Software Quality Management from a Cross-Cultural Viewpoint

This paper describes our attempts to look at how different cultures influence Software Quality Management (Siakas 1996; Mohamed Walaa-Eldeen and Siakas 1996). Quality of the software product cannot be determined until late in the development cycle. It is widely accepted that reliance has to be placed on process quality as a means of achieving product quality. In recent years software organisations have been making efforts concentrating on improving the process in order to improve software quality. Hofstede (Hofstede 1994) had defined four dimensions of work-related value differences for classifying cultural influences in different countries. These are: power distance, collectivism/individualism, femininity/masculinity and uncertainty avoidance. In this paper software development organisations are being assessed for their awareness and acceptance of Software Quality. These results will be correlated with the work-related values identified by Hofstede. The intention is to identify cultural factors, which may have a bearing on successful adoption and implementation of Software Quality Management. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Factors affecting the quality of software project management: an empirical study based on the Capability Maturity Model

Rigorous project management can help raise a software product development process from an initial, immature stage that is unstable and unrepeatable to an optimized maturity level characterized by continuous improvement and innovation. Goals and actions related to a repeatable project management process have been outlined in the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. The CMM provides good guidelines for initiating software process improvement particularly in the project management area; however, the successful implementation of the CMM guidelines is often not accomplished without significant organizational change involving increased emphasis on change management, teams and employee empowerment. This paper is empirically based on observations, surveys, and interviews of project team managers and project team members in a large, multinational organiplanning, change management, quality management, team work, and process control. Findings presented in this paper are correlated with the CMM guidelines as well as organizational factors that were found to enable or impede the successful deployment of various aspects of a project management improvement plan. The role of education and training in process and quality techniques as well as project management tools that support group work is also examined. This paper provides some insight into the issues faced by organizations based on traditional hierarchy or matrix management as they attempt to move into a more process-driven, quality-oriented development environment. As organizations move towards global markets they need increased emphasis on quality, value, teams, standards and global project management strategies based on structured guidelines to handle process flow within and between projects, departments, organizations, and national boundaries.     

计算机软件过程控制的实施

软件过程控制模型,如CMM(后更名为SW-CMM)模型是一种软件过程能力评估标准,现已得到了众多国家软件产业界的认可,成为从事规模软件生产的有效性依据之一.企业的软件能力取决于该企业的过程能力,特别是在软件开发和生产中的成熟度.在CMM2模型中,将这种能力归结为可重复级别.CMM2级模型是使软件企业从开发过程的杂乱无章走向受控制管理的基础.近年来,我国的软件事业飞速发展,大量的软件企业纷纷建立.但是,在软件过程控制方面也存在一些问题,有相当一部分企业也认识到了软件过程规范管理的重要性,开始实施CMM2级管控.但是,有相当多的企业一直徘徊不前,其原因是对CMM2级理解不够透彻,本文针对CMM2级中的关键过程域和实施中的技术问题进行分析,希望为此提供一些有用的参考.     

Implementing Fuzzy Logic and AHP into the EFQM model for performance improvement: A case study

In the current volatile and demanding business environment, managers are so eager to demonstrate that their organizations are excellent which can mainly be achieved through continuous performance improvement. The most applicable and suitable tools that by the assessment of organizations shows how successful they are in the organizational excellence path is European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. This study aims at presenting a new integrated approach based on EFQM model using Fuzzy Logic, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique and Operations Research (OR) model to improve the organizations’ excellence level by increasing the quality of business performance evaluation and determining of improvement projects with high priority. A case study in Yazd Regional Electricity Co. in Iran is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. In a way that, primarily, performance assessment by crisp method and the proposed method, Fuzzy method, is carried out. Then, strength points and the areas for improvement are identified by defining the scores for sub-criteria. Next, sub-criteria are prioritized to define the improvement projects by using AHP technique and Operations Research model. Finally, improvement projects with high priority are determined and some action plans for improvement projects are defined.     

软件过程改进框架

在软件开发过程中,软件工程师以及软件组织不可避免地会遇到各种困难,尤其是软件组织在实施能力成熟度模型(CMM)过程中面对的各种挑战.根据对CMM研究的体会与实践经验,提出了以集成的能力成熟度模型(CMMI)为基础,以个体软件过程和群组软件过程为支持的软件过程改进框架.     

如何更好地保证软件项目的质量

软件企业更多的时候是在为客户提供服务而不是像买卖一件商品那么简单,改善客户满意度应该是一个着眼于未来的软件企业不断追求的目标。那么软件企业如何才能为用户提供高质量的产品呢?本文将从质量策略、质量管理过程、质量管理常用技术和工具、QA的工作等几个方面探讨如何更好地保证软件的质量。     

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。     

Development and validation of an instrument to measure organizational cultures’ support of Business Process Management

The purpose of Business Process Management (BPM) is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational processes through improvement and innovation. Despite a common understanding that culture is an important element in BPM efforts, there is a dearth of theoretical and empirical research on culture as a facilitator of successful BPM. We develop the BPM culture construct and propose a validated instrument with which to measure organizational cultures’ support of BPM. The operationalization of the BPM culture concept provides a theoretical foundation for future research and a tool to assist organizations in developing a cultural environment that supports successful BPM.     

Assessing the state of software in a large enterprise

To be relevant to the goals of an enterprise, an industrial software engineering research organization must identify problems of interest to, and find solutions that have an impact on, the software development organizations within the company. Using a systematic measurement program both to identify the problems and assess the impact of solutions is key to satisfying this need. Avaya has had such a program in place for about seven years. Every year we produce an annual report known as the State of Software in Avaya that describes software development trends throughout the company and that contains prioritized recommendations for improving Avaya’s software development capabilities. We start by identifying the goals of the enterprise and use the goal-question-metric approach to identify the measures to compute. The result is insight into the enterprise’s problems in software development, recommendations for improving the development process, and problems that require research to solve. We will illustrate the process with examples from the Software Technology Research Department in Avaya Labs whose purpose is to improve the state of software development and know it. “Know it” means that improvement should be subjectively evident and objectively quantifiable. “Know it” also means that one must be skilled at identifying the data sources, performing the appropriate analyses to answer the questions of interest, and validating that the data are accurate and appropriate for the purpose. Examples will include how and why we developed a measure of software quality that appeals to customers, how and why we are studying the effectiveness of distributed software development, and how and why we are helping development organizations to adopt iterative development methods. We will also discuss how we keep the company and the department apprised of the current strengths and weaknesses of software development in Avaya through the publication of the annual State of Software in Avaya Report. Our purpose is both to provide a model for assessment that others may emulate, based on seven years of experience, and to spotlight analyses and conclusions that we feel are common to software development today.     

软件质量量化指标及实现方法的探讨

在ISO软件质量模型的基础上,建立质量需求评价准则(SQRC)和质量设计评价准则(SQDC)之间的定量关系,将软件质量需求指标转化为软件质量的设计指标,为软件开发人员在设计和编码阶段实施软件质量保证提供指南。它将软件质量保证的任务向设计和编码人员进行分解,有利于软件项目工程化生产过程中的质量管理,从而降低软件生产的风险。     

基于机器学习的软件缺陷预测研究

基于机器学习的软件缺陷预测是一种有效的提高软件可靠性的方法。该方法基于软件模块的统计特性预测软件模块可能出现的缺陷数或是否容易出现缺陷。通过对软件模块缺陷状况的预测,软件开发组织可以将有限的资源集中于容易出现缺陷的模块,从而有效地提高软件产品的质量。基于机器学习的软件缺陷预测近年来出现了很多研究成果,文章概述该领域近年来的主要研究成果,并根据各方法的特点进行了分类。     

Measurement and Validation of Module Coupling Attributes

Module coupling is an important criterion for evaluating the quality of a software design. While the benefits of reduced module coupling are widely agreed upon, it has been difficult to measure coupling and thus understand it empirically. This study argues the definition of coupling, defines a set of coupling metrics based on the measurement of connections of a module within its running environment, and validates the set using principal component analysis. In an empirical study, the results indicate that these coupling metrics capture three distinct attributes of module coupling. These three attributes represent sources of variation not accounted for in the set of metric primitives and are appropriate for evaluating the coupling complexity of software. This study provides a set of validated measurements of the coupling complexity of software and a new way to evaluate module coupling measurements.Gregory A. Hall is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Texas State University. He is actively engaged in research and publication in the areas of software engineering, software measurement, software testing, and digital forensics. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE, and the IEEE Computer Society.Wenyou Tao received the MS degree in Computer Science and MS degree in Mining Engineering from the University of Idaho, and the MS and BS degrees from Chongqing University, China. He is currently a Quality Controller at LiveBridge Corporate, Canada. Previously, he worked as a QA engineer at Aventail Corporation and a software engineer at NET Information Systems, U.S.A.John C. Munson is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Idaho. He has worked with a number of different commercial and governmental organizations in the development of software static and dynamic measurement techniques for software test evaluation. He has been actively engaged in research and publication in the areas of software reliability engineering, software measurement, and computer security. He is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE, the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Reliability Society. He has been closely associated with the IEEE International Symposium on Software. He has also been associated with the IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and IEEE International Software Metrics Symposium serving as a member of the program committee and also as program chair for these conferences.     

The dynamics of culture, organisational culture and change

The interface between cultural anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, cultural psychology and indigenous psychology provides a rich context for examining recent developments within the field of organisational culture, both from a societal (national) and a cross-cultural perspective. It is argued in this paper that cultural patterns in society impact deeply on cultural patterns in organisations. In other words, organisational culture reflects the way in which the societal context shapes the organisational context, which in turn moulds the beliefs, attitudes and behaviour of its members — individuals and groups. It is further posited that organisational cultural and societal culture recursively mirror one another. The complexity of the interdependence between societal culture and organisational culture will be traced, drawing on the evolving nature of the construct culture within the traditions of anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, indigenous psychology and organisational psychology. The hidden source of cultural elements embedded in the organisational domain will be examined from the perspective of an appreciation of diversity and a recognition of the need to support and encourage the variations that add to our creativity as well astosystem/organisational effectiveness.     

Process-Based Software Engineering: Building the Infrastructures

A recent trend in software engineering is the shift from a focus on laboratory-oriented software engineering to a more industry-oriented view of software engineering processes. This complements preceding ideas about software engineering in terms of organization and process-orientation. From the domain coverage point of view, many of the existing software engineering approaches have mainly concentrated on the technical aspects of software development. Important areas of software engineering, such as the technical and organizational infrastructures, have been left untouched. As software systems increase in scales, issues of complexity and professional practices become involved. Software development as an academic or laboratory activity, has to engage with software development as a key industrialized process.This expanded domain of software engineering exposes the limitations of existing methodologies that often address only individual subdomains. There is, therefore, a demand for an overarching approach that provide a basis for theoretical and practical infrastructures capable of accommodating the whole range of modern software engineering practices and requirements. One approach is provided by Process-Based Software Engineering (PBSE); part of the more general trend towards a focus on process.This paper provides a review of process techniques for software engineering and a high-level perspective on PBSE. Typical approaches and techniques for the establishment, assessment, improvement and benchmarking of software engineering process systems are introduced in this paper, and many are developed further in other contributions to this volume.     

Characterizing and evaluating the quality of software process modeling language: Comparison of ten representative model-based languages

Software organizations are very conscious that deployments of well-defined software processes improve software product development and its quality. Over last decade, many Software Process Modeling Languages (SPMLs) have been proposed to describe and manage software processes. However, each one presents advantages and disadvantages. The main challenge for an organization is to choose the best and most suitable SPML to meet its requirements. This paper proposes a Quality Model (QM) which has been defined conforms to QuEF (Quality Evaluation Framework). This QM allows to compare model-based SPMLs and it could be used by organizations to choose the most useful model-based SPML for their particular requirements. This paper also instances our QM to evaluate and compare 10 representative SPMLs of the various alternative approaches (metamodel-level approaches; SPML based on UML and approaches based on standards). Finally, this paper concludes there are many model-based proposals for SPM, but it is very difficult to establish with could be the commitment to follow. Some non-considered aspects until now have been identified (e.g., validation within enterprise environments, friendly support tools, mechanisms to carry out continuous improvement, mechanisms to establish business rules and elements for software process orchestrating).     

软件过程改进中项目计划与跟踪的实例研究

项目的计划与跟踪是软件过程管理与改进活动中应该首先着手的方面。成熟的软件开发组织能够通过有效的软件项目计划与跟踪实现对项目的策划与监控。文章立足小组软件过程,以实际项目为背景,着重介绍了以项目计划和跟踪为主的软件过程改进实施活动。在此基础上,分析了相关项目的计划与跟踪数据,研究总结了实施中遇到的问题和经验,并提出了进一步完善的措施及相关支持工具的研制。     

Project evaluation using the SEI method

The SEI Process Evaluation Method can be adapted for individual projects. This paper shows how the projects in a Systems House were assessed, over an extensive period, using a modified form of the method. The use of a spreadsheet to store and process the information is described and recommended; a form of reporting results is presented; the problems encountered are described and the solutions delineated; the advantages of applying the method to projects are evaluated; and practical recommendations are given to those who might wish to adopt the revised method.The paper maintains that the SEI Maturity Level is a concept of little use to projects; however, the answers to the SEI questionnaire can be otherwise evaluated to produce action lists for the removal of project deficiencies, to the great advantage of projects.Dr Mike Gilchrist is a Quality Consultant, specializing in Software Process evaluation. He advises on ISO 9000, assisting companies to produce Quality Systems suitable for registration. He has a particular research interest in the causes of software management errors. A Registered Assessor of Quality Systems (IQA), also accredited on Lloyds Register of Quality Management Assessors, he is a member of the Institute of Quality Assurance, and of the British Computer Society.     

Understanding the implementation of software process improvement innovations in software organizations

Abstract. The development of software is a complex task frequently resulting in unfinished projects, project overruns and system failures. Software process improvement (SPI) approaches have been promoted as a promising remedy for this situation. The organizational implementation of such approaches is a crucial issue and attempts to introduce SPI into software organizations often fail. This paper presents a framework to understand, and subsequently successfully perform, the implementation of SPI innovations in software organizations. The framework consists of three perspectives on innovation: an individualist, a structuralist and an interactive process perspective. Applied to SPI, they emphasize different aspects of implementing SPI innovations. While the first focuses on leadership, champions and change agents, the second focuses on organization size, departmental and task differentiation and complexity, and the third perspective views the contents of the innovation, the social context and process of the implementation as related in an interactive process. We demonstrate the framework's applicability through two cases. We show that the three perspectives supplement each other and together provide a deeper understanding of the implementation process. Such understanding is crucial for the successful uptake of SPI approaches in software organizations.     

Applying Value-Based Software Process:An ERP Example

Commercial organizations increasingly need software processes sensitive to business value, quick to apply, supportive of multi-stakeholder collaboration, and capable of early analysis for the cost- e ectiveness of process instances This paper presents experience in applying a lightweight synthesis of a Value-Based Software Quality Achievement process and an Object-Petri-Net-based process model to achieve a stakeholder win-win outcome for software quality achievement in an on-going ERP software project in China The application results con rmed that 1) the Object-Petri-Net-based process model provided project managers with a synchronization and stabilization framework for process activities, successcritical stakeholders and their value propositions; 2) process visualization and simulation tools signi cantly increased management visibility and controllability for the success of the software project     

Product Focused Software Process Improvement: Concepts and Experiences from Industry

Management problems in the development of software have been addressed over the last years by a strong focus on the improvement of the development processes. Software process improvement (SPI) activities are characterized by an internal focus on a software development department and its procedures. However, the quality of the product is hardly addressed in software process improvement programs. This paper presents the application of a model for product focused SPI (P-SPI) and describes experiences with this model in practice. The main conclusions are that P-SPI puts products to be developed in a central position in improvement programs, results in fulfilling specific quality goals of a company and project, and industrial experiments show interesting benefits. Applying the approach in industrial projects showed that P-SPI is relatively cheap and gives fast results and high benefits.