ICSSP 2015 – Author Index |
Contents -
Abstracts -
Authors
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A B C D F G H I J K L M N O P R S T V W X Y Z
Aalst, Wil van der |
![]() Wil van der Aalst (Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands) Software-related problems have an incredible impact on society, organizations, and users that increasingly rely on information technology. Specification, verification and testing techniques aim to avoid such problems. However, the growing complexity, scale, and diversity of software complicate matters. Since software is evolving and operates in a changing environment, one cannot anticipate all problems at design-time. Hence, we propose to analyze software "in vivo", i.e., we study systems in their natural habitat rather than through testing or software design. We propose to observe running systems, collect and analyze data on them, generate descriptive models, and use these to respond to failures. We focus on process mining as a tool for in vivo software analytics. Process discovery techniques can be used to capture the real behavior of software. Conformance checking techniques can be used to spot deviations. The alignment of models and real software behavior can be used to predict problems related to performance or conformance. Recent developments in process mining and instrumentation of software make this possible. This keynote paper provides pointers to process mining literature and introduces the "Big Software on the Run" (BSR) research program that just started. ![]() ![]() |
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Abrahamsson, Pekka |
![]() Anh Nguyen-Duc, Pertti Seppänen, and Pekka Abrahamsson (NTNU, Norway; University of Oulu, Finland) Software startups are increasingly important in generating innovative products and services that widely impact global economy. However, there is an insufficient research support for their innovation and engineering activities, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This study aims at proposing a conceptual model to understand how these activities occur and evolve in software startups. The model is constructed using a complexity theory and system design thinking. The model usage is illustrated by describing three software startup stories. The results show that our model can capture innovation generation activities and the non-linear evolution of engineering activities in software startups, which is not presentable in current software life cycle models. ![]() |
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Adjepon-Yamoah, David |
![]() David Adjepon-Yamoah, Alexander Romanovsky, and Alexei Iliasov (Newcastle University, UK) The paper introduces an architecture to support system engineering on the cloud. It employs the main benefits of the cloud: scalability, parallelism, cost-effectiveness, multi-user access and flexibility. The architecture includes an open toolbox which provides tools as a service to support various phases of system engineering. The architecture uses the Open Services for Life-cycle Collaboration (OSLC) technology to create a reactive middleware that informs all stakeholders about any changes in the development artefacts. It facilitates the interoperability of tools and enables the workflow of tools to support complex engineering steps. Another component of the architecture is a shared repository of artefacts. All the artefacts generated during a system engineering process are stored in the repository, and can be accessed by relevant stakeholders. The shared repository also serves as a platform to support a protocol for formal model decomposition and group work on the decomposed models. Finally, the architecture includes components for ensuring the dependability of the system engineering process. ![]() |
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Alférez, Mauricio |
![]() Juan Cadavid, Mauricio Alférez, Sébastien Gérard, and Patrick Tessier (CEA, France) Manufacturing processes are undergoing major challenges to achieve the Smart Factory vision such as to increase systematic processes reuse and improve understandability of complex structures. However, those challenges recall closely those of software processes which have been successfully targeted by model-driven engineering techniques such as domain-specific modeling languages, modeling abstractions based on view-points, model-based formal analysis and automated model transformations. The goal of this paper is to present a research agenda to integrate those techniques in manufacturing processes to achieve the Smart Factory vision. We first survey manufacturing approaches that are based on the ISA-95 and BPMN standards. Then, we propose model-driven solutions to complement those approaches. ![]() |
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Araki, Keijiro |
![]() Shigeru Kusakabe, Hsin-Hung Lin, Yoichi Omori, and Keijiro Araki (Kyushu University, Japan) In order to nd a clue to effectively introducing and utilizing new technology in improving software development process, we analyze and visualize the in-degree centrality of the process area networks in terms of the related process areas in CMMI-DEV. By visualizing the results of in-degree centrality analysis, we can have a perspective of process improvement in using advanced technology. ![]() |
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Astromskis, Saulius |
![]() Saulius Astromskis, Andrea Janes, and Michael Mairegger (Free University of Bolzano, Italy; Schwer Präzision, Italy) Characterizing how users interact with software has many applications. For example, to understand which features are used, in which sequence operations are performed, etc. can help to understand how the user interface could be improved, to identify missing features, or to identify scenarios which are good candidates for test cases. This paper presents an industrial case study in which we investigate how users interact with an enterprise resource planning software using process mining. Our case study illustrates how we identify user interaction processes, the encountered advantages, and the faced challenges. One of the major findings is that the decision how to group events into cases is crucial for the application of the method. ![]() |
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Babar, Muhammad Ali |
![]() Wei Zhang, Yun Yang, Junchao Xiao, Xiao Liu, and Muhammad Ali Babar (Anhui University, China; East China Institute of Technology, China; Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; East China Normal University, China; University of Adelaide, Australia) Delay on a critical path may cause the failure in meeting the software project deadline. By adding extra employees with similar skills for help, the delay is expected to be eliminated or reduced. However, the originally scheduled activities may be suspended due to reallocation of employees, which may lead to the problem of delay propagation. So how to minimize and even eliminate the delay without delay propagation is worth investigation. In this paper, we first use a simple scenario to demonstrate the problem of employee scheduling which shows that in the scheduling process, one activity can have many ways for selecting employees from another project. In fact, the searching path in a multi-branch tree and its complete traversal is a NP hard problem. Furthermore when the scale of the problem becomes large, it is impractical to generate a search tree for implementation. Therefore, we propose an ant colony algorithm to address such a problem. Both case studies and initial simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can obtain feasible solutions under different circumstances. ![]() |
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Bastarrica, María Cecilia |
![]() Fabian Rojas Blum, Jocelyn Simmonds, and María Cecilia Bastarrica (University of Chile, Chile) Companies define software processes for planning and guiding projects. Since process definition is expensive, and in practice, no one process ”fits all” projects, the current trend is to define a Software Process Line (SPrL): a base process that represents the common process elements, along with its potential variability. Specifying a SPrL is more expensive than just specifying one process, but the SPrL can be adapted to specific project contexts, minimizing the amount of extra work carried out by employees. Mining project logs has proven to be a promising approach for discovering the process that is applied in practice. However, considering all the possible variations that may be logged, the mined process may be overly complex. Some algorithms deal with this by filtering infrequent relations between log events, but they may discard relevant relations. In this paper we propose the v-algorithm that uses two thresholds to set up a SPrL: highly frequent relations are used to build the base process, variable relations define process variability, and rare relations are discarded as noise. We applied the v-algorithm to the project log of Mobius, a small Chilean software company. We obtained a SPrL where we identified unexpected alternative ways of performing certain activities, as well as an optional activity that was originally specified as mandatory. ![]() |
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Bernijazov, Ruslan |
![]() Jörg Holtmann, Ruslan Bernijazov, Matthias Meyer, David Schmelter, and Christian Tschirner (Fraunhofer IPT, Germany) The development of software-intensive technical systems (e.g., within the automotive industry) involves several engineering disciplines like mechanical, electrical, control, and software engineering. Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) coordinates these disciplines throughout the development by means of discipline-spanning processes and system models. Such a system model provides a common understanding of the system under development and serves as a starting point for the discipline-specific development. An integral part of MBSE is the requirements engineering on the system level. However, for the discipline-specific development to start, these requirements need to be refined, e.g., into specific requirements for the embedded software. Since existing MBSE approaches lack support for this refinement step, we conceived a systematic transition from MBSE to model-based software requirements engineering, which we present in this paper. We automated the steps of the transition where possible, in order to avoid error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks. We illustrate the approach with an example of an automotive embedded system. ![]() |
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Bibus, Markus |
![]() Christian R. Prause, Markus Bibus, Carsten Dietrich, and Wolfgang Jobi (DLR, Germany) The DLR Space Administration designs and implements the German space program. While project management rests with the agency, suppliers are contracted for building the space devices and their software. As opposed to many other domains, these are often unique devices with uncommon and custom-built peripherals. Its software is specifically developed for a single mission only and controls critical functionality. A small coding error can mean the loss of a mission. For this reason, customer and supplier closely collaborate on the field of software quality. We report from a customer's perspective on lessons and management tools for influencing suppliers' processes and product quality: standards, single-source tailoring and cross-company product assurance. ![]() |
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Blum, Fabian Rojas |
![]() Fabian Rojas Blum, Jocelyn Simmonds, and María Cecilia Bastarrica (University of Chile, Chile) Companies define software processes for planning and guiding projects. Since process definition is expensive, and in practice, no one process ”fits all” projects, the current trend is to define a Software Process Line (SPrL): a base process that represents the common process elements, along with its potential variability. Specifying a SPrL is more expensive than just specifying one process, but the SPrL can be adapted to specific project contexts, minimizing the amount of extra work carried out by employees. Mining project logs has proven to be a promising approach for discovering the process that is applied in practice. However, considering all the possible variations that may be logged, the mined process may be overly complex. Some algorithms deal with this by filtering infrequent relations between log events, but they may discard relevant relations. In this paper we propose the v-algorithm that uses two thresholds to set up a SPrL: highly frequent relations are used to build the base process, variable relations define process variability, and rare relations are discarded as noise. We applied the v-algorithm to the project log of Mobius, a small Chilean software company. We obtained a SPrL where we identified unexpected alternative ways of performing certain activities, as well as an optional activity that was originally specified as mandatory. ![]() |
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Boehm, Barry |
![]() Barry Boehm and Richard Turner (University of Southern California, USA; Stevens Institute of Technology, USA) This tutorial introduces the ICSM as a means of addressing the need for more flexible and responsive systems engineering. It describes the principles that guide the model, and leads attendees through a product development case study. Attendees will receive a copy of the book The Incremental Commitment Spiral Model: Principles and Practices for Successful Systems and Software. ![]() |
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Cabanillas, Cristina |
![]() Cristina Cabanillas, Manuel Resinas, Jan Mendling, and Antonio Ruiz-Cortés (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; University of Seville, Spain) Plenty of activities in many business contexts must be performed collaboratively, e.g., in a hospital or when organising a conference. Tasks such as team composition and allocation are usually performed manually and on the ground of limited criteria such as individual skills, a.o. because adequate automatic support is missing. This paper addresses this shortcoming. We present an approach for team selection and compliance checking in business processes, which includes (i) a language for describing teams; (ii) a way to define team selection conditions and policies related to team composition; and (iii) a mechanism for the automatic resolution of the team selection conditions and for team-related compliance checking based on formal ontologies. ![]() |
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Cadavid, Juan |
![]() Juan Cadavid, Mauricio Alférez, Sébastien Gérard, and Patrick Tessier (CEA, France) Manufacturing processes are undergoing major challenges to achieve the Smart Factory vision such as to increase systematic processes reuse and improve understandability of complex structures. However, those challenges recall closely those of software processes which have been successfully targeted by model-driven engineering techniques such as domain-specific modeling languages, modeling abstractions based on view-points, model-based formal analysis and automated model transformations. The goal of this paper is to present a research agenda to integrate those techniques in manufacturing processes to achieve the Smart Factory vision. We first survey manufacturing approaches that are based on the ISA-95 and BPMN standards. Then, we propose model-driven solutions to complement those approaches. ![]() |
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Cawley, Oisín |
![]() Oisín Cawley, Ita Richardson, Xiaofeng Wang, and Marco Kuhrmann (University of Limerick, Ireland; Free University of Bolzano, Italy; University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) A growing number of companies are discovering that their software development processes must be in compliance with some form of regulation. This is particularly so when it comes to safety-critical or business-critical systems such as Automotive Software, Robotics, Medical Devices or Finan- cial Management systems. These regulations aect the soft- ware development process itself in various forms. Further- more, much attention is being given to ways of improving the eciency of businesses, for example, by adopting lean principles. This raises the question for how to adopt lean principles for software development within a regulated envi- ronment? This poster presents the results of our empirical research into lean and regulated software development. Built from a combination of data sources, we have developed a conceptual framework comprising ve primary components. In addition the relationships they have with both the central focus of the framework (the situated software development practices) and with each other are indicated. ![]() |
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Clarke, Paul |
![]() Rory V. O'Connor and Paul Clarke (Lero, Ireland; Dublin City University, Ireland; Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) Commercial software development organisations routinely operate in dynamic environments, with various situational factors that affect the software development approach undergoing recurring change. We therefore suggest that process reflexivity - the ability to reflect upon the suitability of a software process for a given context and to adapt the process according to changing situational circumstances – is an important capability for software development organizations.. In support of this position we conducted an exploratory industrial study of software development in practice. An initial analysis of our data suggests that software process reflexivity may exercise a strong influence over business success. Further work is required to fully examine our data, however, initial findings indicate that software process reflexivity is worthy of greater attention. ![]() ![]() Marion Lepmets, Fergal Mc Caffery, and Paul Clarke (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) Software development companies moving into the medical device domain often find themselves overwhelmed by the number of regulatory requirements they need to satisfy before they can market their device. Several international standards and guidance documents have been developed to help companies on their road to regulatory compliance but working their way through the various standards is a challenge in itself. In order to help software companies in the medical device domain, we have developed an integrated framework of medical device software development best practices called MDevSPICE®. This framework integrates generic software development best practices with medical device standards’ requirements enabling consistent and thorough assessment of medical device processes. MDevSPICE® can be used by software companies evaluating their readiness for regulatory audits as well as by large medical device manufacturers for selecting suitable software suppliers. The MDevSPICE® framework consists of a process reference model, a process assessment model, an assessment method, and training and certification schemes. The framework has been validated using expert reviews and through MDevSPICE® assessments in industry. In this paper, we describe the MDevSPICE® process assessment framework focusing on its benefits and significance for the medical device manufacturing community as learned from MDevSPICE® assessments conducted to date. ![]() |
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Damm, Lars-Ola |
![]() Lars-Ola Damm (Ericsson, Sweden) The agile core values dictate that processes should be as light-weight as possible and that the focus should instead be on enabling frequent interactions between people. In small-scale agile environments, this approach is normally straightforward to apply since everyone working on the software project are working close together. However, when applying an agile process on a large-scale environment, more governance is required to ensure that the development and deployment of the system as a whole is consistent. The main recommendation of this paper is that in order to maintain agility in a large-scale environment, one must be careful how to apply the extra governance needed, in particular process alignment. ![]() |
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De Silva, Ian J. |
![]() Ian J. De Silva, Sanjai Rayadurgam, and Mats P. E. Heimdahl (University of Minnesota, USA) Agile development processes are popular when attempting to respond to changing requirements in a controlled manner; however, selecting an ill-suited process may increase project costs and risk. Before adopting a seemingly promising agile approach, we desire to evaluate the approach's applicability in the context of the specific product, organization, and staff. Simulation provides a means to do this. However, in order to simulate agile processes we require both the ability to model individual behavior as well as the decoupling of the process and product. To our knowledge, no existing simulator nor underlying simulation model provide a means to do this. To address this gap, we introduce a process simulation reference model that provides the constructs and relationships for capturing the interactions among the individuals, product, process, and project in a holistic fashion---a necessary first step towards an agile-process evaluation environment. ![]() |
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Diebold, Philipp |
![]() Marco Kuhrmann, Claudia Konopka, Peter Nellemann, Philipp Diebold, and Jürgen Münch (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark; 4Soft, Germany; Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; University of Helsinki, Finland) Software process improvement (SPI) is around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer the question for what is the current state of SPI and related research? In this paper, we present initial results from a systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 635 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past 25 years. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories. In particular, standard SPI models like CMMI and ISO/IEC 15504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability, whereas these standards are critically discussed from the perspective of SPI in small-to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors to aid companies in conducting SPI. ![]() ![]() Philipp Diebold, Daniel Méndez Fernández, and Darja Šmite (Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; TU München, Germany; Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden) Agile software development has become well known to the community and is nowadays frequently used for the development of different kinds of software systems. Agile methods are widely spread and often adapted to the context-specific needs. The adaptations constitute reductions and/or extensions of agile practices. Yet, we have limited knowledge about the impact of some of the individual practices, which is crucial to justify organizational changes. To systemize the knowledge of the impact of agile practices, we launch this workshop and invite researchers and practitioners to work on a documenting and accumulating their experiences in a knowledge base. ![]() ![]() Philipp Diebold and Thomas Zehler (Fraunhofer IESE, Germany) Because agile development has become more important in software engineering in recent years, many companies want to become agile. One way to do so is context-specific improvement, preferably performed by selecting the right agile practices and integrating them into the current software development process. For making an appropriate selection, the impact on the improvement goals needs to be known. Therefore, the idea is to build an overall model that includes the impact of at least the most commonly used agile practices. This impact model is mainly built on these agile practices, on various impact characteristics, and on their connections. A larger example of some practices and their (possible) impact characteristics is presented. Additionally, the Agile Capability Analysis is introduced as an example application scenario of the model. The Agile Practices Impact Model presented in this paper could support context-specific integration of agility into any current development process. Nonetheless, the model needs to be filled with existing evidence. ![]() |
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Dietrich, Carsten |
![]() Christian R. Prause, Markus Bibus, Carsten Dietrich, and Wolfgang Jobi (DLR, Germany) The DLR Space Administration designs and implements the German space program. While project management rests with the agency, suppliers are contracted for building the space devices and their software. As opposed to many other domains, these are often unique devices with uncommon and custom-built peripherals. Its software is specifically developed for a single mission only and controls critical functionality. A small coding error can mean the loss of a mission. For this reason, customer and supplier closely collaborate on the field of software quality. We report from a customer's perspective on lessons and management tools for influencing suppliers' processes and product quality: standards, single-source tailoring and cross-company product assurance. ![]() |
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Fernández, Daniel Méndez |
![]() Philipp Diebold, Daniel Méndez Fernández, and Darja Šmite (Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; TU München, Germany; Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden) Agile software development has become well known to the community and is nowadays frequently used for the development of different kinds of software systems. Agile methods are widely spread and often adapted to the context-specific needs. The adaptations constitute reductions and/or extensions of agile practices. Yet, we have limited knowledge about the impact of some of the individual practices, which is crucial to justify organizational changes. To systemize the knowledge of the impact of agile practices, we launch this workshop and invite researchers and practitioners to work on a documenting and accumulating their experiences in a knowledge base. ![]() |
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Finance, Béatrice |
![]() Raef Mousheimish, Yehia Taher, and Béatrice Finance (University of Versailles, France) Logistics processes are generally automated, agreed-upon, long running propositions between multiple partners, that are specified over Service Level Agreements as constraints to be maintained. However, these constraints can be violated at any time due to various unforeseen events that may stem from the process evolving context. In this paper, we present a framework along with a demonstration software that correlates critical business operations together with contextual events in order to predict possible violations prior to their occurrences while proactively generating mitigation countermeasures. ![]() |
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Front, Agnes |
![]() Mojtaba Hajmoosaei, Hanh-Nhi Tran, Christian Percebois, Agnes Front, and Claudia Roncancio (IRIT, France; University of Toulouse, France; LIG, France; University of Grenoble, France) Managing changes for knowledge-intensive processes like System and Software Engineering is a critical issue but far from being mastered due to the lack of supporting methods and practical tools. To manage changes systematically, a process environment is needed to control processes and to handle changes at run-time. However, such an effective environment satisfying these requirements is still missing. The reason is two-folds: first, operational process environments for system and software engineering is scarce; second, there is a lack of efficient change management mechanism integrated in such process environments. In order to address these concerns, we aimed at developing a change-aware process environment for system and software engineering. To this aim, we proposed a change management mechanism based on (1) the Process Dependency Graph (PDG) representing the dependencies among running process instances managed by a process environment ; (2) a Change Observer process to catch change events and update the PDG with run-time information; (3) a Change Analyzer component to extract the impacts of change by reasoning the PDG. In terms of implementation, to gain the benefits from the Business Process Community, where many mature Business Process Management Systems have been developed, we chose jBPM to enact and monitor processes. The key strengths of this study are: first, the PDG makes hidden dependencies among process instances emerge at run-time; second, the process observer inside the BPMS allows to handle the change events in a timely manner. Finally, the Neo4j graph database, used to store the PDG, enables efficient traversal and queries. ![]() |
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Gao, Chao |
![]() Shu Jiang, He Zhang, Chao Gao, Dong Shao, and Guoping Rong (Nanjing University, China) Training and learning are one important purpose of Software Process Simulation (SPS). Some previous reviews showed a noticeable number of studies that combine SPS and Soft- ware Engineering Education (SEE). The objective of this research is to present the latest state-of-the-art of this area, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of SPS in educational context. We conducted an extended Systematic Literature Review (SLR) based on our previous reviews. The review identified 42 primary studies from 1992 to 2013. This paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. The overall findings confirmed the positive impact of SPS on education. The detailed discussions and recommendations may offer reference value to the community. ![]() ![]() Chao Gao, He Zhang, and Shu Jiang (Nanjing University, China) Software process simulation (SPS) has become an active research area for managing and improving software development processes since its introduction in the last two decades. Hybrid simulation, the combination of simulation paradigms to address a problem, is becoming more popular as the problems we are presented with become more complex. However, integrating multiple simulation paradigms faces the issues of compatibility, interoperatability and synchronization when executing simulation. The objective of this research is to present the state-of-the-art of this research area, the hybrid mechanism when integrating paradigms, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of hybrid simulation in SPS context. Based on an extended systematic literature review, this paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. Depending upon the way these simulation paradigms represent different aspects and levels of software process and the context in which they can be modeled by SPS, two hybrid mechanisms: Hierarchical Mechanism and Interlinked Mechanism, have been frequently employed. The detailed discussions of integration strategies and recommendations when applying hybrid simulation may offer reference value to the SPS community. ![]() |
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Gérard, Sébastien |
![]() Juan Cadavid, Mauricio Alférez, Sébastien Gérard, and Patrick Tessier (CEA, France) Manufacturing processes are undergoing major challenges to achieve the Smart Factory vision such as to increase systematic processes reuse and improve understandability of complex structures. However, those challenges recall closely those of software processes which have been successfully targeted by model-driven engineering techniques such as domain-specific modeling languages, modeling abstractions based on view-points, model-based formal analysis and automated model transformations. The goal of this paper is to present a research agenda to integrate those techniques in manufacturing processes to achieve the Smart Factory vision. We first survey manufacturing approaches that are based on the ISA-95 and BPMN standards. Then, we propose model-driven solutions to complement those approaches. ![]() |
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Hajmoosaei, Mojtaba |
![]() Mojtaba Hajmoosaei, Hanh-Nhi Tran, Christian Percebois, Agnes Front, and Claudia Roncancio (IRIT, France; University of Toulouse, France; LIG, France; University of Grenoble, France) Managing changes for knowledge-intensive processes like System and Software Engineering is a critical issue but far from being mastered due to the lack of supporting methods and practical tools. To manage changes systematically, a process environment is needed to control processes and to handle changes at run-time. However, such an effective environment satisfying these requirements is still missing. The reason is two-folds: first, operational process environments for system and software engineering is scarce; second, there is a lack of efficient change management mechanism integrated in such process environments. In order to address these concerns, we aimed at developing a change-aware process environment for system and software engineering. To this aim, we proposed a change management mechanism based on (1) the Process Dependency Graph (PDG) representing the dependencies among running process instances managed by a process environment ; (2) a Change Observer process to catch change events and update the PDG with run-time information; (3) a Change Analyzer component to extract the impacts of change by reasoning the PDG. In terms of implementation, to gain the benefits from the Business Process Community, where many mature Business Process Management Systems have been developed, we chose jBPM to enact and monitor processes. The key strengths of this study are: first, the PDG makes hidden dependencies among process instances emerge at run-time; second, the process observer inside the BPMS allows to handle the change events in a timely manner. Finally, the Neo4j graph database, used to store the PDG, enables efficient traversal and queries. ![]() |
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Heimdahl, Mats P. E. |
![]() Ian J. De Silva, Sanjai Rayadurgam, and Mats P. E. Heimdahl (University of Minnesota, USA) Agile development processes are popular when attempting to respond to changing requirements in a controlled manner; however, selecting an ill-suited process may increase project costs and risk. Before adopting a seemingly promising agile approach, we desire to evaluate the approach's applicability in the context of the specific product, organization, and staff. Simulation provides a means to do this. However, in order to simulate agile processes we require both the ability to model individual behavior as well as the decoupling of the process and product. To our knowledge, no existing simulator nor underlying simulation model provide a means to do this. To address this gap, we introduce a process simulation reference model that provides the constructs and relationships for capturing the interactions among the individuals, product, process, and project in a holistic fashion---a necessary first step towards an agile-process evaluation environment. ![]() |
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Holtmann, Jörg |
![]() Jörg Holtmann, Ruslan Bernijazov, Matthias Meyer, David Schmelter, and Christian Tschirner (Fraunhofer IPT, Germany) The development of software-intensive technical systems (e.g., within the automotive industry) involves several engineering disciplines like mechanical, electrical, control, and software engineering. Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) coordinates these disciplines throughout the development by means of discipline-spanning processes and system models. Such a system model provides a common understanding of the system under development and serves as a starting point for the discipline-specific development. An integral part of MBSE is the requirements engineering on the system level. However, for the discipline-specific development to start, these requirements need to be refined, e.g., into specific requirements for the embedded software. Since existing MBSE approaches lack support for this refinement step, we conceived a systematic transition from MBSE to model-based software requirements engineering, which we present in this paper. We automated the steps of the transition where possible, in order to avoid error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks. We illustrate the approach with an example of an automotive embedded system. ![]() |
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Iliasov, Alexei |
![]() David Adjepon-Yamoah, Alexander Romanovsky, and Alexei Iliasov (Newcastle University, UK) The paper introduces an architecture to support system engineering on the cloud. It employs the main benefits of the cloud: scalability, parallelism, cost-effectiveness, multi-user access and flexibility. The architecture includes an open toolbox which provides tools as a service to support various phases of system engineering. The architecture uses the Open Services for Life-cycle Collaboration (OSLC) technology to create a reactive middleware that informs all stakeholders about any changes in the development artefacts. It facilitates the interoperability of tools and enables the workflow of tools to support complex engineering steps. Another component of the architecture is a shared repository of artefacts. All the artefacts generated during a system engineering process are stored in the repository, and can be accessed by relevant stakeholders. The shared repository also serves as a platform to support a protocol for formal model decomposition and group work on the decomposed models. Finally, the architecture includes components for ensuring the dependability of the system engineering process. ![]() |
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Janes, Andrea |
![]() Saulius Astromskis, Andrea Janes, and Michael Mairegger (Free University of Bolzano, Italy; Schwer Präzision, Italy) Characterizing how users interact with software has many applications. For example, to understand which features are used, in which sequence operations are performed, etc. can help to understand how the user interface could be improved, to identify missing features, or to identify scenarios which are good candidates for test cases. This paper presents an industrial case study in which we investigate how users interact with an enterprise resource planning software using process mining. Our case study illustrates how we identify user interaction processes, the encountered advantages, and the faced challenges. One of the major findings is that the decision how to group events into cases is crucial for the application of the method. ![]() ![]() Andrea Janes (Free University of Bolzano, Italy) Microenterprises (companies with less than 10 employees) are the dominating form of organizations in Europe. Unfortunately, many approaches to improve software development processes based on measurement are not tailored for such small companies. This poster proposes a measurement infrastructure that is developed with the goal to support microenterprises in measuring their process, product, and usage of the developed software to provide feedback to the entire development team. What the here presented tool wants to propose is to automate not only the data collection, but to be consequent in the rest of the feedback loop: to setup the interpretation and visualization of the data that, once this is done, no more intervention is needed. ![]() |
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Jiang, Shu |
![]() Shu Jiang, He Zhang, Chao Gao, Dong Shao, and Guoping Rong (Nanjing University, China) Training and learning are one important purpose of Software Process Simulation (SPS). Some previous reviews showed a noticeable number of studies that combine SPS and Soft- ware Engineering Education (SEE). The objective of this research is to present the latest state-of-the-art of this area, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of SPS in educational context. We conducted an extended Systematic Literature Review (SLR) based on our previous reviews. The review identified 42 primary studies from 1992 to 2013. This paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. The overall findings confirmed the positive impact of SPS on education. The detailed discussions and recommendations may offer reference value to the community. ![]() ![]() Chao Gao, He Zhang, and Shu Jiang (Nanjing University, China) Software process simulation (SPS) has become an active research area for managing and improving software development processes since its introduction in the last two decades. Hybrid simulation, the combination of simulation paradigms to address a problem, is becoming more popular as the problems we are presented with become more complex. However, integrating multiple simulation paradigms faces the issues of compatibility, interoperatability and synchronization when executing simulation. The objective of this research is to present the state-of-the-art of this research area, the hybrid mechanism when integrating paradigms, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of hybrid simulation in SPS context. Based on an extended systematic literature review, this paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. Depending upon the way these simulation paradigms represent different aspects and levels of software process and the context in which they can be modeled by SPS, two hybrid mechanisms: Hierarchical Mechanism and Interlinked Mechanism, have been frequently employed. The detailed discussions of integration strategies and recommendations when applying hybrid simulation may offer reference value to the SPS community. ![]() |
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Jobi, Wolfgang |
![]() Christian R. Prause, Markus Bibus, Carsten Dietrich, and Wolfgang Jobi (DLR, Germany) The DLR Space Administration designs and implements the German space program. While project management rests with the agency, suppliers are contracted for building the space devices and their software. As opposed to many other domains, these are often unique devices with uncommon and custom-built peripherals. Its software is specifically developed for a single mission only and controls critical functionality. A small coding error can mean the loss of a mission. For this reason, customer and supplier closely collaborate on the field of software quality. We report from a customer's perspective on lessons and management tools for influencing suppliers' processes and product quality: standards, single-source tailoring and cross-company product assurance. ![]() |
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Kajko-Mattsson, Mira |
![]() Mira Kajko-Mattsson (KTH, Sweden) Today, it is practically impossible to provide a complete undergraduate education within software engineering, not only because of its breath and depth but also due to its complexity, intricate nature and huge competition from other curriculum subjects. In this paper, we suggest a half-day tutorial providing one angle of teaching software engineering and tackling the incompleteness problem. The tutorial is based on the ESSENCE Kernel, a recently accepted OMG standard. The Kernel covers the domain of software engineering in a minimalistic way. It includes specifications of the essential things that must be considered for assuring the progress and health of every software engineering endeavor. Hence, it provides a good basis for embracing the whole software engineering domain in a simple yet fully covering manner. ![]() |
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Karaseva, Victoria |
![]() Victoria Karaseva, Ahmed Seffah, and Jari Porras (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland) This paper investigates the integration of social media technologies and living lab concepts of open and user experiences-driven innovation, in order to align software engineering and innovation. The proposed social media-based living lab approach is aimed at fostering design thinking within a human experience-centric engineering and innovation approach. Living lab provides openness of collaboration among software engineers, stakeholders and potential end-users as well as the engagement of users as developers. We also show how living lab has been used to engage users and stakeholders in fundamental research and empirical software engineering including: (1) strengthening user and customer involvement in the overall software engineering lifecycle, and (2) combining social media and living into an integrative software engineering environment in which end-users and consumers are designers, developers and further more innovators. ![]() |
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Keenan, Frank |
![]() Silvana Togneri MacMahon, Fergal Mc Caffery, and Frank Keenan (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) The use of networked medical devices can provide a number of benefits such as improved patient safety, reduced costs of care and a reduction in adverse events. Traditionally, medical devices were placed onto a proprietary IT network provided by the manufacturer of the device. Today, medical devices are increasingly designed for incorporation into a hospital’s general IT network enabling devices to exchange critical information. However, this can introduce risks and negate the potential benefits to patients. While the IEC 80001-1 standard has been developed to aid Healthcare Delivery Organisations (HDOs) in addressing these risks, HDOs may struggle to understand and implement the requirements. The MedITNet framework has been developed to allow HDOs to assess the capability of their risk management processes against the requirements of IEC 80001-1. MedITNet provides a flexible assessment framework enabling HDOs to gain a greater understanding of the requirements of the standard and to improve risk management processes by determining their current state and highlighting areas for improvement. This paper examines the challenges faced by HDOs in the risk management of medical IT networks and briefly explains the components of the MedITNet framework and how the framework addresses these challenges. This paper also details how Action Design Research (ADR) was used in the development and validation of MedITNet. ![]() |
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Kishida, Kouichi |
![]() Kouichi Kishida (Software Research Associates, Japan) This position paper presents some useful metaphors to think about new conceptual model for open innovation process. ![]() |
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Konopka, Claudia |
![]() Marco Kuhrmann, Claudia Konopka, Peter Nellemann, Philipp Diebold, and Jürgen Münch (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark; 4Soft, Germany; Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; University of Helsinki, Finland) Software process improvement (SPI) is around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer the question for what is the current state of SPI and related research? In this paper, we present initial results from a systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 635 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past 25 years. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories. In particular, standard SPI models like CMMI and ISO/IEC 15504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability, whereas these standards are critically discussed from the perspective of SPI in small-to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors to aid companies in conducting SPI. ![]() |
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Kuhrmann, Marco |
![]() Marco Kuhrmann, Claudia Konopka, Peter Nellemann, Philipp Diebold, and Jürgen Münch (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark; 4Soft, Germany; Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; University of Helsinki, Finland) Software process improvement (SPI) is around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer the question for what is the current state of SPI and related research? In this paper, we present initial results from a systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 635 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past 25 years. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories. In particular, standard SPI models like CMMI and ISO/IEC 15504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability, whereas these standards are critically discussed from the perspective of SPI in small-to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors to aid companies in conducting SPI. ![]() ![]() Marco Kuhrmann and Ita Richardson (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark; University of Limerick, Ireland; Lero, Ireland) To overcome shortcomings associated with software process improvement (SPI), we previously recommended that process engineers focus on the artifacts to be developed in SPI projects. These artifacts should define desired outcomes, rather than specific methods. During this prior research, we developed a model for Artifact-based Software Process Improvement & Management (ArSPI). We are now carrying out studies to confirm our claims that ArSPI will provide benefits such as quality assurance. In this paper, we report on an experimental setting in which we developed and analyzed a strategy to use artifact models to direct process model improvement. We analyzed a process specification, the realized model, and the generated electronic process guide. We used ArSPI v0.9 as our process model and the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) as an external reference to provide a set of overall improvement goals. We propose an effective approach to analyze and improve a process model. In addition, the analysis revealed issues with ArSPI realization, which will be corrected in the next major release. ![]() ![]() Oisín Cawley, Ita Richardson, Xiaofeng Wang, and Marco Kuhrmann (University of Limerick, Ireland; Free University of Bolzano, Italy; University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) A growing number of companies are discovering that their software development processes must be in compliance with some form of regulation. This is particularly so when it comes to safety-critical or business-critical systems such as Automotive Software, Robotics, Medical Devices or Finan- cial Management systems. These regulations aect the soft- ware development process itself in various forms. Further- more, much attention is being given to ways of improving the eciency of businesses, for example, by adopting lean principles. This raises the question for how to adopt lean principles for software development within a regulated envi- ronment? This poster presents the results of our empirical research into lean and regulated software development. Built from a combination of data sources, we have developed a conceptual framework comprising ve primary components. In addition the relationships they have with both the central focus of the framework (the situated software development practices) and with each other are indicated. ![]() |
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Kusakabe, Shigeru |
![]() Shigeru Kusakabe, Hsin-Hung Lin, Yoichi Omori, and Keijiro Araki (Kyushu University, Japan) In order to nd a clue to effectively introducing and utilizing new technology in improving software development process, we analyze and visualize the in-degree centrality of the process area networks in terms of the related process areas in CMMI-DEV. By visualizing the results of in-degree centrality analysis, we can have a perspective of process improvement in using advanced technology. ![]() |
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La Rosa, Marcello |
![]() Marcello La Rosa (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) Improving business processes is on top of the agenda for chief and senior executives. This requires a solid understanding of current and future business processes and their alignment with the strategic objectives of the organization. Business Process Management (BPM) is an integrated set of principles, methods and tools to manage business processes with the ultimate goal of improving them. The demand for BPM is driven by the need for increased operational excellence and cost-effective compliance practices. BPM forms a widely recognized foundation for IT projects and is a key issue in discussions related to outsourcing and mergers. Not surprisingly, global analyst firms have identified BPM as the number one priority of CIOs for a number of years. This tutorial discusses the strategic skills required for leading BPM initiatives within organizations. Participants will learn the principles underlying BPM and apply these to develop a strategy for implementing and running BPM projects, and assessing their progress. Further, they will learn how to secure support for BPM and dissolve resistance within the organization. The content will be illustrated through the use of several case studies. ![]() |
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Lepmets, Marion |
![]() Rory V. O'Connor and Marion Lepmets (Dublin City University, Ireland; Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) Choosing an appropriate software development process is a complex and challenging task, exacerbated by the fact that all process models require a certain amount of tailoring to fit to the business environment of any specific organization in which the model is to be deployed. This position paper proposes that one of the potentially most significant factors impacting how a team should structure their software development process is domain (contexts defined by the nature of the relationship between cause and effect) the team is in, an approach pioneered by Snowden with The Cynefin Framework. Cynefin (pronounced Ku-nev-in) is a decision framework that recognizes the causal differences that exist between different types of systems and proposes new approaches to decision making in complex social environments and new mechanisms of understanding levels of complexity as decisions are made. It is argued that using the Cynefin framework for classifying important software process selection decisions assists in choosing the right process for the given situational context. This position paper provides an overview of systems thinking and the Cynefin framework that organizations can use to detect the significant characteristics of the domain in which they operate which has a direct and significant affect on the software process approach (model / methodology) chosen. ![]() ![]() Marion Lepmets, Fergal Mc Caffery, and Paul Clarke (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) Software development companies moving into the medical device domain often find themselves overwhelmed by the number of regulatory requirements they need to satisfy before they can market their device. Several international standards and guidance documents have been developed to help companies on their road to regulatory compliance but working their way through the various standards is a challenge in itself. In order to help software companies in the medical device domain, we have developed an integrated framework of medical device software development best practices called MDevSPICE®. This framework integrates generic software development best practices with medical device standards’ requirements enabling consistent and thorough assessment of medical device processes. MDevSPICE® can be used by software companies evaluating their readiness for regulatory audits as well as by large medical device manufacturers for selecting suitable software suppliers. The MDevSPICE® framework consists of a process reference model, a process assessment model, an assessment method, and training and certification schemes. The framework has been validated using expert reviews and through MDevSPICE® assessments in industry. In this paper, we describe the MDevSPICE® process assessment framework focusing on its benefits and significance for the medical device manufacturing community as learned from MDevSPICE® assessments conducted to date. ![]() |
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Lin, Hsin-Hung |
![]() Shigeru Kusakabe, Hsin-Hung Lin, Yoichi Omori, and Keijiro Araki (Kyushu University, Japan) In order to nd a clue to effectively introducing and utilizing new technology in improving software development process, we analyze and visualize the in-degree centrality of the process area networks in terms of the related process areas in CMMI-DEV. By visualizing the results of in-degree centrality analysis, we can have a perspective of process improvement in using advanced technology. ![]() |
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Linåker, Johan |
![]() Johan Linåker, Björn Regnell, and Hussan Munir (Lund University, Sweden) In recent years Open Innovation (OI) has gained much attention and made firms aware that they need to consider the open environment surrounding them. To facilitate this shift Requirements Engineering (RE) needs to be adapted in order to manage the increase and complexity of new requirements sources as well as networks of stakeholders. In response we build on and advance an earlier proposed software engineering framework for fostering OI, focusing on stakeholder management, when to open up, and prioritization and release planning. Literature in open source RE is contrasted against recent findings of OI in software engineering to establish a current view of the area. Based on the synthesized findings we propose a research agenda within the areas under focus, along with a framing-model to help researchers frame and break down their research questions to consider the different angles implied by the OI model. ![]() |
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Liu, Xiao |
![]() Wei Zhang, Yun Yang, Junchao Xiao, Xiao Liu, and Muhammad Ali Babar (Anhui University, China; East China Institute of Technology, China; Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; East China Normal University, China; University of Adelaide, Australia) Delay on a critical path may cause the failure in meeting the software project deadline. By adding extra employees with similar skills for help, the delay is expected to be eliminated or reduced. However, the originally scheduled activities may be suspended due to reallocation of employees, which may lead to the problem of delay propagation. So how to minimize and even eliminate the delay without delay propagation is worth investigation. In this paper, we first use a simple scenario to demonstrate the problem of employee scheduling which shows that in the scheduling process, one activity can have many ways for selecting employees from another project. In fact, the searching path in a multi-branch tree and its complete traversal is a NP hard problem. Furthermore when the scale of the problem becomes large, it is impractical to generate a search tree for implementation. Therefore, we propose an ant colony algorithm to address such a problem. Both case studies and initial simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can obtain feasible solutions under different circumstances. ![]() |
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MacMahon, Silvana Togneri |
![]() Silvana Togneri MacMahon, Fergal Mc Caffery, and Frank Keenan (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) The use of networked medical devices can provide a number of benefits such as improved patient safety, reduced costs of care and a reduction in adverse events. Traditionally, medical devices were placed onto a proprietary IT network provided by the manufacturer of the device. Today, medical devices are increasingly designed for incorporation into a hospital’s general IT network enabling devices to exchange critical information. However, this can introduce risks and negate the potential benefits to patients. While the IEC 80001-1 standard has been developed to aid Healthcare Delivery Organisations (HDOs) in addressing these risks, HDOs may struggle to understand and implement the requirements. The MedITNet framework has been developed to allow HDOs to assess the capability of their risk management processes against the requirements of IEC 80001-1. MedITNet provides a flexible assessment framework enabling HDOs to gain a greater understanding of the requirements of the standard and to improve risk management processes by determining their current state and highlighting areas for improvement. This paper examines the challenges faced by HDOs in the risk management of medical IT networks and briefly explains the components of the MedITNet framework and how the framework addresses these challenges. This paper also details how Action Design Research (ADR) was used in the development and validation of MedITNet. ![]() |
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Mairegger, Michael |
![]() Saulius Astromskis, Andrea Janes, and Michael Mairegger (Free University of Bolzano, Italy; Schwer Präzision, Italy) Characterizing how users interact with software has many applications. For example, to understand which features are used, in which sequence operations are performed, etc. can help to understand how the user interface could be improved, to identify missing features, or to identify scenarios which are good candidates for test cases. This paper presents an industrial case study in which we investigate how users interact with an enterprise resource planning software using process mining. Our case study illustrates how we identify user interaction processes, the encountered advantages, and the faced challenges. One of the major findings is that the decision how to group events into cases is crucial for the application of the method. ![]() |
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Mc Caffery, Fergal |
![]() Silvana Togneri MacMahon, Fergal Mc Caffery, and Frank Keenan (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) The use of networked medical devices can provide a number of benefits such as improved patient safety, reduced costs of care and a reduction in adverse events. Traditionally, medical devices were placed onto a proprietary IT network provided by the manufacturer of the device. Today, medical devices are increasingly designed for incorporation into a hospital’s general IT network enabling devices to exchange critical information. However, this can introduce risks and negate the potential benefits to patients. While the IEC 80001-1 standard has been developed to aid Healthcare Delivery Organisations (HDOs) in addressing these risks, HDOs may struggle to understand and implement the requirements. The MedITNet framework has been developed to allow HDOs to assess the capability of their risk management processes against the requirements of IEC 80001-1. MedITNet provides a flexible assessment framework enabling HDOs to gain a greater understanding of the requirements of the standard and to improve risk management processes by determining their current state and highlighting areas for improvement. This paper examines the challenges faced by HDOs in the risk management of medical IT networks and briefly explains the components of the MedITNet framework and how the framework addresses these challenges. This paper also details how Action Design Research (ADR) was used in the development and validation of MedITNet. ![]() ![]() Marion Lepmets, Fergal Mc Caffery, and Paul Clarke (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) Software development companies moving into the medical device domain often find themselves overwhelmed by the number of regulatory requirements they need to satisfy before they can market their device. Several international standards and guidance documents have been developed to help companies on their road to regulatory compliance but working their way through the various standards is a challenge in itself. In order to help software companies in the medical device domain, we have developed an integrated framework of medical device software development best practices called MDevSPICE®. This framework integrates generic software development best practices with medical device standards’ requirements enabling consistent and thorough assessment of medical device processes. MDevSPICE® can be used by software companies evaluating their readiness for regulatory audits as well as by large medical device manufacturers for selecting suitable software suppliers. The MDevSPICE® framework consists of a process reference model, a process assessment model, an assessment method, and training and certification schemes. The framework has been validated using expert reviews and through MDevSPICE® assessments in industry. In this paper, we describe the MDevSPICE® process assessment framework focusing on its benefits and significance for the medical device manufacturing community as learned from MDevSPICE® assessments conducted to date. ![]() |
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Mendling, Jan |
![]() Cristina Cabanillas, Manuel Resinas, Jan Mendling, and Antonio Ruiz-Cortés (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; University of Seville, Spain) Plenty of activities in many business contexts must be performed collaboratively, e.g., in a hospital or when organising a conference. Tasks such as team composition and allocation are usually performed manually and on the ground of limited criteria such as individual skills, a.o. because adequate automatic support is missing. This paper addresses this shortcoming. We present an approach for team selection and compliance checking in business processes, which includes (i) a language for describing teams; (ii) a way to define team selection conditions and policies related to team composition; and (iii) a mechanism for the automatic resolution of the team selection conditions and for team-related compliance checking based on formal ontologies. ![]() |
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Meyer, Matthias |
![]() Jörg Holtmann, Ruslan Bernijazov, Matthias Meyer, David Schmelter, and Christian Tschirner (Fraunhofer IPT, Germany) The development of software-intensive technical systems (e.g., within the automotive industry) involves several engineering disciplines like mechanical, electrical, control, and software engineering. Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) coordinates these disciplines throughout the development by means of discipline-spanning processes and system models. Such a system model provides a common understanding of the system under development and serves as a starting point for the discipline-specific development. An integral part of MBSE is the requirements engineering on the system level. However, for the discipline-specific development to start, these requirements need to be refined, e.g., into specific requirements for the embedded software. Since existing MBSE approaches lack support for this refinement step, we conceived a systematic transition from MBSE to model-based software requirements engineering, which we present in this paper. We automated the steps of the transition where possible, in order to avoid error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks. We illustrate the approach with an example of an automotive embedded system. ![]() |
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Mousheimish, Raef |
![]() Raef Mousheimish, Yehia Taher, and Béatrice Finance (University of Versailles, France) Logistics processes are generally automated, agreed-upon, long running propositions between multiple partners, that are specified over Service Level Agreements as constraints to be maintained. However, these constraints can be violated at any time due to various unforeseen events that may stem from the process evolving context. In this paper, we present a framework along with a demonstration software that correlates critical business operations together with contextual events in order to predict possible violations prior to their occurrences while proactively generating mitigation countermeasures. ![]() |
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Münch, Jürgen |
![]() Marco Kuhrmann, Claudia Konopka, Peter Nellemann, Philipp Diebold, and Jürgen Münch (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark; 4Soft, Germany; Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; University of Helsinki, Finland) Software process improvement (SPI) is around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer the question for what is the current state of SPI and related research? In this paper, we present initial results from a systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 635 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past 25 years. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories. In particular, standard SPI models like CMMI and ISO/IEC 15504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability, whereas these standards are critically discussed from the perspective of SPI in small-to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors to aid companies in conducting SPI. ![]() ![]() Jürgen Münch (University of Helsinki, Finland) Most modern software development activities are focusing on domains of emergence where experts cannot know a priori what kind of software provides value to users and customers. This is fundamentally different to traditional software engineering for large systems where a priori analysis by experts is used to identify requirements. While the latter is gaining a niche software category, developing and establishing development practices for domains of emergence is becoming significantly important and urgent. A major challenge is to find the right scope for software development. There are many options on what to deliver. Software practices are needed that help in determining what customers want and creating the right capabilities for them. In this talk I introduce an approach for steering software development towards the right scope by continuously conducting experiments. This includes systematically observing users’ behavioral responses to stimuli such as features. Insights from experiments directly influence frequent iterative deliveries. Success cases from industry show that such an experimental approach helps companies to gain competitive advantage by reducing uncertainties and rapidly finding product roadmaps that work. ![]() |
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Munir, Hussan |
![]() Hussan Munir and Per Runeson (Lund University, Sweden) Open Innovation (OI) has gained significant attention since the term was introduced in 2003. However, little is known whether general software testing processes are well suited for OI. An exploratory case study on the Acceptance Test Harness (ATH) is conducted to investigate OI testing activities of Jenkins. As far as the research methodology is concerned, we extracted the change log data of ATH followed by five interviews with key contributors in the development of ATH. The findings of the study are threefold. First, it highlights the key stakeholders involved in the development of ATH. Second, the study compares the ATH testing activities with ISO/IEC/IEEE testing process and presents a tailored process for software testing in OI. Finally, the study underlines some key challenges that software intensive organizations face while working with the testing in OI. ![]() ![]() Johan Linåker, Björn Regnell, and Hussan Munir (Lund University, Sweden) In recent years Open Innovation (OI) has gained much attention and made firms aware that they need to consider the open environment surrounding them. To facilitate this shift Requirements Engineering (RE) needs to be adapted in order to manage the increase and complexity of new requirements sources as well as networks of stakeholders. In response we build on and advance an earlier proposed software engineering framework for fostering OI, focusing on stakeholder management, when to open up, and prioritization and release planning. Literature in open source RE is contrasted against recent findings of OI in software engineering to establish a current view of the area. Based on the synthesized findings we propose a research agenda within the areas under focus, along with a framing-model to help researchers frame and break down their research questions to consider the different angles implied by the OI model. ![]() |
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Nayebi, Maleknaz |
![]() Maleknaz Nayebi and Krzysztof Wnuk (University of Calgary, Canada; Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden) Open innovation is the collective term describing business collaboration which combines internal and external ideas into architectures and systems. Despite the wide interest in several domains and the unquestionable potential that open innovation can bring to the software industry, open innovation remains greatly unexplored in the software engineering literature. While the business view of open innovation proved to be beneficial, the software engineering community needs support in understanding what tools, techniques and methods are well suited or can enable open innovation on both strategic and operational levels of software engineering. OISE 2015 is the first step toward raising awareness about open innovation in software engineering academic and industrial communities. ![]() |
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Nellemann, Peter |
![]() Marco Kuhrmann, Claudia Konopka, Peter Nellemann, Philipp Diebold, and Jürgen Münch (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark; 4Soft, Germany; Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; University of Helsinki, Finland) Software process improvement (SPI) is around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer the question for what is the current state of SPI and related research? In this paper, we present initial results from a systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 635 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past 25 years. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories. In particular, standard SPI models like CMMI and ISO/IEC 15504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability, whereas these standards are critically discussed from the perspective of SPI in small-to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors to aid companies in conducting SPI. ![]() |
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Nguyen-Duc, Anh |
![]() Anh Nguyen-Duc, Pertti Seppänen, and Pekka Abrahamsson (NTNU, Norway; University of Oulu, Finland) Software startups are increasingly important in generating innovative products and services that widely impact global economy. However, there is an insufficient research support for their innovation and engineering activities, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This study aims at proposing a conceptual model to understand how these activities occur and evolve in software startups. The model is constructed using a complexity theory and system design thinking. The model usage is illustrated by describing three software startup stories. The results show that our model can capture innovation generation activities and the non-linear evolution of engineering activities in software startups, which is not presentable in current software life cycle models. ![]() |
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Nyfjord, Jaana |
![]() Syed Muhammad Ali Shah, Efi Papatheocharous, and Jaana Nyfjord (SICS, Sweden) An agile software development process is often claimed to increase productivity. However, productivity measurement in agile software development is little researched. Measures are not explicitly defined nor commonly agreed upon. In this paper, we highlight the agile productivity measures reported in literature by means of a research method called scoping study. We were able to identify 12 papers reporting the productivity measures in agile software development processes. We found that finding, understanding and putting into use agile productivity definitions is not an easy task. From the perspective of common roles in agile software development process and existing knowledge workers’ productivity dimensions, we also emphasize that none of the productivity measures satisfy these fully. We recommend that future effort should be focused on defining agile productivity in measurable, practicable and meaningful form. ![]() |
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O'Connor, Rory V. |
![]() Rory V. O'Connor and Paul Clarke (Lero, Ireland; Dublin City University, Ireland; Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) Commercial software development organisations routinely operate in dynamic environments, with various situational factors that affect the software development approach undergoing recurring change. We therefore suggest that process reflexivity - the ability to reflect upon the suitability of a software process for a given context and to adapt the process according to changing situational circumstances – is an important capability for software development organizations.. In support of this position we conducted an exploratory industrial study of software development in practice. An initial analysis of our data suggests that software process reflexivity may exercise a strong influence over business success. Further work is required to fully examine our data, however, initial findings indicate that software process reflexivity is worthy of greater attention. ![]() ![]() Rory V. O'Connor and Marion Lepmets (Dublin City University, Ireland; Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) Choosing an appropriate software development process is a complex and challenging task, exacerbated by the fact that all process models require a certain amount of tailoring to fit to the business environment of any specific organization in which the model is to be deployed. This position paper proposes that one of the potentially most significant factors impacting how a team should structure their software development process is domain (contexts defined by the nature of the relationship between cause and effect) the team is in, an approach pioneered by Snowden with The Cynefin Framework. Cynefin (pronounced Ku-nev-in) is a decision framework that recognizes the causal differences that exist between different types of systems and proposes new approaches to decision making in complex social environments and new mechanisms of understanding levels of complexity as decisions are made. It is argued that using the Cynefin framework for classifying important software process selection decisions assists in choosing the right process for the given situational context. This position paper provides an overview of systems thinking and the Cynefin framework that organizations can use to detect the significant characteristics of the domain in which they operate which has a direct and significant affect on the software process approach (model / methodology) chosen. ![]() |
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Omori, Yoichi |
![]() Shigeru Kusakabe, Hsin-Hung Lin, Yoichi Omori, and Keijiro Araki (Kyushu University, Japan) In order to nd a clue to effectively introducing and utilizing new technology in improving software development process, we analyze and visualize the in-degree centrality of the process area networks in terms of the related process areas in CMMI-DEV. By visualizing the results of in-degree centrality analysis, we can have a perspective of process improvement in using advanced technology. ![]() |
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Papatheocharous, Efi |
![]() Syed Muhammad Ali Shah, Efi Papatheocharous, and Jaana Nyfjord (SICS, Sweden) An agile software development process is often claimed to increase productivity. However, productivity measurement in agile software development is little researched. Measures are not explicitly defined nor commonly agreed upon. In this paper, we highlight the agile productivity measures reported in literature by means of a research method called scoping study. We were able to identify 12 papers reporting the productivity measures in agile software development processes. We found that finding, understanding and putting into use agile productivity definitions is not an easy task. From the perspective of common roles in agile software development process and existing knowledge workers’ productivity dimensions, we also emphasize that none of the productivity measures satisfy these fully. We recommend that future effort should be focused on defining agile productivity in measurable, practicable and meaningful form. ![]() |
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Percebois, Christian |
![]() Mojtaba Hajmoosaei, Hanh-Nhi Tran, Christian Percebois, Agnes Front, and Claudia Roncancio (IRIT, France; University of Toulouse, France; LIG, France; University of Grenoble, France) Managing changes for knowledge-intensive processes like System and Software Engineering is a critical issue but far from being mastered due to the lack of supporting methods and practical tools. To manage changes systematically, a process environment is needed to control processes and to handle changes at run-time. However, such an effective environment satisfying these requirements is still missing. The reason is two-folds: first, operational process environments for system and software engineering is scarce; second, there is a lack of efficient change management mechanism integrated in such process environments. In order to address these concerns, we aimed at developing a change-aware process environment for system and software engineering. To this aim, we proposed a change management mechanism based on (1) the Process Dependency Graph (PDG) representing the dependencies among running process instances managed by a process environment ; (2) a Change Observer process to catch change events and update the PDG with run-time information; (3) a Change Analyzer component to extract the impacts of change by reasoning the PDG. In terms of implementation, to gain the benefits from the Business Process Community, where many mature Business Process Management Systems have been developed, we chose jBPM to enact and monitor processes. The key strengths of this study are: first, the PDG makes hidden dependencies among process instances emerge at run-time; second, the process observer inside the BPMS allows to handle the change events in a timely manner. Finally, the Neo4j graph database, used to store the PDG, enables efficient traversal and queries. ![]() |
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Pfahl, Dietmar |
![]() Huishi Yin and Dietmar Pfahl (University of Tartu, Estonia) This paper describes preliminary results regarding research on Open Innovation (OI) in peer reviewed literature. Special focus is put on the field of computer science as compared to other fields using the categorization scheme of Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science Core Collection (ISI Core Collection). The study was triggered by the observation that peer reviewed literature on OI seems to have a less distinct growth in recent years than publications included in Google Scholar which involves non-peer reviewed literature to a much larger extent. When analyzing peer reviewed literature on OI, we observed that the field of Computer Science seems to have significantly less diversity than all other fields with more than ten publications indexed in the ISI Core Collection. Our preliminary interpretation of this observation is that the topic ‘Open Innovation’ has not yet been researched and discussed in depth and breadth comparable to other fields, in particular Business Economics, Engineering, and Operations Research Management Science. ![]() |
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Porras, Jari |
![]() Victoria Karaseva, Ahmed Seffah, and Jari Porras (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland) This paper investigates the integration of social media technologies and living lab concepts of open and user experiences-driven innovation, in order to align software engineering and innovation. The proposed social media-based living lab approach is aimed at fostering design thinking within a human experience-centric engineering and innovation approach. Living lab provides openness of collaboration among software engineers, stakeholders and potential end-users as well as the engagement of users as developers. We also show how living lab has been used to engage users and stakeholders in fundamental research and empirical software engineering including: (1) strengthening user and customer involvement in the overall software engineering lifecycle, and (2) combining social media and living into an integrative software engineering environment in which end-users and consumers are designers, developers and further more innovators. ![]() |
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Prause, Christian R. |
![]() Christian R. Prause, Markus Bibus, Carsten Dietrich, and Wolfgang Jobi (DLR, Germany) The DLR Space Administration designs and implements the German space program. While project management rests with the agency, suppliers are contracted for building the space devices and their software. As opposed to many other domains, these are often unique devices with uncommon and custom-built peripherals. Its software is specifically developed for a single mission only and controls critical functionality. A small coding error can mean the loss of a mission. For this reason, customer and supplier closely collaborate on the field of software quality. We report from a customer's perspective on lessons and management tools for influencing suppliers' processes and product quality: standards, single-source tailoring and cross-company product assurance. ![]() |
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Rayadurgam, Sanjai |
![]() Ian J. De Silva, Sanjai Rayadurgam, and Mats P. E. Heimdahl (University of Minnesota, USA) Agile development processes are popular when attempting to respond to changing requirements in a controlled manner; however, selecting an ill-suited process may increase project costs and risk. Before adopting a seemingly promising agile approach, we desire to evaluate the approach's applicability in the context of the specific product, organization, and staff. Simulation provides a means to do this. However, in order to simulate agile processes we require both the ability to model individual behavior as well as the decoupling of the process and product. To our knowledge, no existing simulator nor underlying simulation model provide a means to do this. To address this gap, we introduce a process simulation reference model that provides the constructs and relationships for capturing the interactions among the individuals, product, process, and project in a holistic fashion---a necessary first step towards an agile-process evaluation environment. ![]() |
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Regnell, Björn |
![]() Johan Linåker, Björn Regnell, and Hussan Munir (Lund University, Sweden) In recent years Open Innovation (OI) has gained much attention and made firms aware that they need to consider the open environment surrounding them. To facilitate this shift Requirements Engineering (RE) needs to be adapted in order to manage the increase and complexity of new requirements sources as well as networks of stakeholders. In response we build on and advance an earlier proposed software engineering framework for fostering OI, focusing on stakeholder management, when to open up, and prioritization and release planning. Literature in open source RE is contrasted against recent findings of OI in software engineering to establish a current view of the area. Based on the synthesized findings we propose a research agenda within the areas under focus, along with a framing-model to help researchers frame and break down their research questions to consider the different angles implied by the OI model. ![]() |
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Resinas, Manuel |
![]() Cristina Cabanillas, Manuel Resinas, Jan Mendling, and Antonio Ruiz-Cortés (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; University of Seville, Spain) Plenty of activities in many business contexts must be performed collaboratively, e.g., in a hospital or when organising a conference. Tasks such as team composition and allocation are usually performed manually and on the ground of limited criteria such as individual skills, a.o. because adequate automatic support is missing. This paper addresses this shortcoming. We present an approach for team selection and compliance checking in business processes, which includes (i) a language for describing teams; (ii) a way to define team selection conditions and policies related to team composition; and (iii) a mechanism for the automatic resolution of the team selection conditions and for team-related compliance checking based on formal ontologies. ![]() |
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Richardson, Ita |
![]() Marco Kuhrmann and Ita Richardson (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark; University of Limerick, Ireland; Lero, Ireland) To overcome shortcomings associated with software process improvement (SPI), we previously recommended that process engineers focus on the artifacts to be developed in SPI projects. These artifacts should define desired outcomes, rather than specific methods. During this prior research, we developed a model for Artifact-based Software Process Improvement & Management (ArSPI). We are now carrying out studies to confirm our claims that ArSPI will provide benefits such as quality assurance. In this paper, we report on an experimental setting in which we developed and analyzed a strategy to use artifact models to direct process model improvement. We analyzed a process specification, the realized model, and the generated electronic process guide. We used ArSPI v0.9 as our process model and the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) as an external reference to provide a set of overall improvement goals. We propose an effective approach to analyze and improve a process model. In addition, the analysis revealed issues with ArSPI realization, which will be corrected in the next major release. ![]() ![]() Oisín Cawley, Ita Richardson, Xiaofeng Wang, and Marco Kuhrmann (University of Limerick, Ireland; Free University of Bolzano, Italy; University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) A growing number of companies are discovering that their software development processes must be in compliance with some form of regulation. This is particularly so when it comes to safety-critical or business-critical systems such as Automotive Software, Robotics, Medical Devices or Finan- cial Management systems. These regulations aect the soft- ware development process itself in various forms. Further- more, much attention is being given to ways of improving the eciency of businesses, for example, by adopting lean principles. This raises the question for how to adopt lean principles for software development within a regulated envi- ronment? This poster presents the results of our empirical research into lean and regulated software development. Built from a combination of data sources, we have developed a conceptual framework comprising ve primary components. In addition the relationships they have with both the central focus of the framework (the situated software development practices) and with each other are indicated. ![]() |
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Romanovsky, Alexander |
![]() David Adjepon-Yamoah, Alexander Romanovsky, and Alexei Iliasov (Newcastle University, UK) The paper introduces an architecture to support system engineering on the cloud. It employs the main benefits of the cloud: scalability, parallelism, cost-effectiveness, multi-user access and flexibility. The architecture includes an open toolbox which provides tools as a service to support various phases of system engineering. The architecture uses the Open Services for Life-cycle Collaboration (OSLC) technology to create a reactive middleware that informs all stakeholders about any changes in the development artefacts. It facilitates the interoperability of tools and enables the workflow of tools to support complex engineering steps. Another component of the architecture is a shared repository of artefacts. All the artefacts generated during a system engineering process are stored in the repository, and can be accessed by relevant stakeholders. The shared repository also serves as a platform to support a protocol for formal model decomposition and group work on the decomposed models. Finally, the architecture includes components for ensuring the dependability of the system engineering process. ![]() |
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Römer, Toomas |
![]() Myroslava Stavnycha, Huishi Yin, and Toomas Römer (University of Tartu, Estonia; ZeroTurnaround, Estonia) Releasing software with required quality is important for software producers in order to be successful. Therefore, understanding which development practices affect software quality has always been of high interest. However, little empirical evidence has been reported on this matter. The research presented in this paper aims at analyzing the effects of nine pre-selected development practices on the quality aspect correctness of software releases. To this end we collected data from software developers worldwide, using an online survey. 1006 valid responses were received and analyzed with the help of statistical methods. We found that four of the nine development practices show statistically significant effects on the correctness of released software, namely solving technical debt, test coverage, code reviews, and monitoring and fixing software quality problems. Our results indicate that using development practices specifically focusing on improving software quality shows a positive effect on the level of correctness of released software. Development practices that are more organizational in nature didn’t show similarly clear effects. ![]() |
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Roncancio, Claudia |
![]() Mojtaba Hajmoosaei, Hanh-Nhi Tran, Christian Percebois, Agnes Front, and Claudia Roncancio (IRIT, France; University of Toulouse, France; LIG, France; University of Grenoble, France) Managing changes for knowledge-intensive processes like System and Software Engineering is a critical issue but far from being mastered due to the lack of supporting methods and practical tools. To manage changes systematically, a process environment is needed to control processes and to handle changes at run-time. However, such an effective environment satisfying these requirements is still missing. The reason is two-folds: first, operational process environments for system and software engineering is scarce; second, there is a lack of efficient change management mechanism integrated in such process environments. In order to address these concerns, we aimed at developing a change-aware process environment for system and software engineering. To this aim, we proposed a change management mechanism based on (1) the Process Dependency Graph (PDG) representing the dependencies among running process instances managed by a process environment ; (2) a Change Observer process to catch change events and update the PDG with run-time information; (3) a Change Analyzer component to extract the impacts of change by reasoning the PDG. In terms of implementation, to gain the benefits from the Business Process Community, where many mature Business Process Management Systems have been developed, we chose jBPM to enact and monitor processes. The key strengths of this study are: first, the PDG makes hidden dependencies among process instances emerge at run-time; second, the process observer inside the BPMS allows to handle the change events in a timely manner. Finally, the Neo4j graph database, used to store the PDG, enables efficient traversal and queries. ![]() |
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Rong, Guoping |
![]() Shu Jiang, He Zhang, Chao Gao, Dong Shao, and Guoping Rong (Nanjing University, China) Training and learning are one important purpose of Software Process Simulation (SPS). Some previous reviews showed a noticeable number of studies that combine SPS and Soft- ware Engineering Education (SEE). The objective of this research is to present the latest state-of-the-art of this area, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of SPS in educational context. We conducted an extended Systematic Literature Review (SLR) based on our previous reviews. The review identified 42 primary studies from 1992 to 2013. This paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. The overall findings confirmed the positive impact of SPS on education. The detailed discussions and recommendations may offer reference value to the community. ![]() |
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Ruiz-Cortés, Antonio |
![]() Cristina Cabanillas, Manuel Resinas, Jan Mendling, and Antonio Ruiz-Cortés (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria; University of Seville, Spain) Plenty of activities in many business contexts must be performed collaboratively, e.g., in a hospital or when organising a conference. Tasks such as team composition and allocation are usually performed manually and on the ground of limited criteria such as individual skills, a.o. because adequate automatic support is missing. This paper addresses this shortcoming. We present an approach for team selection and compliance checking in business processes, which includes (i) a language for describing teams; (ii) a way to define team selection conditions and policies related to team composition; and (iii) a mechanism for the automatic resolution of the team selection conditions and for team-related compliance checking based on formal ontologies. ![]() |
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Runeson, Per |
![]() Hussan Munir and Per Runeson (Lund University, Sweden) Open Innovation (OI) has gained significant attention since the term was introduced in 2003. However, little is known whether general software testing processes are well suited for OI. An exploratory case study on the Acceptance Test Harness (ATH) is conducted to investigate OI testing activities of Jenkins. As far as the research methodology is concerned, we extracted the change log data of ATH followed by five interviews with key contributors in the development of ATH. The findings of the study are threefold. First, it highlights the key stakeholders involved in the development of ATH. Second, the study compares the ATH testing activities with ISO/IEC/IEEE testing process and presents a tailored process for software testing in OI. Finally, the study underlines some key challenges that software intensive organizations face while working with the testing in OI. ![]() |
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Schmelter, David |
![]() Jörg Holtmann, Ruslan Bernijazov, Matthias Meyer, David Schmelter, and Christian Tschirner (Fraunhofer IPT, Germany) The development of software-intensive technical systems (e.g., within the automotive industry) involves several engineering disciplines like mechanical, electrical, control, and software engineering. Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) coordinates these disciplines throughout the development by means of discipline-spanning processes and system models. Such a system model provides a common understanding of the system under development and serves as a starting point for the discipline-specific development. An integral part of MBSE is the requirements engineering on the system level. However, for the discipline-specific development to start, these requirements need to be refined, e.g., into specific requirements for the embedded software. Since existing MBSE approaches lack support for this refinement step, we conceived a systematic transition from MBSE to model-based software requirements engineering, which we present in this paper. We automated the steps of the transition where possible, in order to avoid error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks. We illustrate the approach with an example of an automotive embedded system. ![]() |
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Seffah, Ahmed |
![]() Victoria Karaseva, Ahmed Seffah, and Jari Porras (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland) This paper investigates the integration of social media technologies and living lab concepts of open and user experiences-driven innovation, in order to align software engineering and innovation. The proposed social media-based living lab approach is aimed at fostering design thinking within a human experience-centric engineering and innovation approach. Living lab provides openness of collaboration among software engineers, stakeholders and potential end-users as well as the engagement of users as developers. We also show how living lab has been used to engage users and stakeholders in fundamental research and empirical software engineering including: (1) strengthening user and customer involvement in the overall software engineering lifecycle, and (2) combining social media and living into an integrative software engineering environment in which end-users and consumers are designers, developers and further more innovators. ![]() |
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Seppänen, Pertti |
![]() Anh Nguyen-Duc, Pertti Seppänen, and Pekka Abrahamsson (NTNU, Norway; University of Oulu, Finland) Software startups are increasingly important in generating innovative products and services that widely impact global economy. However, there is an insufficient research support for their innovation and engineering activities, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This study aims at proposing a conceptual model to understand how these activities occur and evolve in software startups. The model is constructed using a complexity theory and system design thinking. The model usage is illustrated by describing three software startup stories. The results show that our model can capture innovation generation activities and the non-linear evolution of engineering activities in software startups, which is not presentable in current software life cycle models. ![]() |
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Shah, Syed Muhammad Ali |
![]() Syed Muhammad Ali Shah, Efi Papatheocharous, and Jaana Nyfjord (SICS, Sweden) An agile software development process is often claimed to increase productivity. However, productivity measurement in agile software development is little researched. Measures are not explicitly defined nor commonly agreed upon. In this paper, we highlight the agile productivity measures reported in literature by means of a research method called scoping study. We were able to identify 12 papers reporting the productivity measures in agile software development processes. We found that finding, understanding and putting into use agile productivity definitions is not an easy task. From the perspective of common roles in agile software development process and existing knowledge workers’ productivity dimensions, we also emphasize that none of the productivity measures satisfy these fully. We recommend that future effort should be focused on defining agile productivity in measurable, practicable and meaningful form. ![]() |
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Shao, Dong |
![]() Shu Jiang, He Zhang, Chao Gao, Dong Shao, and Guoping Rong (Nanjing University, China) Training and learning are one important purpose of Software Process Simulation (SPS). Some previous reviews showed a noticeable number of studies that combine SPS and Soft- ware Engineering Education (SEE). The objective of this research is to present the latest state-of-the-art of this area, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of SPS in educational context. We conducted an extended Systematic Literature Review (SLR) based on our previous reviews. The review identified 42 primary studies from 1992 to 2013. This paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. The overall findings confirmed the positive impact of SPS on education. The detailed discussions and recommendations may offer reference value to the community. ![]() |
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Simmonds, Jocelyn |
![]() Fabian Rojas Blum, Jocelyn Simmonds, and María Cecilia Bastarrica (University of Chile, Chile) Companies define software processes for planning and guiding projects. Since process definition is expensive, and in practice, no one process ”fits all” projects, the current trend is to define a Software Process Line (SPrL): a base process that represents the common process elements, along with its potential variability. Specifying a SPrL is more expensive than just specifying one process, but the SPrL can be adapted to specific project contexts, minimizing the amount of extra work carried out by employees. Mining project logs has proven to be a promising approach for discovering the process that is applied in practice. However, considering all the possible variations that may be logged, the mined process may be overly complex. Some algorithms deal with this by filtering infrequent relations between log events, but they may discard relevant relations. In this paper we propose the v-algorithm that uses two thresholds to set up a SPrL: highly frequent relations are used to build the base process, variable relations define process variability, and rare relations are discarded as noise. We applied the v-algorithm to the project log of Mobius, a small Chilean software company. We obtained a SPrL where we identified unexpected alternative ways of performing certain activities, as well as an optional activity that was originally specified as mandatory. ![]() |
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Šmite, Darja |
![]() Philipp Diebold, Daniel Méndez Fernández, and Darja Šmite (Fraunhofer IESE, Germany; TU München, Germany; Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden) Agile software development has become well known to the community and is nowadays frequently used for the development of different kinds of software systems. Agile methods are widely spread and often adapted to the context-specific needs. The adaptations constitute reductions and/or extensions of agile practices. Yet, we have limited knowledge about the impact of some of the individual practices, which is crucial to justify organizational changes. To systemize the knowledge of the impact of agile practices, we launch this workshop and invite researchers and practitioners to work on a documenting and accumulating their experiences in a knowledge base. ![]() |
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Stavnycha, Myroslava |
![]() Myroslava Stavnycha, Huishi Yin, and Toomas Römer (University of Tartu, Estonia; ZeroTurnaround, Estonia) Releasing software with required quality is important for software producers in order to be successful. Therefore, understanding which development practices affect software quality has always been of high interest. However, little empirical evidence has been reported on this matter. The research presented in this paper aims at analyzing the effects of nine pre-selected development practices on the quality aspect correctness of software releases. To this end we collected data from software developers worldwide, using an online survey. 1006 valid responses were received and analyzed with the help of statistical methods. We found that four of the nine development practices show statistically significant effects on the correctness of released software, namely solving technical debt, test coverage, code reviews, and monitoring and fixing software quality problems. Our results indicate that using development practices specifically focusing on improving software quality shows a positive effect on the level of correctness of released software. Development practices that are more organizational in nature didn’t show similarly clear effects. ![]() |
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Taher, Yehia |
![]() Raef Mousheimish, Yehia Taher, and Béatrice Finance (University of Versailles, France) Logistics processes are generally automated, agreed-upon, long running propositions between multiple partners, that are specified over Service Level Agreements as constraints to be maintained. However, these constraints can be violated at any time due to various unforeseen events that may stem from the process evolving context. In this paper, we present a framework along with a demonstration software that correlates critical business operations together with contextual events in order to predict possible violations prior to their occurrences while proactively generating mitigation countermeasures. ![]() |
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Tessier, Patrick |
![]() Juan Cadavid, Mauricio Alférez, Sébastien Gérard, and Patrick Tessier (CEA, France) Manufacturing processes are undergoing major challenges to achieve the Smart Factory vision such as to increase systematic processes reuse and improve understandability of complex structures. However, those challenges recall closely those of software processes which have been successfully targeted by model-driven engineering techniques such as domain-specific modeling languages, modeling abstractions based on view-points, model-based formal analysis and automated model transformations. The goal of this paper is to present a research agenda to integrate those techniques in manufacturing processes to achieve the Smart Factory vision. We first survey manufacturing approaches that are based on the ISA-95 and BPMN standards. Then, we propose model-driven solutions to complement those approaches. ![]() |
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Tran, Hanh-Nhi |
![]() Mojtaba Hajmoosaei, Hanh-Nhi Tran, Christian Percebois, Agnes Front, and Claudia Roncancio (IRIT, France; University of Toulouse, France; LIG, France; University of Grenoble, France) Managing changes for knowledge-intensive processes like System and Software Engineering is a critical issue but far from being mastered due to the lack of supporting methods and practical tools. To manage changes systematically, a process environment is needed to control processes and to handle changes at run-time. However, such an effective environment satisfying these requirements is still missing. The reason is two-folds: first, operational process environments for system and software engineering is scarce; second, there is a lack of efficient change management mechanism integrated in such process environments. In order to address these concerns, we aimed at developing a change-aware process environment for system and software engineering. To this aim, we proposed a change management mechanism based on (1) the Process Dependency Graph (PDG) representing the dependencies among running process instances managed by a process environment ; (2) a Change Observer process to catch change events and update the PDG with run-time information; (3) a Change Analyzer component to extract the impacts of change by reasoning the PDG. In terms of implementation, to gain the benefits from the Business Process Community, where many mature Business Process Management Systems have been developed, we chose jBPM to enact and monitor processes. The key strengths of this study are: first, the PDG makes hidden dependencies among process instances emerge at run-time; second, the process observer inside the BPMS allows to handle the change events in a timely manner. Finally, the Neo4j graph database, used to store the PDG, enables efficient traversal and queries. ![]() |
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Tschirner, Christian |
![]() Jörg Holtmann, Ruslan Bernijazov, Matthias Meyer, David Schmelter, and Christian Tschirner (Fraunhofer IPT, Germany) The development of software-intensive technical systems (e.g., within the automotive industry) involves several engineering disciplines like mechanical, electrical, control, and software engineering. Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) coordinates these disciplines throughout the development by means of discipline-spanning processes and system models. Such a system model provides a common understanding of the system under development and serves as a starting point for the discipline-specific development. An integral part of MBSE is the requirements engineering on the system level. However, for the discipline-specific development to start, these requirements need to be refined, e.g., into specific requirements for the embedded software. Since existing MBSE approaches lack support for this refinement step, we conceived a systematic transition from MBSE to model-based software requirements engineering, which we present in this paper. We automated the steps of the transition where possible, in order to avoid error-prone and time-consuming manual tasks. We illustrate the approach with an example of an automotive embedded system. ![]() |
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Turner, Richard |
![]() Barry Boehm and Richard Turner (University of Southern California, USA; Stevens Institute of Technology, USA) This tutorial introduces the ICSM as a means of addressing the need for more flexible and responsive systems engineering. It describes the principles that guide the model, and leads attendees through a product development case study. Attendees will receive a copy of the book The Incremental Commitment Spiral Model: Principles and Practices for Successful Systems and Software. ![]() |
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Vanhatupa, Juha-Matti |
![]() Juha-Matti Vanhatupa (PacketVideo, Finland) Modern mobile application development is a fast reacting business. One success factor is the ability to be able to add new features rapidly into a product. This can be enabled by a process model designed to support it, and the use of a flexible architecture. Plug-in architecture is one approach to create a flexible architecture, because it enables adding new software components. We have refactored an existing application to a plug-in architecture, and implemented a process model to support rapid adding of features. In our approach new features are implemented as plug-ins, which are added to the application. In this paper we describe the process model, discuss of adding new plug-in using it, and describe our experiences of using the process model. ![]() |
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Wang, Xiaofeng |
![]() Oisín Cawley, Ita Richardson, Xiaofeng Wang, and Marco Kuhrmann (University of Limerick, Ireland; Free University of Bolzano, Italy; University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) A growing number of companies are discovering that their software development processes must be in compliance with some form of regulation. This is particularly so when it comes to safety-critical or business-critical systems such as Automotive Software, Robotics, Medical Devices or Finan- cial Management systems. These regulations aect the soft- ware development process itself in various forms. Further- more, much attention is being given to ways of improving the eciency of businesses, for example, by adopting lean principles. This raises the question for how to adopt lean principles for software development within a regulated envi- ronment? This poster presents the results of our empirical research into lean and regulated software development. Built from a combination of data sources, we have developed a conceptual framework comprising ve primary components. In addition the relationships they have with both the central focus of the framework (the situated software development practices) and with each other are indicated. ![]() |
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Wnuk, Krzysztof |
![]() Maleknaz Nayebi and Krzysztof Wnuk (University of Calgary, Canada; Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden) Open innovation is the collective term describing business collaboration which combines internal and external ideas into architectures and systems. Despite the wide interest in several domains and the unquestionable potential that open innovation can bring to the software industry, open innovation remains greatly unexplored in the software engineering literature. While the business view of open innovation proved to be beneficial, the software engineering community needs support in understanding what tools, techniques and methods are well suited or can enable open innovation on both strategic and operational levels of software engineering. OISE 2015 is the first step toward raising awareness about open innovation in software engineering academic and industrial communities. ![]() |
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Xiao, Junchao |
![]() Wei Zhang, Yun Yang, Junchao Xiao, Xiao Liu, and Muhammad Ali Babar (Anhui University, China; East China Institute of Technology, China; Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; East China Normal University, China; University of Adelaide, Australia) Delay on a critical path may cause the failure in meeting the software project deadline. By adding extra employees with similar skills for help, the delay is expected to be eliminated or reduced. However, the originally scheduled activities may be suspended due to reallocation of employees, which may lead to the problem of delay propagation. So how to minimize and even eliminate the delay without delay propagation is worth investigation. In this paper, we first use a simple scenario to demonstrate the problem of employee scheduling which shows that in the scheduling process, one activity can have many ways for selecting employees from another project. In fact, the searching path in a multi-branch tree and its complete traversal is a NP hard problem. Furthermore when the scale of the problem becomes large, it is impractical to generate a search tree for implementation. Therefore, we propose an ant colony algorithm to address such a problem. Both case studies and initial simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can obtain feasible solutions under different circumstances. ![]() |
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Yang, Yun |
![]() Wei Zhang, Yun Yang, Junchao Xiao, Xiao Liu, and Muhammad Ali Babar (Anhui University, China; East China Institute of Technology, China; Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; East China Normal University, China; University of Adelaide, Australia) Delay on a critical path may cause the failure in meeting the software project deadline. By adding extra employees with similar skills for help, the delay is expected to be eliminated or reduced. However, the originally scheduled activities may be suspended due to reallocation of employees, which may lead to the problem of delay propagation. So how to minimize and even eliminate the delay without delay propagation is worth investigation. In this paper, we first use a simple scenario to demonstrate the problem of employee scheduling which shows that in the scheduling process, one activity can have many ways for selecting employees from another project. In fact, the searching path in a multi-branch tree and its complete traversal is a NP hard problem. Furthermore when the scale of the problem becomes large, it is impractical to generate a search tree for implementation. Therefore, we propose an ant colony algorithm to address such a problem. Both case studies and initial simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can obtain feasible solutions under different circumstances. ![]() |
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Yin, Huishi |
![]() Myroslava Stavnycha, Huishi Yin, and Toomas Römer (University of Tartu, Estonia; ZeroTurnaround, Estonia) Releasing software with required quality is important for software producers in order to be successful. Therefore, understanding which development practices affect software quality has always been of high interest. However, little empirical evidence has been reported on this matter. The research presented in this paper aims at analyzing the effects of nine pre-selected development practices on the quality aspect correctness of software releases. To this end we collected data from software developers worldwide, using an online survey. 1006 valid responses were received and analyzed with the help of statistical methods. We found that four of the nine development practices show statistically significant effects on the correctness of released software, namely solving technical debt, test coverage, code reviews, and monitoring and fixing software quality problems. Our results indicate that using development practices specifically focusing on improving software quality shows a positive effect on the level of correctness of released software. Development practices that are more organizational in nature didn’t show similarly clear effects. ![]() ![]() Huishi Yin (University of Tartu, Estonia) In the past decade, open innovation (OI) has become a major element of companies’ innovation processes in almost all industries. Even though, there is still room for research on the potential of OI in Software Engineering (SE), especially, finding out how OI would be used to extract users’ software requirements automatically from Internet resources. This paper describes an initial research plan that aims at developing an empirically validated methodology for automatic extraction of software requirements from Internet resources. The research plan describes the architecture of the study, major steps, and expected results. ![]() ![]() Huishi Yin and Dietmar Pfahl (University of Tartu, Estonia) This paper describes preliminary results regarding research on Open Innovation (OI) in peer reviewed literature. Special focus is put on the field of computer science as compared to other fields using the categorization scheme of Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science Core Collection (ISI Core Collection). The study was triggered by the observation that peer reviewed literature on OI seems to have a less distinct growth in recent years than publications included in Google Scholar which involves non-peer reviewed literature to a much larger extent. When analyzing peer reviewed literature on OI, we observed that the field of Computer Science seems to have significantly less diversity than all other fields with more than ten publications indexed in the ISI Core Collection. Our preliminary interpretation of this observation is that the topic ‘Open Innovation’ has not yet been researched and discussed in depth and breadth comparable to other fields, in particular Business Economics, Engineering, and Operations Research Management Science. ![]() |
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Zehler, Thomas |
![]() Philipp Diebold and Thomas Zehler (Fraunhofer IESE, Germany) Because agile development has become more important in software engineering in recent years, many companies want to become agile. One way to do so is context-specific improvement, preferably performed by selecting the right agile practices and integrating them into the current software development process. For making an appropriate selection, the impact on the improvement goals needs to be known. Therefore, the idea is to build an overall model that includes the impact of at least the most commonly used agile practices. This impact model is mainly built on these agile practices, on various impact characteristics, and on their connections. A larger example of some practices and their (possible) impact characteristics is presented. Additionally, the Agile Capability Analysis is introduced as an example application scenario of the model. The Agile Practices Impact Model presented in this paper could support context-specific integration of agility into any current development process. Nonetheless, the model needs to be filled with existing evidence. ![]() |
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Zhang, He |
![]() Shu Jiang, He Zhang, Chao Gao, Dong Shao, and Guoping Rong (Nanjing University, China) Training and learning are one important purpose of Software Process Simulation (SPS). Some previous reviews showed a noticeable number of studies that combine SPS and Soft- ware Engineering Education (SEE). The objective of this research is to present the latest state-of-the-art of this area, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of SPS in educational context. We conducted an extended Systematic Literature Review (SLR) based on our previous reviews. The review identified 42 primary studies from 1992 to 2013. This paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. The overall findings confirmed the positive impact of SPS on education. The detailed discussions and recommendations may offer reference value to the community. ![]() ![]() Chao Gao, He Zhang, and Shu Jiang (Nanjing University, China) Software process simulation (SPS) has become an active research area for managing and improving software development processes since its introduction in the last two decades. Hybrid simulation, the combination of simulation paradigms to address a problem, is becoming more popular as the problems we are presented with become more complex. However, integrating multiple simulation paradigms faces the issues of compatibility, interoperatability and synchronization when executing simulation. The objective of this research is to present the state-of-the-art of this research area, the hybrid mechanism when integrating paradigms, and more importantly provide practical support for the effective adoption of hybrid simulation in SPS context. Based on an extended systematic literature review, this paper presents the preliminary results by answering the research questions. Depending upon the way these simulation paradigms represent different aspects and levels of software process and the context in which they can be modeled by SPS, two hybrid mechanisms: Hierarchical Mechanism and Interlinked Mechanism, have been frequently employed. The detailed discussions of integration strategies and recommendations when applying hybrid simulation may offer reference value to the SPS community. ![]() |
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Zhang, Wei |
![]() Wei Zhang, Yun Yang, Junchao Xiao, Xiao Liu, and Muhammad Ali Babar (Anhui University, China; East China Institute of Technology, China; Swinburne University of Technology, Australia; Institute of Software at Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; East China Normal University, China; University of Adelaide, Australia) Delay on a critical path may cause the failure in meeting the software project deadline. By adding extra employees with similar skills for help, the delay is expected to be eliminated or reduced. However, the originally scheduled activities may be suspended due to reallocation of employees, which may lead to the problem of delay propagation. So how to minimize and even eliminate the delay without delay propagation is worth investigation. In this paper, we first use a simple scenario to demonstrate the problem of employee scheduling which shows that in the scheduling process, one activity can have many ways for selecting employees from another project. In fact, the searching path in a multi-branch tree and its complete traversal is a NP hard problem. Furthermore when the scale of the problem becomes large, it is impractical to generate a search tree for implementation. Therefore, we propose an ant colony algorithm to address such a problem. Both case studies and initial simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can obtain feasible solutions under different circumstances. ![]() |
112 authors
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