Case study is a suitable research methodology for software engineering research since it studies contemporary phenomena in its natural context. However, the understanding of what constitutes a case study varies, and hence the quality of the resulting studies. This paper aims at providing an introduction to case study methodology and guidelines for researchers conducting case studies and readers studying reports of such studies. The content is based on the authors' own experience from conducting and reading case studies. The terminology and guidelines are compiled from different methodology handbooks in other research domains, in particular social science and information systems, and adapted to the needs in software engineering. We present recommended practices for software engineering case studies as well as empirically derived and evaluated checklists for researchers and readers of case study research.

/pdf/guidelines-for-conducting-and-reporting-case-study-research-q10xdzyou5.pdf

Guidelines for conducting and reporting case study research in software engineering

Understanding how to implement software process improvement (SPI) successfully is arguably the most challenging issue facing the SPI field today. The SPI literature contains many case studies of successful companies and descriptions of their SPI programs. However, the research efforts to date are limited and inconclusive and without adequate theoretical and psychometric justification. This paper extends and integrates models from prior research by performing an empirical investigation of the key factors for success in SPI. A quantitative survey of 120 software organizations was designed to test the conceptual model and hypotheses of the study. The results indicate that success depends critically on six organizational factors, which explained more than 50 percent of the variance in the outcome variable. The main contribution of the paper is to increase the understanding of the influence of organizational issues by empirically showing that they are at least as important as technology for succeeding with SPI and, thus, to provide researchers and practitioners with important new insights regarding the critical factors of success in SPI.

An empirical investigation of the key factors for success in software process improvement

Several empirical studies have been carried out with college students as subjects in the last few years. Researchers often use these studies to pilot experiments before they are carried out in industrial environments. Reports on these studies usually focus on the results obtained and issues such as their external validity. However, the effects and value of empirical studies with students may go beyond the contribution to scientific literature. For instance, the pedagogical challenges and value of these studies is hardly ever stressed. We identify four primary actors that are involved in these empirical studies, i.e., researchers, students, instructors, and industry. We discuss the costs and benefits of empirical studies with students for these actors, which are different because of the actors' different goals, expectations, and constraints, which must be recognized to fully exploit empirical studies with students. We also provide some advice on how to carry out empirical studies with students based on our experiences.

/pdf/issues-in-using-students-in-empirical-studies-in-software-1ou3607sni.pdf

Issues in using students in empirical studies in software engineering education

This paper summarizes the current state of the art and recent trends in software engineering economics. It provides an overview of economic analysis techniques and their applicability to software engineering and management. It surveys the field of software cost estimation, including the major estimation techniques available, the state of the art in algorithmic cost models, and the outstanding research issues in software cost estimation.

Software engineering economics

BACKGROUND-Software Process Improvement (SPI) is a systematic approach to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of a software development organization and to enhance software products. OBJECTIVE-This paper aims to identify and characterize evaluation strategies and measurements used to assess the impact of different SPI initiatives. METHOD-The systematic literature review includes 148 papers published between 1991 and 2008. The selected papers were classified according to SPI initiative, applied evaluation strategies, and measurement perspectives. Potential confounding factors interfering with the evaluation of the improvement effort were assessed. RESULTS-Seven distinct evaluation strategies were identified, wherein the most common one, “Pre-Post Comparison,” was applied in 49 percent of the inspected papers. Quality was the most measured attribute (62 percent), followed by Cost (41 percent), and Schedule (18 percent). Looking at measurement perspectives, “Project” represents the majority with 66 percent. CONCLUSION-The evaluation validity of SPI initiatives is challenged by the scarce consideration of potential confounding factors, particularly given that “Pre-Post Comparison” was identified as the most common evaluation strategy, and the inaccurate descriptions of the evaluation context. Measurements to assess the short and mid-term impact of SPI initiatives prevail, whereas long-term measurements in terms of customer satisfaction and return on investment tend to be less used.

/pdf/evaluation-and-measurement-of-software-process-improvement-a-3mqqc927q5.pdf

Evaluation and Measurement of Software Process Improvement—A Systematic Literature Review

The Goal/Question/Metric Method : A Practical Guide for Quality Improvement of Software Development

ion sheets are a powerful tool that can be used during the set-up of the measurement programme: information from interviews can be organised in a structured way and copied from the abstraction sheets into the GQM plan. However, abstraction sheets can also be used for structuring the presentation and interpretation of measurement data during feedback sessions. In fact, an abstraction sheet is a one-page summary of a GQM plan. Not all direct measurements defined in a GQM plan are represented on abstraction sheets, only the basic ones that reflect the most important metrics. An example of an abstraction sheet is shown in Figure 6-4. Deliverable(s) 6.3: Set of interview reports and abstraction sheets. Object Purpose Quality Focus Viewpoint Delivered Understanding Reliability and Project Team Product its causes Quality Focus Number of failures: • by severity • by detection group • number of faults • by module Variation Factors

/pdf/the-goal-question-metric-method-64khmeseb3.pdf

The Goal/Question/Metric Method:

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.

Product Focused Software Process Improvement: Concepts and Experiences from Industry

The following topics are dealt with: software engineering; technology transfer; software metrics based project governance; software metrology; software measurement; Web development; design patterns; object oriented metrics visualization; design metrics validation; software quality; software reusability; software engineering education; UML class diagram maintainability prediction model; entity-relationship diagrams; service utilization metrics; dependency analysis; portfolio management method; software maintenance; and queue-based cost evaluation.

Rini van Solingen

Papers

The Goal/Question/Metric Method : A Practical Guide for Quality Improvement of Software Development

The Goal/Question/Metric Method:

Product Focused Software Process Improvement: Concepts and Experiences from Industry

Proceedings 7th International Software Metrics Symposium

A validation approach for product-focused process improvement