一种用于软件过程建模的适应性Agent 协商

大多软件过程模型是预定义的.在变化的应用环境中,需要由相应人员进行适应性调整.提出一种用于软件过程建模的适应性多边协商模型—— AMNM-PA,其采用Agent 封装软件过程中所涉及的个体,包含组织、团队、个人等,通过Agent 间的协商动态、适应地建立针对给定软件项目的软件过程模型.AMNM-PA 基于非静态有限阶段Markov 决策过程,采用模型无关的Q 学习算法选取协商策略,因此能够支持动态、非预知环境下的适应性协商,从而满足软件过程建模对环境的适应性需求.AMNM-PA 已经实施于软件过程管理系统——SoftPM.     

面向软件工程实践的学生项目管理平台设计

本文通过对软件工程课程实践的关键核心任务进行分析和提炼,提出了一个面向软件工程课程实践的学生项目管理平台。该平台有效地实现了教学管理和学生项目过程管理的无缝集成,实现了从教务人员下达课程任务,到组织指导教师,创建学生项目组,项目开发过程控制,再到项目的中期检查、验收和答辩,到最终的成绩汇总和质量评价的一个完整的软件工程实践课程的全生命周期管理。     

An Empirical Study of the Complex Relationships between Requirements Engineering Processes and Other Processes that Lead to Payoffs in Productivity, Quality, and Risk Management

Requirements engineering is an important component of effective software engineering, yet more research is needed to demonstrate the benefits to development organizations. While the existing literature suggests that effective requirements engineering can lead to improved productivity, quality, and risk management, there is little evidence to support this. We present empirical evidence showing how requirements engineering practice relates to these claims. This evidence was collected over the course of a 30-month case study of a large software development project undergoing requirements process improvement. Our findings add to the scarce evidence on RE payoffs and, more importantly, represent an in-depth explanation of the role of requirements engineering processes in contributing to these benefits. In particular, the results of our case study show that an effective requirements process at the beginning of the project had positive outcomes throughout the project lifecycle, improving the efficacy of other project processes, ultimately leading to improvements in project negotiation, project planning, and managing feature creep, testing, defects, rework, and product quality. Finally, we consider the role collaboration had in producing the effects we observed and the implications of this work to both research and practice.     

A knowledge-based framework for complex, proactive and service-oriented e-negotiation systems

Advances in information technology and knowledge management change the way that e-negotiations, which constitute an important aspect of worldwide e-trading, can be structured and represented. In this paper, a novel approach that focuses on knowledge modeling, formalization, representation and management in the domain of e-negotiation is described. The proposed approach exploits Ontologies, Service Oriented Architectures, Semantic Web Services, software agent platforms, and Knowledge-Bases to construct a framework that favors dynamically adapted negotiation protocols, negotiation process visualization and management, modeling and preference elicitation of the negotiated object and automatic deployment of negotiation interfaces. Negotiation process, protocol and strategy are examined, and a hybrid approach that integrates rules and workflow diagrams to describe and represent them is introduced.     

Evaluation of the implementation of a subset of ISO/IEC 29110 Software Implementation process in four teams of undergraduate students of Ecuador. An empirical software engineering experiment

The competitiveness of software development companies depends on their ability to offer software products with quality attributes within approved budget and schedule. Most Very Small Entities (VSEs) that develop software do not see the benefits of implementing software standards. Consequently, they limit their potential to be recognised as quality software development entities. In this study, the authors present results obtained through the application of empirical software engineering in an experiment in which the ISO/IEC TR 29110–5–1–2 “Software engineering – Lifecycle profiles for Very Small Entities (VSEs) – Part 5–1–2: Management and engineering guide: Generic profile group: Basic profile” was used. The guide includes two processes: Project Management (PM) process and Software Implementation (SI) process. The objective of the project was the development of a software product for the scheduling of medical appointments for the Student Wellness Center of a university of Ecuador. Four teams of undergraduate students were involved. Two of them (controlled teams) implemented a subset of the SI process, while the other two (non-controlled teams) had freedom to choose development activities that were subsequently mapped with the activities of the standard. All teams developed the software product using the SCRUM framework within the same timeframe. Although the experiment was focused on the SI process, the teams also used a tailored version of the PM process defined by the professors. The experiment execution encountered several difficulties. For example, the timeframe of six weeks established in the design of the experiment was too short since students worked part time in the project. All the teams experienced this difficulty, especially when they had to construct and test the software components. Overall, the teams that used the ISO/IEC TR 29110–5–1–2 guide achieved better scores in the quality evaluation of their software processes.     

Managing Problems for Global Software Production – Experience and Lessons

With the increase in size and complexity of current software projects, many large companies have established global software production lines over the world to develop and deliver software products with collaborative software development processes involving multiple teams located at different sites. Supporting global software production needs an effective software-engineering environment to meet the special requirements of the collaborative software development process, diverse management methods and engineering practice. WWW technology provides powerful means to set up an enterprise-oriented software engineering environment for global software production due to its advantages in networking, global access, internationalization, and communication. Although there are many articles addressing the methods and experience in building web-based applications systems and tools, very few papers discuss the real-world problems and solutions in the development and deployment of web-based software tools to support a collaborative software development process for global software production. This paper discusses the real world issues, and reports our experience and lessons in building and deploying a web-based problem information management system (PIMS) to support global software development processes at Fujitsu. It focuses on the real issues and needs of current collaborative development process involving multiple teams, and highlights the benefits and impact of the PIMS on global software production. Moreover, it discusses our technical solutions and trade-offs in the development of PIMS, and shares our experience and lessons. Furthermore, it introduces a new data-centered conceptual process model to support diverse collaborative processes for project and problem management in global software production. Finally, the paper shares our key successes and weaknesses, and reports our experience and lessons in the deployment of the system.     

Coping with defective software in medical devices

Embedding defective software in medical devices increases safety risks. Given that all software is inherently defective, how can medical device manufacturers identify and manage risk? An effective, tailored risk management process can make the task less daunting. Developing complex, software-based medical devices is a challenging business. Device manufacturers must understand the inherent differences between hardware and software components and establish robust software development processes that are based on recognized engineering principles appropriate for safety-critical systems. At the heart of such processes, they must incorporate risk management - from early development through product retirement. Manufacturers have a responsibility to train development and risk management teams in the use of recognized software engineering practice that promote software safety. Only then can they minimize the risk of including inherently defective software in their products.     

Process-oriented software education

In the last few years, development organizations have come to recognize that software development has moved beyond the capabilities of individual programmers and is now an engineering activity performed by teams, and the quality of a software product is highly dependent on the quality of the process used to develop it. The process movement has had a visible effect on the software industry, but how should it influence educators? In this article, the author describes his institution's response. He presents some new views of mature ideas on software quality and productivity     

Learning teamwork skills in university programming courses

University courses about computer programming usually seek to provide students not only with technical knowledge, but also with the skills required to work in real-life software projects. Nowadays, the development of software applications requires the coordinated efforts of the members of one or more teams. Therefore, it is important for software professionals to master the sort of skills that assure the success of teamwork, such as communication, leadership, negotiation, or team management. However, these abilities are difficult to teach, one of the reasons being that they require true commitment from the students. However, today students are taking a more and more passive role in their own education, two of the more evident consequences being the increase in dropout rates and the decrease in marks obtained in exams. The NUCLEO e-learning framework has been designed to promote the effective acquisition of teamwork skills and, at the same time, to promote the more active participation of the students in their own learning process. NUCLEO adopts a socio-constructivist pedagogical approach that pursues the development of communities of practice for Problem Based Learning. Our research has rooted the design decisions of NUCLEO in the analysis of its socio-cultural environment with Activity Theory, which considers conflicts within groups as the impetus of their evolution and the forges of their environments. This paper presents the analysis of the main features of NUCLEO according to Activity Theory, as well as the experimental results obtained with the framework in three different case studies in university courses.     

Influences on regression testing strategies in agile software development environments

Regression testing is a well-established practice in software development, but in recent years it has seen a change of status and emphasis with the increasing popularity of agile methods, which stress the central role of regression testing in maintaining software quality. The objectives of this article are to investigate regression testing strategies in agile development teams and identify the factors that can influence the adoption and implementation of this practice. We have used a mixed methods approach to our research, beginning with an analysis of the literature to identify research themes related to the adoption of regression testing techniques under agile methodologies, from which we developed an analytical framework for the study. This was followed by three exploratory case studies that we used to exercise the main elements of the framework, develop some key themes of interest, and devise a questionnaire for the final stage of the study, an on-line survey to explore the main issues identified in the case studies across different contexts. Within our specific sample, our results suggest that organizational maturity is a key factor in effective regression testing practices and that the adoption of such practices is helped by a coherent testing philosophy and change management processes. We also found that the return on investment in automated regression testing was positive for our respondents and that adopting these practices in the context of agile methods had been a relatively painless process for the organizations in our survey. We conclude that investing in regression testing tools and processes is likely to be beneficial for organizations. However, further work is needed in assessing how organizational culture impacts on the quality process and the financial outcomes for commercial software development organizations.     

Requirements Engineering and Downstream Software Development: Findings from a Case Study

Requirements management is being recognized as one of the most important albeit difficult phases in software engineering. The literature repeatedly cites the role of well-defined requirements and requirements management process in problem analysis and project management as benefiting software development throughout the life cycle: during design, coding, testing, maintenance and documentation of software. This paper reports on the findings of an investigation into industrial practice of requirements management process improvement and its positive effects on downstream software development. The evidence reveals a strong relationship between a well-defined requirements process and increased developer productivity, improved project planning through better estimations and enhanced ability for stakeholders to negotiate project scope. These results are important since there is little empirical evidence of the actual benefits of sound requirements practice, in spite of the plethora of claims in the literature. An account of these effects not only adds to our understanding of good requirements practice but also provides strong motivation for software organizations to develop programs for improvement of their requirements processes.     

CMM实践中的分布式软件工程管理框架

分布式计算机体系结构的进展,使得客户/服务器软件工程被分布式软件工程所代替。CMM(CapabilityMaturityModel)已被软件组织所认识和重视,CMM实践中的软件工程的管理机制是软件质量保障的关键因素。该文介绍一种符合CMM思想、支持CSCW、适合分布式系统结构的管理框架,通过CMM角色定义、过程定义、过程流与文档流的管理以及对CMM角色行为的协同控制,帮助软件企业有效地控制软件过程、增强开发效率、改进软件产品质量。     

基于CMM的软件过程改进实践

CMM是一种软件生产过程标准和软件企业成熟度评估标准,该标准侧重于软件开发过程的管理及工程能力的提高与评估。基于CMM理论在软件过程改进中的应用,针对软件开发过程中存在的问题,采用CMM2级项目级实践,实现4个关键过程域：需求管理、软件项目计划、软件项目跟踪和监督、软件质量保证,制定出符合项目需求和管理的规范与过程,将CMM理论应用于软件开发过程中,对项目各个环节的工作进行改进,取得良好的过程改进效果,并从中总结基于CMM模型进行过程改进的经验。     

A distributed problem-solving approach to collaborative facility engineering

A framework for collaborative facility engineering is presented. The framework is based on a distributed problem-solving approach to collaborative facility engineering and employs an integration approach called Agent-Based Software Engineering as an implementation vehicle of this approach. The focal entity of this framework is a Multiagent Design Team (MDT) that comprises a collection of software agents (e.g. design software applications with a certain standard communication interface) and a design specialist, which together perform specific design tasks. Multiagent design teams are autonomous and form an organizational structure based on a federation architecture. Every multiagent design team surrenders its autonomy to a system program called facilitator, which coordinates the interaction among software agents in the federation architecture. Facilitators can be viewed as representatives of one or more teams that facilitate the exchange of design information and knowledge in support of the design tasks they perform. In the federation architecture, design specialists collaborate by exchanging design information with others via their software agents, and by identifying and resolving design conflicts by negotiation. In addition to a discussion of the framework's primary components, its realization in an integrated distributed environment for collaborative building engineering is described.     

S2ESC: setting standards for three decades

In 1976, the S2ESC was chartered to develop the first IEEE software engineering standards for practitioners, organizations, and educators with the vision of improving: the effectiveness and efficiency of software engineering processes; communications between acquirers and suppliers; and the quality of delivered software and systems containing software. The S2ESC has made numerous contributions to the software engineering community over the past three decades, and it continues to ensure that the community's products and services reflect current best practice and remain relevant and valued.     

Understanding and analysing activity and learning in virtual communities

Abstract  The purpose of this study is to provide a preliminary framework to observe, analyse and evaluate both activity and learning in virtual communities. So various types of virtual communities will be studied by examining their relationship to socialisation and learning. After a presentation of the main ideas of Wenger's social learning theory, the principal components of the social context of the emergence and evolution of virtual communities will be described. It will show how taking this context into account enables the definition of four principal types of virtual communities: community of interest, goal-oriented community of interest, learners' community and community of practice and describe how the activity of these communities develops according to the goals they set for themselves and to the strategies they adopt to reach them. For each type of virtual community, an attempt will be made to determine the process of negotiation of meaning at the base of learning, and to describe the learning performed in terms of participation and reification processes.     

Process Control in metallurgical plants—From an Xstrata perspective

Some history and modern practice of Process Control in metallurgical operations is reviewed. Clearly the early deliverables from the pioneer days in the 1950s through to the 1970s and early 1980s were under-appreciated. The discipline has since grown into a more visible, sophisticated and accepted practice as a result of the assembly of appropriately recruited and trained individuals and teams, who have successfully negotiated deliverable projects that impact all metallurgical performances beyond early milling processes. The skill set in these individuals and teams essentially includes organisational behaviour in addition to their specialist technical attributes. A strong network to internal and external specialists and experts is essential. Furthermore, instrumentation and control technology has improved immensely. The challenge in the current modern practice is to win support of senior management in operations for the project cost, schedule and deliverables of Process Control. Once gained, this acceptance then amounts to the logistics of project scope and delivery—a track record well-demonstrated by the Xstrata Process Control Group.     

一种面向方面的软件体系结构

针对软件开发过程中软件代码杂混、分散,导致软件开发过程的可追踪性差、开发效率低、代码的重用性不好、代码质量不高、软件系统的演变进化困难等问题,采用面向方面的软件开发方法研究软件体系结构,结合业务流程管理系统,来介绍基于面向方面的软件体系结构在系统需求方面实现和编织方法的开发过程。通过提取业务流程、业务活动和参业者这三个关注点,对这些需求关注独立封装,并对它们的实现进行编织．解决相互之间的信息交换,降低了业务逻辑、业务数据和业务操作实体三者间的耦合,实现业务流程的柔性管理和不同业务功能的集成。     

Applying a selection method to choose Quality Attribute Techniques

ContextSoftware products have requirements on software quality attributes such as safety and performance. Development teams use various specific techniques to achieve these quality requirements. We call these “Quality Attribute Techniques” (QATs). QATs are used to identify, analyse and control potential product quality problems. Although QATs are widely used in practice, there is no systematic approach to represent, select, and integrate them in existing approaches to software process modelling and tailoring.ObjectiveThis research aims to provide a systematic approach to better select and integrate QATs into tailored software process models for projects that develop products with specific product quality requirements.MethodA selection method is developed to support the choice of appropriate techniques for any quality attribute, across the lifecycle. The selection method is based on three perspectives: (1) risk management; (2) process integration; and (3) cost/benefit using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). An industry case study is used to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of applying the selection method.ResultsThe case study demonstrates that the selection method provides a more methodological and effective approach to choose QATs for projects that target a specific quality attribute, compared to the ad hoc selection performed by development teams.ConclusionThe proposed selection method can be used to systematically choose QATs for projects to target specific product qualities throughout the software development lifecycle.     

基于EPMM的软件过程模型规范化研究

为了开发高质量的软件过程模型,有必要对软件过程模型的规范化进行研究。本文基于EPMM对过程的形式化定义,考虑到传统软件过程和软件演化过程的特点,给出过程第一范式(1PNF)、过程第二范式(2PNF)、过程第三范式(3PNF)和过程第四范式(4PNF)的定义,并给出它们的判定算法。本文建议:对于传统的软件过程模型,应设计到满足2PNF;而对于软件演化过程模型,应设计到满足3PNF。本文为建模高质量的软件过程模型提供了指南。