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Software and system development is complex and diverse, and a multitude of development approaches is used and combined with each other to address the manifold challenges companies face today. To study the current state of the practice and to build a sound understanding about the utility of different development approaches and their application to modern software system development, in 2016, we launched the HELENA initiative. This paper introduces the 2nd HELENA workshop and provides an overview of the current project state. In the workshop, six teams present initial findings from their regions, impulse talk are given, and further steps of the HELENA roadmap are discussed.
Software process improvement (SPI) has been around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new trends and emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer these questions about the current state of SPI and related research. In this article, we present results from an updated systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI, to develop a big picture of the state of the art, and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 769 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past quarter-century. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories and models on SPI in general. In particular, standard SPI models like CMMI and ISO/IEC 15,504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability in practice, but these standards are also critically discussed, e.g., from the perspective of SPI in small to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. New and specialized frameworks account for the majority of the contributions found (approx. 38%). Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors (approx. 16%) to aid companies in conducting SPI and in adapting agile principles and practices for SPI (approx. 10%). Beyond these specific topics, the study results also show an increasing interest into secondary studies with the purpose of aggregating and structuring SPI-related knowledge. Finally, the present study helps directing future research by identifying under-researched topics awaiting further investigation.
First International Workshop on Hybrid dEveLopmENt Approaches in Software Systems Development
(2017)
A software process is the game plan to organize project teams and run projects. Yet, it still is a challenge to select the appropriate development approach for the respective context. A multitude of development approaches compete for the users’ favor, but there is no silver bullet serving all possible setups. Moreover, recent research as well as experience from practice shows companies utilizing different development approaches to assemble the bestfitting approach for the respective company: a more traditional process provides the basic framework to serve the organization, while project teams embody this framework with more agile (and/or lean) practices to keep their flexibility. The first HELENA workshop aims to bring together the community to discuss recent findings and to steer future work.
For decades, Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs have been implemented, inter alia, to improve quality and speed of software development. To set up, guide, and carry out SPI projects, and to measure SPI state, impact, and success, a multitude of different SPI approaches and considerable experience are available. SPI addresses many aspects ranging from individual developer skills to entire organizations. It comprises for instance the optimization of specific activities in the software lifecycle as well as the creation of organization awareness and project culture. In the course of conducting a systematic mapping study on the state-of-the-art in SPI from a general perspective, we observed Global Software Engineering (GSE) becoming a topic of interest in recent years. Therefore, in this paper, we provide a detailed investigation of those papers from the overall systematic mapping study that were classified as addressing SPI in the context of GSE. From the main study’s result set, a set of 30 papers dealing with GSE was selected for an in-depth analysis using the systematic review instrument to study the contributions and to develop an initial picture of how GSE is considered from the perspective of SPI. Our findings show the analyzed papers delivering a substantial discussion of cultural models and how such models can be used to better address and align SPI programs with multi-national environments. Furthermore, experience is shared discussing how agile approaches can be implemented in companies working at the global scale. Finally, success factors and barriers are studied to help companies implementing SPI in a GSE context.
Software and system development faces numerous challenges of rapidly changing markets. To address such challenges, companies and projects design and adopt specific development approaches by combining well-structured methods and flexible agile practices. Yet, the number of methods and practices is large and the actual process composition is often carried out in an ad-hoc manner. This paper reports on a survey on hybrid software development approaches. We study which approaches are used in practice, how different approaches are combined, and what contextual factors influence the use and combination of hybrid software development approaches.
Software and system development faces numerous challenges of rapidly changing markets. To address such challenges, companies and projects design and adopt specific development approaches by combining well-structured comprehensive methods and flexible agile practices. Yet, the number of methods and practices is large, and available studies argue that the actual process composition is carried out in a fairly ad-hoc manner. The present paper reports on a survey on hybrid software development approaches. We study which approaches are used in practice, how different approaches are combined, and what contextual factors influence the use and combination of hybrid software development approaches. Our results from 69 study participants show a variety of development approaches used and combined in practice. We show that most combinations follow a pattern in which a traditional process model serves as framework in which several fine-grained (agile) practices are plugged in. We further show that hybrid software development approaches are independent from the company size and external triggers. We conclude that such approaches are the results of a natural process evolution, which is mainly driven by experience, learning, and pragmatism.
Software process improvement (SPI) is around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer the question for what is the current state of SPI and related research? In this paper, we present initial results from a systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 635 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past 25 years. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories. In particular, standard SPI models like CMMI and ISO/IEC 15504 are analyzed, enhanced, and evaluated for applicability, whereas these standards are critically discussed from the perspective of SPI in small-to- medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors to aid companies in conducting SPI.
Software process improvement (SPI) is around for decades: frameworks are proposed, success factors are studied, and experiences have been reported. However, the sheer mass of concepts, approaches, and standards published over the years overwhelms practitioners as well as researchers. What is out there? Are there new emerging approaches? What are open issues? Still, we struggle to answer the question for what is the current state of SPI and related research? We present initial results from a systematic mapping study to shed light on the field of SPI and to draw conclusions for future research directions. An analysis of 635 publications draws a big picture of SPI-related research of the past 25 years. Our study shows a high number of solution proposals, experience reports, and secondary studies, but only few theories. In particular, standard SPI models are analyzed and evaluated for applicability, especially from the perspective of SPI in small-to-medium-sized companies, which leads to new specialized frameworks. Furthermore, we find a growing interest in success factors to aid companies in conducting SPI.
This summary refers to the paper Software process improvement : where is the evidence? [Ku15].
This paper was published as full research paper in the ICSSP’2015 proceedings.
A software process is the game plan to organize project teams and run projects. Yet, it still is a challenge to select the appropriate development approach for the respective context. A multitude of development approaches compete for the users’ favor, but there is no silver bullet serving all possible setups. Moreover, recent research as well as experience from practice shows companies utilizing different development approaches to assemble the best-fitting approach for the respective company: a more traditional process provides the basic framework to serve the organization, while project teams embody this framework with more agile (and/or lean) practices to keep their flexibility. The paper at hand provides insights into the HELENA study with which we aim to investigate the use of “Hybrid dEveLopmENt Approaches in software systems development”. We present the survey design and initial findings from the survey’s test runs. Furthermore, we outline the next steps towards the full survey.