce of an organization. From a
systematic literature review a long list of success factors, barriers, motivators and de-motivator was obtained, which were groupedinto 23 categories based on the similarity of the concepts
underlying each factor. Eleven of these categories can be related to process areas of People CMM, according to the criteria that, given a category of factors, there exists one or more process areas of People CMM that, for its purposes and objectives, the
implementation of its associated practices can help to strengthen
the success factors and motivators, and to mitigate the resistance factors, barriers and de-motivators associated with that category. Based on this analysis, this article proposes to consider the People CMM model as a framework around which to implement organizational actions to manage the success factors and barriers that influence a software process improvement initiative.

In this paper, we discuss approaches related to the explicit modeling of human beings in software development processes. While in most older simulation models of software development processes, esp. those of the system dynamics type, humans are only represented as a labor pool, more recent models of the discrete-event simulation type require representations of individual humans. In that case, particularities regarding the person become more relevant. These individual effects are either considered as stochastic variations of productivity, or an explanation is sought based on individual characteristics, such as skills for instance. In this paper, we explore such possibilities by recurring to some basic results in psychology, sociology, and labor science. Various specific models for representing human effects in software process simulation are discussed.

Improvement of the business cycle plays a very significant role in the product growth, rendering it successful for production teams, and utilizing the same collection of activities[1]. SPI is a really major task for companies to survive in a dynamic world to understand different changing functionalities such as developments in the market, shifts in the organizational level to unplanned adjustments, and eventually enhance product quality[3]. Improvement of the software platform is not introduced at a single point, but is a continuous and iterative method over the development cycle that allows to reach a high degree of maturity[4].

This report describes the SEV method for developing discrete software process simulation models. The methods aims at providing cost-efficient software technology evaluation and decision support. After an introduction describing the objectives and structure of this report, the method in general is explained. This includes all necessary steps from requirements identification and specification to model implementation, validation, and verification. The third part exemplarily describes advanced simulation modeling tasks. It considers, for instance, the integration of empirical studies and questions concerning reuse in simulation modeling. An exemplary model, developed according to the method, is applied to human resource modeling, data mining, and optimization and scheduling problems. The last part of this report describes two sample applications of simulation models that were developed according to the method. First, a code inspection process model with the focus on organizational aspects is explained, and second, a requirements inspection process model with the focus on the integration of empirical knowledge is introduced. The method was developed in the context of the German SEV and ProSim projects. Research within these projects was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and by the State of Rheinland-Pfalz.

In this paper, we discuss approaches related to the explicit modelling of human beings in software processes. While in most older simulation models of software processes, esp. those of the system dynamics type, humans are only represented as a labor pool, more recent models of the discrete-event simulation type require representation of individual humans. In that case, particularities regarding the person become more relevant. These individual effects are either considered as stochastic variations of productivity, or an explanation is sought based on individual characteristics, such as skills for instance. In this paper, various specific models for representing human effects in software process simulation are discussed.

The International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA) is a bi-monthly open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles which contribute new results in all areas of the Software Engineering & Applications. The goal of this journal is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to focus on understanding Modern software engineering concepts & establishing new collaborations in these areas.

This paper contains the results of the study of the following Software Process Reference Models for Improvement Programmes: CMMI, ISO 15504, and the UP, XP, PSP, TSP Methodologies, from a project management point of view. The project management processes analyzed in the above software engineering formalisms were: estimation, planning and quality management. As a result of this study, we offer an overview of the presence, integration, and ease of use of each project management process in the software engineering formalism selected. Results obtained reveal a good degree of integration among processes but a low level of ease of use in most part of the selected formalisms.

One of the symptoms of project failure is the low efficiency of use of software process assets and the quality of products developed. This paper describes a reuse-based solution to the existing problems and limitations of representing knowledge, experience of processes and products generated during the development of a software project. This solution has been successfully validated in real projects.

In diesem Dokument wird ein modularisiertes ereignisdiskretes Simulations-Modell vorgestellt welches umfassend die Aktivitäten Design, Kodierung, In-spektion, Test und Rework modelliert. Die einzelnen Aktivitäten und Aufgaben im Modell wurden in Modulen separat modelliert. Zuerst erfolgt eine Beschrei-bung des Modells auf der Ebene der Modul. Danach wird eine Template zur Be-schreibung der Module vorgestellt gefolgt von der Beschreibung der einzelnen Module sowie einigen Generischen Templates welche für Aktivitäten in einem ereignisdiskreten Modell verwendet werden können. Zur Verdeutlichung des Nutzens eines Simulationsmodells werden noch verschiedene Versuche durch-geführt und dokumentiert.

Systematic selection of appropriate processes, methods, and tools for the de-velopment of high quality software requires knowledge about their effects un-der varying project conditions. Up to now, the selection has essentially relied on subjective experience, empirically gained experience from previous projects, or experience from expensive controlled projects. This results in the situation that decisions concerning alternatives, in particular, are only insufficiently supported. The goal of the project SEV (Simulation-based Evaluation and Improvement of Software Development Processes) is the development of a simulation platform for software development processes and experiments. Process simulation is used to support decisions on process alternatives for a project on the basis of existing knowledge. Thereby, new development knowledge can be gained faster and more cost effectively. This progress report documents basic work towards the development of the simulation platform. In particular, application scenarios for the platform are described, an overview of an initial approach for using the platform is given, visualization requirements and concepts are de-scribed, simulation requirements and techniques are sketched, a survey of state-of-the-art simulation software is given, and an initial model for an exam-ple key software development process is sketched. Finally, a business model for applying the platform in industrial practice is described.