Are team personality and climate related to satisfaction and software quality? Aggregating results from a twice replicated experiment

Research into software engineering teams focuses on human and social team factors. Social psychology deals with the study of team formation and has found that personality factors and group processes such as team climate are related to team effectiveness. However, there are only a handful of empirical studies dealing with personality and team climate and their relationship to software development team effectiveness. Objective We present aggregate results of a twice replicated quasi-experiment that evaluates the relationships between personality, team climate, product quality and satisfaction in software development teams. Method Our experimental study measures the personalities of team members based on the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and team climate factors (participative safety, support for innovation, team vision and task orientation) preferences and perceptions. We aggregate the results of the three studies through a meta-analysis of correlations. The study was conducted with students. Results The aggregation of results from the baseline experiment and two replications corroborates the following findings. There is a positive relationship between all four climate factors and satisfaction in software development teams. Teams whose members score highest for the agreeableness personality factor have the highest satisfaction levels. The results unveil a significant positive correlation between the extraversion personality factor and software product quality. High participative safety and task orientation climate perceptions are significantly related to quality. Conclusions First, more efficient software development teams can be formed heeding personality factors like agreeableness and extraversion. Second, the team climate generated in software development teams should be monitored for team member satisfaction. Finally, aspects like people feeling safe giving their opinions or encouraging team members to work hard at their job can have an impact on software quality. Software project managers can take advantage of these factors to promote developer satisfaction and improve the resulting product.

Usability-Oriented Software Development Process

Usability is the capability of the software product to be understood, learned, used and attractive to the user, when used under specified conditions. Many studies demonstrate the benefits of usability, yet to this day software products continue to exhibit consistently low levels of this quality attribute. Furthermore, poor usability in software systems contributes largely to software failing in actual use. One of the main disciplines involved in usability is that of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Over the past two decades the HCI community has proposed specific features that should be present in applications to improve their usability, yet incorporating them into software continues to be far from trivial for software developers. These difficulties are due to multiple factors, including the high level of abstraction at which these HCI recommendations are made and how far removed they are from actual software implementation. In order to bridge this gap, the Software Engineering community has long proposed software design solutions to help developers include usability features into software, however, the problem remains an open research question. This doctoral thesis addresses the problem of helping software developers include specific usability features into their applications by providing them with a structured and tangible guidance in the form of a process, which we have termed the Usability-Oriented Software Development Process. This process is supported by a set of Software Usability Guidelines that help developers to incorporate a set of eleven usability features with high impact on software design. After developing the Usability-oriented Software Development Process and the Software Usability Guidelines, they have been validated across multiple academic projects and proven to help software developers to include such usability features into their software applications. In doing so, their use significantly reduced development time and improved the quality of the resulting designs of these projects. Furthermore, in this work we propose a software tool to automate the application of the proposed process. In sum, this work contributes to the integration of the Software Engineering and HCI disciplines providing a framework that helps software developers to create usable applications in an efficient way.

Interfaz gráfica y fase de pruebas de software de vídeo forense (Sistema de codificación DV)

El presente proyecto fin de carrera, realizado por el ingeniero técnico en telecomunicaciones Pedro M. Matamala Lucas, es la fase final de desarrollo de un proyecto de mayor magnitud correspondiente al software de vídeo forense SAVID. El propósito del proyecto en su totalidad es la creación de una herramienta informática capacitada para realizar el análisis de ficheros de vídeo, codificados y comprimidos por el sistema DV –Digital Video-. El objetivo del análisis, es aportar información acerca de si la cinta magnética presenta indicios de haber sido manipulada con una edición posterior a su grabación original, además, de mostrar al usuario otros datos de interés como las especificaciones técnicas de la señal de vídeo y audio. Por lo tanto, se facilitará al usuario, analista de vídeo forense, información que le ayude a valorar la originalidad del contenido del soporte que es sujeto del análisis. El objetivo específico de esta fase final, es la creación de la interfaz de usuario del software, que informa tanto del código binario de los sectores significativos, como de su interpretación tras el análisis. También permitirá al usuario el reporte de los resultados, además de otras funcionalidades que le permitan la navegación por los sectores del código que han sido modificados como efecto colateral de la edición de la cinta magnética original. Otro objetivo importante del proyecto ha sido la investigación de metodologías y técnicas de desarrollo de software para su posterior implementación, buscando con esto, una mayor eficiencia en la gestión del tiempo y una mayor calidad de software con el fin de garantizar su evolución y sostenibilidad en el futuro. Se ha hecho hincapié en las metodologías ágiles que han ido ganando relevancia en el sector de las tecnologías de la información en las últimas décadas, sustituyendo a metodologías clásicas como el desarrollo en cascada. Su flexibilidad durante el ciclo de vida del software, permite obtener mejores resultados cuando las especificaciones no están del todo definidas, ajustándose de este modo a las condiciones del proyecto. Resumiendo las especificaciones técnicas del software, C++ es el lenguaje de programación orientado a objetos con el que se ha desarrollado, utilizándose la tecnología MFC -Microsoft Foundation Classes- para la implementación. Es un proyecto MFC de tipo cuadro de dialogo,creado, compilado y publicado, con la herramienta de desarrollo integrado Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. La arquitectura con la que se ha estructurado es la arquetípica de tres capas, compuesta por la interfaz de usuario, capa de negocio y capa de acceso a datos. Se ha visto necesario configurar el proyecto con compatibilidad con CLR –Common Languages Runtime- para poder implementar la funcionalidad de creación de reportes. Acompañando a la aplicación informática, se presenta la memoria del proyecto y sus anexos correspondientes a los documentos EDRF –Especificaciones Detalladas de Requisitos funcionales-, EIU –Especificaciones de Interfaz de Usuario , DT -Diseño Técnico- y Guía de Usuario. SUMMARY. This dissertation, carried out by the telecommunications engineer Pedro M. Matamala Lucas, is in its final stage and is part of a larger project for the software of forensic video called SAVID. The purpose of the entire project is the creation of a software tool capable of analyzing video files that are coded and compressed by the DV -Digital Video- System. The objective of the analysis is to provide information on whether the magnetic tape shows signs of having been tampered with after the editing of the original recording, and also to show the user other relevant data and technical specifications of the video signal and audio. Therefore the user, forensic video analyst, will have information to help assess the originality of the content of the media that is subject to analysis. The specific objective of this final phase is the creation of the user interface of the software that provides information about the binary code of the significant sectors and also its interpretation after analysis. It will also allow the user to report the results, and other features that will allow browsing through the sections of the code that have been modified as a secondary effect of the original magnetic tape being tampered. Another important objective of the project is the investigation of methodologies and software development techniques to be used in deployment, with the aim of greater efficiency in time management and enhanced software quality in order to ensure its development and maintenance in the future. Agile methodologies, which have become important in the field of information technology in recent decades, have been used during the execution of the project, replacing classical methodologies such as Waterfall Development. The flexibility, as the result of using by agile methodologies, during the software life cycle, produces better results when the specifications are not fully defined, thus conforming to the initial conditions of the project. Summarizing the software technical specifications, C + + the programming language – which is object oriented and has been developed using technology MFC- Microsoft Foundation Classes for implementation. It is a project type dialog box, created, compiled and released with the integrated development tool Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. The architecture is structured in three layers: the user interface, business layer and data access layer. It has been necessary to configure the project with the support CLR -Common Languages Runtime – in order to implement the reporting functionality. The software application is submitted with the project report and its annexes to the following documents: Functional Requirements Specifications - Detailed User Interface Specifications, Technical Design and User Guide.

Determining the effectiveness of three software evaluation techniques through informal aggregation

An accepted fact in software engineering is that software must undergo verification and validation process during development to ascertain and improve its quality level. But there are too many techniques than a single developer could master, yet, it is impossible to be certain that software is free of defects. So, it is crucial for developers to be able to choose from available evaluation techniques, the one most suitable and likely to yield optimum quality results for different products. Though, some knowledge is available on the strengths and weaknesses of the available software quality assurance techniques but not much is known yet on the relationship between different techniques and contextual behavior of the techniques. Objective: This research investigates the effectiveness of two testing techniques ? equivalence class partitioning and decision coverage and one review technique ? code review by abstraction, in terms of their fault detection capability. This will be used to strengthen the practical knowledge available on these techniques.

Identificación empírica de beneficios de usabilidad

La usabilidad es un atributo de la calidad del software que se encuentra en la mayoría de las clasificaciones. En este contexto, se entiende por usabilidad la medida en que un producto satisface las necesidades de los stakeholders para alcanzar determinados objetivos de eficacia, eficiencia y satisfacción sin efectos adversos en un contexto específico de uso. En este contexto, no es de extrañar que la usabilidad sea cada vez más reconocida como uno de los factores críticos para la aceptación de un sistema software. En la literatura se encuentran recomendaciones para mejorar la usabilidad de los sistemas software. Sin embargo, no existen datos empíricos que demuestren cómo estas recomendaciones contribuyen positiva o negativamente a cada atributo de usabilidad. En este contexto, el objetivo de la tesis doctoral es la obtención de evidencias empíricas sobre el impacto de la inclusión de mecanismos de usabilidad en un sistema software, más concretamente en los atributos de eficacia, eficiencia y satisfacción-- En esta tesis doctoral se trabaja con mecanismos de usabilidad con gran impacto en la arquitectura software, ya que los mismos deben ser especialmente considerados durante el proceso de desarrollo software. Para obtener evidencias empíricas sobre la inclusión de dichos mecanismos, se ha realizado un experimento piloto y 4 experimentos definitivos utilizando aplicaciones software especialmente desarrolladas para tal fin. Una vez realizada la contrastación empírica de la influencia de estos mecanismos para diferentes sistemas software se pueden realizar las siguientes recomendaciones generales: -La inclusión de cada uno de los mecanismos considerados aumenta considerablemente la satisfacción del usuario en su interacción con las aplicaciones software. -La inclusión de aquellos mecanismos que introducen cuadros de interacción adicionales, disminuye la eficiencia de los usuarios, ya que aumenta el tiempo de duración de las tareas. -Existen una serie de mecanismos que como consecuencia de su ausencia en las aplicaciones resulta imposible la realización de las tareas asociadas a los mismos. Dentro de éste grupo de mecanismos se encuentran aquellos que permiten cancelar o deshacer acciones previamente tomadas y aquellos que provean ayuda en la introducción de información en formularios. Esto implica que su presencia permite la realización exitosa de las tareas y como consecuencia la interacción es mucho más eficaz. En definitiva, se ha encontrado que los distintos mecanismos de usabilidad tienen un impacto diferente en cada atributo, dependiendo su inclusión del/los atributos a potenciar en cada proyecto. Usability is an aspect of software quality that´s found in most classifications. In this context usability is understood as the measure in which a product satisfies the needs of the stakeholders in order to reach certain effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction goals without adverse sideeffects in a specific context of use. It´s no wonder usability is increasingly being recognized as one of the critical factors for the acceptance of a software system. Recommendations are found in literature to improve the usability of software systems. Nevertheless, there is no empirical data that shows how these recommendations contribute positively or negatively to each usability aspect. In this context, the objective of this doctoral thesis is to obtain empirical evidence on the impact of the inclusion of usability mechanisms in a software system, specifically in the attributes of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. This doctoral thesis deals with usability mechanisms of great impact in software architecture, since they have to be considered during the software development process. In order to get empirical evidence on the inclusion of such mechanisms, a pilot experiment and four definitive experiments have been performed through software applications especially developed for this end. Once the empirical assessment of the influence of these mechanisms on different software systems has been performed, the following general recommendations can be made: -The inclusion of each of the considered mechanisms considerably increases the user´s satisfaction in his interaction with software applications. -The inclusion of those mechanisms that introduce additional interaction frames diminishes the efficiency of the users, since it increases task duration time. -As a consequence of being absent in applications, there is a series of mechanisms whose associated tasks are impossible to perform. Within this group we find those mechanisms that allow cancelling or undoing previous actions, and those that provide help with the introduction of information in forms. This implies that their presence allows the successful completion of tasks, and as a consequence, the interaction is much more effective. In summary, it has been found that the diverse usability mechanisms has a different impact on each attribute, and their inclusion depends on the attribute or attributes to enhance in each project.

Obtención y Uso de Patrones para la Implementación de Funcionalidades de Usabilidad en Aplicaciones Web

La usabilidad es un atributo de calidad de un sistema software que llega a ser crítico en sistemas altamente interactivos. Desde el campo de la Interacción Persona-Ordenador se proponen recomendaciones que permiten alcanzar un nivel adecuado de usabilidad en un sistema. En la disciplina de la Ingeniería de Software se ha establecido que algunas de estas recomendaciones afectan a la funcionalidad principal de los sistemas y no solo a la interfaz de usuario. Este tipo de recomendaciones de usabilidad se deben tener en cuenta desde las primeras actividades y durante todo el proceso de desarrollo, así como se hace con atributos tales como la seguridad, la facilidad de mantenimiento o el rendimiento. Desde la Ingeniería de Software se han hecho estudios y propuestas para abordar la usabilidad en las primeras actividades del desarrollo. En particular en la educción de requisitos y diseño de la arquitectura. Estas propuestas son de un alto nivel de abstracción. En esta investigación se aborda la usabilidad en actividades avanzadas del proceso de desarrollo: el diseño detallado y la programación. El objetivo de este trabajo es obtener, formalizar y validar soluciones reutilizables para la usabilidad en estas actividades. En este estudio se seleccionan tres funcionalidades de usabilidad identificadas como de alto impacto en el diseño: Abortar Operación, Retroalimentación de Progreso y Preferencias. Para la obtención de elementos reutilizables se utiliza un método inductivo. Se parte de la construcción de aplicaciones web particulares y se induce una solución general. Durante la construcción de las aplicaciones se mantiene la trazabilidad de los elementos relacionados con cada funcionalidad de usabilidad. Al finalizar se realiza un análisis de elementos comunes, y los hallazgos se formalizan como patrones de diseño orientados a la implementación y patrones de programación en cada uno de los lenguajes utilizados: PHP, VB .NET y Java. Las soluciones formalizadas como patrones se validan usando la metodología de estudio de casos. Desarrolladores independientes utilizan los patrones para la inclusión de las tres funcionalidades de usabilidad en dos nuevas aplicaciones web. Como resultado, los desarrolladores pueden usar con éxito las soluciones propuestas para dos de las funcionalidades: Abortar Operación y Preferencias. La funcionalidad Retroalimentación de Progreso no puede ser implementada completamente. Se concluye que es posible obtener elementos reutilizables para la implementación de cada funcionalidad de usabilidad. Estos elementos incluyen: escenarios de aplicación, que son la combinación de casuísticas que generan las funcionalidades de usabilidad, responsabilidades comunes necesarias para cubrir los escenarios, componentes comunes para cumplir con las responsabilidades, elementos de diseño asociados a los componentes y el código que implementa el diseño. Formalizar las soluciones como patrones resulta útil para comunicar los hallazgos a otros desarrolladores y los patrones se mejoran a través de su utilización en nuevos desarrollos. La implementación de funcionalidades de usabilidad presenta características que condicionan su reutilización, en particular, el nivel de acoplamiento de la funcionalidad de usabilidad con las funcionalidades de la aplicación, y la complejidad interna de la solución. ABSTRACT Usability is a critical quality attribute of highly interactive software systems. The humancomputer interaction field proposes recommendations for achieving an acceptable system usability level. The discipline of software engineering has established that some of these recommendations affect not only the user interface but also the core system functionality. This type of usability recommendations must be taken into account as of the early activities and throughout the software development process as in the case of attributes like security, ease of maintenance or performance. Software engineering has conducted studies and put forward proposals for tackling usability in the early development activities, particularly requirements elicitation and architecture design. These proposals have a high level of abstraction. This research addresses usability in later activities of the development process: detailed design and programming. The goal of this research is to discover, specify and validate reusable usability solutions for detailed design and programming. Abort Operation, Feedback and Preferences, three usability functionalities identified as having a high impact on design, are selected for the study. An inductive method, whereby a general solution is induced from particular web applications built for the purpose, is used to discover reusable elements. During the construction of the applications, the traceability of the elements related to each usability functionality is maintained. At the end of the process, the common and possibly reusable elements are analysed. The findings are specified as implementation-oriented design patterns and programming patterns for each of the languages used: PHP, VB .NET and Java. The solutions specified as patterns are validated using the case study methodology. Independent developers use the patterns in order to build the three usability functionalities into two new web applications. As a result, the developers successfully use the proposed solutions for two of the functionalities: Abort Operation and Preferences. The Progress Feedback functionality cannot be fully implemented. We conclude that it is possible to discover reusable elements for implementing each usability functionality. These elements include: application scenarios, which are combinations of cases that generate usability functionalities, common responsibilities to cover the scenarios, common components to fulfil the responsibilities, design elements associated with the components and code implementing the design. It is useful to specify solutions as patterns in order to communicate findings to other developers, and patterns improve through further use in other development projects. Reusability depends on the features of usability functionality implementation, particularly the level of coupling of the usability functionality with the application functionalities and the internal complexity of the solution.

SemQuaRE - An extension of the SQuaRE quality model for the evaluation of semantic technologies

To correctly evaluate semantic technologies and to obtain results that can be easily integrated, we need to put evaluations under the scope of a unique software quality model. This paper presents SemQuaRE, a quality model for semantic technologies. SemQuaRE is based on the SQuaRE standard and describes a set of quality characteristics specific to semantic technologies and the quality measures that can be used for their measurement. It also provides detailed formulas for the calculation of such measures. The paper shows that SemQuaRE is complete with respect to current evaluation trends and that it has been successfully applied in practice.

Evaluación de patrones de programación de usabilidad para tres casos de estudio

La calidad es uno de los principales retos de la construcción de software. En la Ingeniería del Software (IS) se considera a la usabilidad como un atributo de calidad. Al principio se veía a la usabilidad como un requisito no funcional.Se asumía que la usabilidad era una propiedad exclusiva de la presentación de la información.Se creía que separando la capa de presentación del resto, se podía desarrollar un producto software usable.Debido a la naturaleza del sistema y a las necesidades del usuario, a menudo se debe ir más lejos y no basta con tener en cuenta la presentación para obtener un software usable. La comunidad de la Interacción Personar Ordenador (IPO) ha propuesto recomendaciones para mejorar la usabilidad. Algunas de esas recomendaciones tienen impacto directo en la funcionalidad del producto software. En estudios recientes también se ha evaluado la relación entre la usabilidad y los requisitos funcionales. Estas investigaciones sugieren que la usabilidad debe ser tenida en cuenta desde las etapas iniciales de la construcción para evitar costosos cambios posteriores. La incorporación de las características de usabilidad agrega cierta complejidad al proceso de desarrollo. El presente trabajo evalúa la posibilidad de usar patrones para la incorporación de usabilidad en el desarrollo de un producto software. Concretamente se evalúan los siguientes patrones de programación de usabilidad (PPUs): Abort Operation,Progress Feedback y Preferences. Se utilizan unas Pautas de Desarrollo de Mecanismos de Usabilidad(PDMUs) para estos tres mecanismos de usabilidad. Estas pautas poponen patrones para la educción y posterior incorporación de la usabilidad en las distintas fases de la programación. En esta investigación se aborda el desarrollo de un producto software desde la deducción de requisitos hasta la implementación. En cada fase se incorporan los mecanismos de usabilidad de acuerdo a las recomendaciones de las PDMUs. Mediante el desarrollo de un software real se ha evaluado la factibilidad del uso de las PDMUs obteniendo como resultado propuestas de mejoras en estas pautas. Se evalúa asimismo el esfuerzo de incorporación de los mecanismos de usabilidad. Cada evaluación aporta datos que proporcionan una estimación del esfuerzo adicional requerido para incorporar cada mecanismo de usabilidad en el proceso de desarrollo del software.---ABSTRACT---Quality is a major challenge in software construction. Software engineers consider usability to be a quality attribute. Originally, usability was viewed as a nonr functional requirement. Usability was assumed to be simply an information presentation property. There was a belief that a usable software product could be developed by separating the presentation layer from the rest of the system. Depending on the system type and user needs, however, usability often runs deeper, and it is not enough to consider just presentation to build usable software. The humanrcomputer interaction (HCI) community put forward a list of recommendations to improve usability. Some such recommendations have a direct impact on software product functionality. Recent studies have also evaluated the relationship between usability and functional requirements. This research suggests that usability should be taken into account as of the early stages of software construction to prevent costly rework later on. The inclusion of usability features is an added complication to the development process. The research reported here evaluates the possibility of using patterns to incorporate usability into a software product. Specifically, it evaluates the following usability programming patterns (UPPs): Abort Operation, Progress Feedback and Preferences. Usability Mechanism Development Guides (USDG) are applied to these three usability mechanisms. These guides propose patterns for eliciting and later incorporating usability into the different software development phases, including programming. The reported research addresses the development of a software product from requirements elicitation through to implementation. Usability mechanisms are incorporated into each development phase in accordance with USDG recommendations. A real piece of software was developed to test the feasibility of using USDGs, outputting proposals for improving the guides. Each evaluation yields data providing an estimate of the additional workload required to incorporate each usability mechanism into the software development process.

Configuración de un entorno de trabajo para el desarrollo de software ágil con integración continua

Hoy en día, existen numerosos sistemas (financieros, fabricación industrial, infraestructura de servicios básicos, etc.) que son dependientes del software. Según la definición de Ingeniería del Software realizada por I. Sommerville, “la Ingeniería del Software es una disciplina de la ingeniería que comprende todos los aspectos de la producción de software desde las etapas iniciales de la especificación del sistema, hasta el mantenimiento de éste después de que se utiliza.” “La ingeniería del software no sólo comprende los procesos técnicos del desarrollo de software, sino también actividades tales como la gestión de proyectos de software y el desarrollo de herramientas, métodos y teorías de apoyo a la producción de software.” Los modelos de proceso de desarrollo software determinan una serie de pautas para poder desarrollar con éxito un proyecto de desarrollo software. Desde que surgieran estos modelos de proceso, se investigado en nuevas maneras de poder gestionar un proyecto y producir software de calidad. En primer lugar surgieron las metodologías pesadas o tradicionales, pero con el avance del tiempo y la tecnología, surgieron unas nuevas llamadas metodologías ágiles. En el marco de las metodologías ágiles cabe destacar una determinada práctica, la integración continua. Esta práctica surgió de la mano de Martin Fowler, con el objetivo de facilitar el trabajo en grupo y automatizar las tareas de integración. La integración continua se basa en la construcción automática de proyectos con una frecuencia alta, promoviendo la detección de errores en un momento temprano para poder dar prioridad a corregir dichos errores. Sin embargo, una de las claves del éxito en el desarrollo de cualquier proyecto software consiste en utilizar un entorno de trabajo que facilite, sistematice y ayude a aplicar un proceso de desarrollo de una forma eficiente. Este Proyecto Fin de Grado (PFG) tiene por objetivo el análisis de distintas herramientas para configurar un entorno de trabajo que permita desarrollar proyectos aplicando metodologías ágiles e integración continua de una forma fácil y eficiente. Una vez analizadas dichas herramientas, se ha propuesto y configurado un entorno de trabajo para su puesta en marcha y uso. Una característica a destacar de este PFG es que las herramientas analizadas comparten una cualidad común y de alto valor, son herramientas open-source. El entorno de trabajo propuesto en este PFG presenta una arquitectura cliente-servidor, dado que la mayoría de proyectos software se desarrollan en equipo, de tal forma que el servidor proporciona a los distintos clientes/desarrolladores acceso al conjunto de herramientas que constituyen el entorno de trabajo. La parte servidora del entorno propuesto proporciona soporte a la integración continua mediante herramientas de control de versiones, de gestión de historias de usuario, de análisis de métricas de software, y de automatización de la construcción de software. La configuración del cliente únicamente requiere de un entorno de desarrollo integrado (IDE) que soporte el lenguaje de programación Java y conexión con el servidor. ABSTRACT Nowadays, numerous systems (financial, industrial production, basic services infrastructure, etc.) depend on software. According to the Software Engineering definition made by I.Sommerville, “Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is concerned with all aspects of software production from the early stages of system specification through to maintaining the system after it has gone into use.” “Software engineering is not just concerned with the technical processes of software development. It also includes activities such as software project management and the development of tools, methods, and theories to support software production.” Software development process models determine a set of guidelines to successfully develop a software development project. Since these process models emerged, new ways of managing a project and producing software with quality have been investigated. First, the so-called heavy or traditional methodologies appeared, but with the time and the technological improvements, new methodologies emerged: the so-called agile methodologies. Agile methodologies promote, among other practices, continuous integration. This practice was coined by Martin Fowler and aims to make teamwork easier as well as automate integration tasks. Nevertheless, one of the keys to success in software projects is to use a framework that facilitates, systematize, and help to deploy a development process in an efficient way. This Final Degree Project (FDP) aims to analyze different tools to configure a framework that enables to develop projects by applying agile methodologies and continuous integration in an easy and efficient way. Once tools are analyzed, a framework has been proposed and configured. One of the main features of this FDP is that the tools under analysis share a common and high-valued characteristic: they are open-source. The proposed framework presents a client-server architecture, as most of the projects are developed by a team. In this way, the server provides access the clients/developers to the tools that comprise the framework. The server provides continuous integration through a set of tools for control management, user stories management, software quality management, and software construction automatization. The client configuration only requires a Java integrated development environment and network connection to the server.

Experiences of spanish public administration in requirements management and acquisition management processes

This paper shows the main contributions of the 1st Symposium on Improvement Process Models and Software Quality of Public Administrations. The obtained results expose the need to promote the implementation of Software Maturity Models and show possible advantages of its application in software processes of Public Administrations. Specifically, it was analyzed the current status in two process areas: Requirements Management and Subcontracting Management.

Determining practices achievement in the requirement management process using a two-stage questionnaire

This paper aims to obtain a baseline snapshot of the requirement management process using a two-stage questionnaire to identify both performed and non-performed CMMI practices. The questionnaire proposed in this paper may help with the assessment of the requirement management process, provide useful information related to the current state of the process, and indicate those practices that require immediate attention with the aim of begin a Software Process Improvement program.

Metamodelo para la definición, implantación y mejora de los procesos de gestión de proyectos

En los últimos años hemos sido testigos de la creciente demanda de software para resolver problemas cada vez más complejos y de mayor valor agregado. Bajo estas circunstancias, nos podemos hacer la siguiente pregunta: ¿Está preparada la industria de software para entregar el software que se necesita en los próximos años, de acuerdo con las demandas del cliente? Hoy en día, muchos expertos creen que el éxito de esta industria dependerá de su capacidad para gestionar los proyectos, las personas y los recursos. En este sentido, la gestión de proyectos es un factor clave para el éxito de los proyectos software en todo el mundo. Además, considerando que las Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas de software (PYMEs) representan el 99,87% de las empresas españolas, es vital para este tipo de empresas la implementación de los procesos involucrados con la gestión de proyectos. Es cierto que existen muchos modelos que mejoran la eficacia de la gestión de proyectos, pero la mayoría de ellos se centra únicamente en dos procesos: la planificación del proyecto y la monitorización y control del proyecto, ninguno de los cuales a menudo es asequible para las PYMEs. Estos modelos se basan en el consenso de un grupo de trabajo designado para establecer cómo debe ser gestionado el proceso software. Los modelos son bastante útiles ya que proporcionan lineamientos generales sobre dónde empezar a mejorar la gestión de los proyectos, y en qué orden, a personas que no saben cómo hacerlo. Sin embargo, como se ha dicho anteriormente, la mayoría de estos modelos solamente funcionan en escenarios dentro de las grandes empresas. Por lo tanto, es necesario adaptar los modelos y herramientas para el contexto de PYMEs. Esta tesis doctoral presenta una solución complementaria basada en la aplicación de un metamodelo. Este metamodelo es creado para mejorar la calidad de los procesos de la gestión de proyectos a través de la incorporación de prácticas eficaces identificadas a través del análisis y estudio de los modelos y normas existentes relacionadas con la gestión de proyectos. viii ProMEP – Metamodelo para la gestión de proyectos Por lo tanto, el metamodelo PROMEP (Gestión de Proyectos basada en Prácticas Efectivas) permitirá establecer un proceso estándar de gestión de proyectos que puede adaptarse a los proyectos de cada empresa a través de dos pasos: En primer lugar, para obtener una fotografía instantánea (o base) de los procesos de gestión de proyectos de las PYMEs se creó un cuestionario de dos fases para identificar tanto las prácticas realizadas y como las no realizadas. El cuestionario propuesto se basa en el Modelo de Madurez y Capacidad Integrado para el Desarrollo v1.2 (CMMI-DEV v1.2). Como resultado adicional, se espera que la aplicación de este cuestionario ayude a las PYMEs a identificar aquellas prácticas que se llevan a cabo, pero no son documentadas, aquellas que necesitan más atención, y aquellas que no se realizan debido a la mala gestión o al desconocimiento. En segundo lugar, para apoyar fácilmente y eficazmente las tareas de gestión de proyectos software del metamodelo PROMEP, se diseñó una biblioteca de activos de proceso (PAL) para apoyar la definición de los procesos de gestión de proyectos y realizar una gestión cuantitativa de cada proyecto de las PYMEs. Ambos pasos se han implementado como una herramienta computacional que apoya nuestro enfoque de metamodelo. En concreto, la presente investigación propone la construcción del metamodelo PROMEP para aquellas PYMEs que desarrollan productos software de tal forma que les permita planificar, monitorizar y controlar sus proyectos software, identificar los riesgos y tomar las medidas correctivas necesarias, establecer y mantener un conjunto de activos de proceso, definir un mecanismo cuantitativo para predecir el rendimiento de los procesos, y obtener información de mejora. Por lo tanto, nuestro estudio sugiere un metamodelo alternativo para lograr mayores niveles de rendimiento en los entornos de PYMEs. Así, el objetivo principal de esta tesis es ayudar a reducir los excesos de trabajo y el tiempo de entrega, y aumentar así la calidad del software producido en este tipo de organizaciones. Abstract In recent years we have been witnessing the increasing demand for software to solve more and more complex tasks and greater added value. Under these circumstances, we can ourselves the following question: Is the software industry prepared to deliver the software that is needed in the coming years, according to client demands? Nowadays, many experts believe that the industry’ success will depend on its capacity to manage the projects, people and resources. In this sense, project management is a key factor for software project success around the world. Moreover, taking into account that small and medium-sized software enterprises (SMSe) are the 99.87% of the Spanish enterprises, it is vital for this type of enterprises to implement the processes involved in project management. It is true that there are many models that improve the project management effectiveness, but most of them are focused only on two processes: project planning and project monitoring and control, neither of which is affordable for SMSe. Such models are based on the consensus of a designated working group on how software process should be managed. They are very useful in that they provide general guidelines on where to start improving the project management, and in which order, to people who do not know how to do it. However, as we said, the majority of these models have only worked in scenarios within large companies. So, it is necessary to adapt these models and tools to the context of SMSe. A complementary solution based on the implementation of a metamodel is presented in this thesis. This metamodel is created to improve the quality of project management processes through the incorporation of effective practices identified through the analysis and study of relevant models and standards related to project management. Thus, the PROMEP (PROject Management based on Effective Practices) metamodel will allow establishing a project management standard process to be tailored to each enterprise’s project through two steps: Firstly, to obtain a baseline snapshot of project management processes in SMSe a two-phase questionnaire was created to identify both performed and nonperformed practices. The x ProMEP – Metamodelo para la gestión de proyectos proposed questionnaire is based on Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development v1.2. As additional result, it is expected that the application of the questionnaire to the processes will help SMSe to identify those practices which are performed but not documented, which practices need more attention, and which are not implemented due to bad management or unawareness. Secondly, to easily an effectively support the software project management tasks in the PROMEP metamodel, a Process Asset Library (PAL) is designed to support the definition of project management processes and to achieve quantitative project management in SMSe. Both steps have been implemented as a computational tool that supports our metamodel approach. Concretely, the present research proposes the accomplishment of the PROMEP metamodel for those SMSe which develop software products and enable them to plan, supervise and control their software projects, identify risks and take corrective actions, establish and maintain a set of process assets, define quantitative models that predict the process performance, and provide improvement information. So, our study suggests an alternative metamodel to achieve higher performance levels in the SMSe environments. The main objective of this thesis is help to reduce software overruns and delivery time, and increase software quality in these types of organizations.

A Cost-Benefit analysis model for technical debt management considering uncertainty and time

In the last few years, technical debt has been used as a useful means for making the intrinsic cost of the internal software quality weaknesses visible. This visibility is made possible by quantifying this cost. Specifically, technical debt is expressed in terms of two main concepts: principal and interest. The principal is the cost of eliminating or reducing the impact of a, so called, technical debt item in a software system; whereas the interest is the recurring cost, over a time period, of not eliminating a technical debt item. Previous works about technical debt are mainly focused on estimating principal and interest, and on performing a cost-benefit analysis. This cost-benefit analysis allows one to determine if to remove technical debt is profitable and to prioritize which items incurring in technical debt should be fixed first. Nevertheless, for these previous works technical debt is flat along the time. However the introduction of new factors to estimate technical debt may produce non flat models that allow us to produce more accurate predictions. These factors should be used to estimate principal and interest, and to perform cost-benefit analysis related to technical debt. In this paper, we take a step forward introducing the uncertainty about the interest, and the time frame factors so that it becomes possible to depict a number of possible future scenarios. Estimations obtained without considering the possible evolution of the interest over time may be less accurate as they consider simplistic scenarios without changes.

Effectiveness for Ddtecting faults within and outside the scope of testing techniques: an independent replication

The verification and validation activity plays a fundamental role in improving software quality. Determining which the most effective techniques for carrying out this activity are has been an aspiration of experimental software engineering researchers for years. This paper reports a controlled experiment evaluating the effectiveness of two unit testing techniques (the functional testing technique known as equivalence partitioning (EP) and the control-flow structural testing technique known as branch testing (BT)). This experiment is a literal replication of Juristo et al. (2013).Both experiments serve the purpose of determining whether the effectiveness of BT and EP varies depending on whether or not the faults are visible for the technique (InScope or OutScope, respectively). We have used the materials, design and procedures of the original experiment, but in order to adapt the experiment to the context we have: (1) reduced the number of studied techniques from 3 to 2; (2) assigned subjects to experimental groups by means of stratified randomization to balance the influence of programming experience; (3) localized the experimental materials and (4) adapted the training duration. We ran the replication at the Escuela Politécnica del Ejército Sede Latacunga (ESPEL) as part of a software verification & validation course. The experimental subjects were 23 master?s degree students. EP is more effective than BT at detecting InScope faults. The session/program andgroup variables are found to have significant effects. BT is more effective than EP at detecting OutScope faults. The session/program and group variables have no effect in this case. The results of the replication and the original experiment are similar with respect to testing techniques. There are some inconsistencies with respect to the group factor. They can be explained by small sample effects. The results for the session/program factor are inconsistent for InScope faults.We believe that these differences are due to a combination of the fatigue effect and a technique x program interaction. Although we were able to reproduce the main effects, the changes to the design of the original experiment make it impossible to identify the causes of the discrepancies for sure. We believe that further replications closely resembling the original experiment should be conducted to improve our understanding of the phenomena under study.

Effectiveness for detecting faults within and outside the scope of testing techniques: an independent replication

The verification and validation activity plays a fundamental role in improving software quality. Determining which the most effective techniques for carrying out this activity are has been an aspiration of experimental software engineering researchers for years. This paper reports a controlled experiment evaluating the effectiveness of two unit testing techniques (the functional testing technique known as equivalence partitioning (EP) and the control-flow structural testing technique known as branch testing (BT)). This experiment is a literal replication of Juristo et al. (2013). Both experiments serve the purpose of determining whether the effectiveness of BT and EP varies depending on whether or not the faults are visible for the technique (InScope or OutScope, respectively). We have used the materials, design and procedures of the original experiment, but in order to adapt the experiment to the context we have: (1) reduced the number of studied techniques from 3 to 2; (2) assigned subjects to experimental groups by means of stratified randomization to balance the influence of programming experience; (3) localized the experimental materials and (4) adapted the training duration. We ran the replication at the Escuela Polite?cnica del Eje?rcito Sede Latacunga (ESPEL) as part of a software verification & validation course. The experimental subjects were 23 master?s degree students. EP is more effective than BT at detecting InScope faults. The session/program and group variables are found to have significant effects. BT is more effective than EP at detecting OutScope faults. The session/program and group variables have no effect in this case. The results of the replication and the original experiment are similar with respect to testing techniques. There are some inconsistencies with respect to the group factor. They can be explained by small sample effects. The results for the session/program factor are inconsistent for InScope faults. We believe that these differences are due to a combination of the fatigue effect and a technique x program interaction. Although we were able to reproduce the main effects, the changes to the design of the original experiment make it impossible to identify the causes of the discrepancies for sure. We believe that further replications closely resembling the original experiment should be conducted to improve our understanding of the phenomena under study.