Coordination implications of software architecture in a global software development project

In this paper, we report on our experience of using design structure matrices (DSMs), derived from architecture models developed at early stages of the project, to reveal the coordination needs among globally distributed development teams. Our approach is to automatically transform the box-and-line style software architecture model into an augmented constraint network (ACN), from which a DSM can be automatically generated. After that, we represent the coordination structure among the team members as communication matrices (COMs). We then assess the consistency between the DSM and COMs. Analysis of data gathered during the Global Studio Project Version 3.0 revealed that the architectural DSM model, representing the software modular structure, is highly consistent with the COMs that represent the actual coordination structure, showing that an architectural DSM has the potential to help guide the task assignments in global software development projects.     

Improving software development management through software project telemetry

Conventional wisdom in the software engineering research community says that metrics can make project management more effective. Software metrics range from internal product attributes such as size, complexity, and modularity to external process attributes such as effort, productivity, and reliability. Software project telemetry facilitates local, in-process decision making.     

敏捷方法在软件项目开发中的实践

目前很多企业内中小型软件项目面临开发时间紧迫、人手不足、需求不断变化的困难,传统重量级的软件开发方法无法应对这样的挑战.敏捷方法是基于实践的软件开发方法学,为解决这类轻量级项目管理和开发所碰到的问题提供了新的思路.通过分析敏捷方法的主要目标、观点和原则,并结合一个实际的管理信息系统项目开发,从项目计划、项目文档、重构的改进和项目维护的4个方面探讨了敏捷方法的实践应用.实践证明,采用敏捷方法的观点和原则进行必要的改进,能取得项目开发的成功.     

Five ways to destroy a development project [software development]

The author discusses five problems that can contribute to a software project's failure. The five pitfalls are: inadequate system engineering during the proposal and during front-end development; inadequate tracing, tracking, and management of system and software requirements; improper sizing of the target hardware; selection of design, production, and integration and test methodologies that are inappropriate to a large software development; and failure to provide a metrics program that would let managers track the progress of software production and test     

Impacts of collaborative IS on software development project success in Indian software firms: a service perspective

The collaborative work of team members has become a common occurrence in software development projects. Collaborative information systems (CIS), designed to facilitate and support teamwork, appear critical for software project success. However, the quality and convenience of the services and functions delivered by CIS have not received robust attention in academia. Hence, the current study investigates the role of the CIS service characteristics of service quality and service convenience in teamwork and software development project success using DeLone and McLean’s (D&M) Information System (IS) Success Model as the theoretical framework. This study incorporates the success indicators of teamwork quality, teamwork performance, and project success as measured by software quality and project performance. Data from 153 Indian software companies confirm that collaborative IS services, as well as teamwork quality/performance, are central to software development project success. We believe that the findings of this study will be helpful to project managers of software development firms.     

The mechanisms of project management of software development

The changing environments of software development such as component-based, distributed and outsourced software development require matching changes by project managers to monitor, control and coordinate their projects. While the objectives of project management may be well established, the mechanisms with which those objectives are achieved are less well known. An empirical study was undertaken to investigate which mechanisms were used by practising project managers to monitor, control and coordinate software development projects.First, the types of mechanisms are discussed so that the mechanisms can be classified usefully. Then, the design of the empirical study is described. The data were collected through structured interview, which provided both quantitative and qualitative data. The data are analysed for each mechanism separately and the findings presented. The study found that project managers use multiple mechanisms to achieve project management objectives and use the same mechanism to serve multiple objectives. Further research is suggested to investigate project management from the opposite orientation, that is, which objectives are served by specific project management mechanisms.     

Understanding software project risk: a cluster analysis

Understanding software project risk can help in reducing the incidence of failure. Building on prior work, software project risk was conceptualized along six dimensions. A questionnaire was built and 507 software project managers were surveyed. A cluster analysis was then performed to identify aspects of low, medium, and high risk projects. An examination of risk dimensions across the levels revealed that even low risk projects have a high level of complexity risk. For high risk projects, the risks associated with requirements, planning and control, and the organization become more obvious. The influence of project scope, sourcing practices, and strategic orientation on project risk dimensions was also examined. Results suggested that project scope affects all dimensions of risk, whereas sourcing practices and strategic orientation had a more limited impact. A conceptual model of project risk and performance was presented.     

System dynamics in software project management: towards the development of a formal integrated framework

Successful software development is becoming increasingly important to many companies. However, most projects fail to meet their targets, highlighting the inadequacies of traditional project management techniques in this unique setting. Despite breakthroughs in software engineering, management methodologies have not improved, and the major opportunities for better results are now in this area. Poor strategic management and related human factors have been cited as a major cause for failures, which traditional techniques cannot incorporate explicitly. System dynamics (SD) aims to model the behaviour of complex socio-economic systems; there has been a number of applications to software project management. SD provides an alternative view in which the major project influences are considered and quantified explicitly. Grounded on a holistic perspective it avoids consideration of the detail required by traditional tools, looking at the key aspects of the general project behaviour. However, if SD is to play a key role in software project management it needs to be embedded within the traditional decision-making framework. The authors developed a conceptual integrated model, the SYDPIM, which has been tested and improved within a large on-going software project. Such a framework specifies the roles of SD models, how they are to be used within the traditional management process, how they exchange information with the traditional models, and a general method to support model development.     

In-house software development: what project management practices lead to success?

Project management is an important part of software development, both for organizations that rely on third-party software development and for those whose software is developed primarily in-house. Moreover, quantitative survey-based research regarding software development's early, nontechnical aspects is lacking. To help provide a project management perspective for managers responsible for in-house software development, we conducted a survey in an attempt to determine the factors that lead to successful projects. We chose a survey because of its simplicity and because we hoped to find relationships among variables. Also, a survey let us cover more projects at a lower cost than would an equivalent number of interviews or a series of case studies. Our results provide general guidance for business and project managers to help ensure that their projects succeed.     

软件研发中的项目质量管理工具与技术

重点介绍了软件研发中的项目质量管理常用的工具与技术,涉及配置管理、软件测试技术、帕累托分析、质量功能分布图等质量管理工具。     

Experiences of a software reuse project

Despite the large number of successful software reuse cases reported, there are more than a few negative views that reuse has not yet delivered as expected. This is because of the lack of consensus on the applicative conditions of reuse technology and the size of the benefits that can be expected. This article describes a software reuse project conducted at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) Software Laboratories. Based on this experience, the article discusses such important aspects of software reuse as domain selection and analysis, impediments, incentives, and library tools. It concludes that successful software reuse requires the selection of appropriate domains, systematic development of reusable modules based on domain analysis, and the commitment of senior management.     

An investigation of use case quality in a large safety-critical software development project

Use case modelling is a much-used technique for eliciting and documenting functional requirements. The quality of the use cases may have an important impact on the development project and on the resulting software product. This paper presents an empirical study of the changes that were made to the use case models in a large software project during the analysis phase. The results show (a) which were the most difficult aspects of use case modelling in this project and (b) how the quality of the functional requirements, in particular correctness, completeness, and clarity, was improved through the use case modelling process.     

The Cactis project: database support for software environments

The Cactis project is an on-going effort oriented toward extending database support from traditional business-oriented applications to software environments. The main goals of the project are to construct an appropriate model, and develop new techniques to support the unusual data management needs of software environments, including program compilations, software configurations, load modules, project schedules, software versions, nested and long transactions, and program transformations. The ability to manage derived information is common to many of these data needs, and the Cactis database management system has the ability to represent and maintain derived data in a time- and space-efficient fashion. A central contribution of Cactis is its integration of the type constructors of semantic models and the localized behavior capabilities of object-oriented database management systems     

软件项目风险的可拓评价

将可拓评价应用于软件项目风险评价中。依据物元模型与关联函数理论,分析软件项目风险的各种影响因素,建立可拓评价的物元模型。通过计算该模型综合关联度,得出定量的数值。该数值既表示出软件项目风险的大小,又体现风险转化趋势,有利于制定合理的软件项目风险应对计划。最后通过案例验证该方法的有效性。     

航天型号软件生存周期模型选择指南

文中首先阐述了有关生存周期模型的基本概念,简要介绍4个已在国内外航天界得到成功应用的典型生存周期模型：瀑布模型、增量模型、进化模型和基于软件包的生存周期模型,分别给出了这4个生存周期模型的优点、缺点、适用情况以及各生存周期阶段的主要产品和里程碑评审,最后给出选择航天型号软件生存周期模型的基本原则。     

Antecedents and consequences of team memory in software development projects

Team memory is important, yet it is rarely addressed in papers on software development. We investigated the antecedents and consequences of team memory (both declarative and procedural) in software development projects. By examining 67 projects in the IT departments of 38 firms, we found, using PLS that customer orientation and innovation orientation was positively associated with both declarative and procedural memory, social responsibility was positively related to declarative memory, and systematic management control were negatively associated with declarative memory but positively associated with procedural memory. We also found that: declarative memory was positively related to the market success of the software, and procedural memory was positively related to speed-to-market (launching software faster) to the extent that memory was dispersed throughout the project team. Managerial and theoretical implication were further discussed.     

NP-Click: a productive software development approach for network processors

Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design is too risky and prohibitively expensive for many applications. This trend, combined with increasing silicon capability on a die, is fueling the emergence of application-specific programmable architectures. This focus on architecture design for network processors has made programming them an arduous task. Current network processors require in-depth knowledge of the architecture just to begin programming the device. However, for network processors to succeed, programmers must efficiently implement high-performance applications on them. Writing high-performance code for modern network processors is difficult because of their complexity. NP-Click is a simple programming model that permits programmers to reap the benefits of a domain specific language while still allowing for target-specific optimizations. Results for the Intel IXP1200 indicate that NP-Click delivers a large productivity gain at a slight performance expense.     

Industrializing software development: a Japanese approach

An overview is given of Japan's Sigma (Software Industrialized Generator and Maintenance Aids), and of the Sigma system itself. Sigma provides a rich, standardized environment. It consists of the Sigma Center, Sigma network, and Sigma user sites. The Sigma Center will help users who are constructing development environments of programs using those environments. It will provide database services, demonstration services, and part of the network service. The Sigma network is a Unix-based network that connects the Sigma Center to the Sigma user sites, the Sigma Center to external networks. A typical Sigma user site includes Sigma workstations running Sigma OS, a local area network, and the Sigma gateway, which is a communications server and protocol-conversion system. The Sigma development tools are discussed     

Agile software testing in a large-scale project

Agile software development in general and Extreme Programming (XP) in particular, promote radical changes in how software development organizations traditionally work. We present and analyze new data from a real, large-scale agile project to develop a business-critical enterprise information system for the Israeli Air Force (IAF). Our results offer new evidence that agile testing practices actually work, dramatically improving development quality and productivity. We describe the organization's successful practices and guidelines in four key areas: test design and activity execution, working with professional testers, planning, and defect management.