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Due to rapidly changing technologies and business contexts, many products and services are developed under high uncertainties. It is often impossible to predict customer behaviors and outcomes upfront. Therefore, product and service developers must continuously find out what customers want, requiring a more experimental mode of management and appropriate support for continuously conducting experiments. We have analytically derived an initial model for continuous experimentation from prior work and matched it against empirical case study findings from two startup companies. We examined the preconditions for setting up an experimentation system for continuous customer experiments. The resulting RIGHT model for Continuous Experimentation (Rapid Iterative value creation Gained through High-frequency Testing) illustrates the building blocks required for such a system and the necessary infrastructure. The major findings are that a suitable experimentation system requires the ability to design, manage, and conduct experiments, create so-called minimum viable products or features, link experiment results with a product roadmap, and manage a flexible business strategy. The main challenges are proper, rapid design of experiments, advanced instrumentation of software to collect, analyse, and store relevant data, and integration of experiment results in the product development cycle, software development process, and business strategy. This summary refers to the article The RIGHT Model for Continuous Experimentation, published in the Journal of Systems and Software [Fa17].
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.
The ability to develop and deploy high-quality software at a high speed gets increasing relevance for the comptetitiveness of car manufacturers. Agile practices have shown benefits such as faster time to market in several application domains. Therefore, it seems to be promising to carefully adopt agile practices also in the automotive domain. This article presents findings from an interview-based qualitative survey. It aims at understanding perceived forces that support agile adoption. Particularly, it focuses on embedded software development for electronic control units in the automotive domain.
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.
The digital transformation of the automotive industry has a significant impact on how development processes need to be organized in future. Dynamic market and technological environments require capabilities to react on changes and to learn fast. Agile methods are a promising approach to address these needs but they are not tailored to the specific characteristics of the automotive domain like product line development. Although, there have been efforts to apply agile methods in the automotive domain for many years, significant and widespread adoptions have not yet taken place. The goal of this literature review is to gain an overview and a better understanding of agile methods for embedded software development in the automotive domain, especially with respect to product line development. A mapping study was conducted to analyze the relation between agile software development, embedded software development in the automotive domain and software product line development. Three research questions were defined and 68 papers were evaluated. The study shows that agile and product line development approaches tailored for the automotive domain are not yet fully explored in the literature. Especially, literature on the combination of agile and product line development is rare. Most of the examined combinations are customizations of generic approaches or approaches stemming from other domains. Although, only few approaches for combining agile and software product line development in the automotive domain were found, these findings were valuable for identifying research gaps and provide insights into how existing approaches can be combined, extended and tailored to suit the characteristics of the automotive domain.
Incubators in multinational corporations : development of a corporate incubator operator model
(2017)
This paper analyzes the components of a corporate incubator operator model in multinational companies. Thereby, three relevant phases were identified: pre incubation, incubation, and exit. Each phase contains different criteria that represent critical success factors for a corporate incubator, which are based on theoretical findings and lessons learned from practice. During the pre-incubation phase companies should define their need for a corporate incubator, the origin of ideas and the selection criteria for incubator tenants. The actual phase of incubation refers to the incubator program, which should be flexible with respect to each tenant. Furthermore, resource allocation plays an important role during the incubator program. Exit options after a successful incubation differ according to internal ideas and external start-ups, as well as the objective of the incubator. The research is based on a comprehensive screening of existing incubator literature and a qualitative content analysis of statements from eight experts of international corporate incubators.
Introducing continuous experimentation in large software-intensive product and service organisations
(2017)
Software development in highly dynamic environments imposes high risks to development organizations. One such risk is that the developed software may be of only little or no value to customers, wasting the invested development efforts.Continuous experiment ation, as an experiment-driven development approach, may reduce such development risks by iteratively testing product and service assumptions that are critical to the success of the software. Although several experiment-driven development approaches are available, there is little guidance available on how to introduce continuous experimentation into an organization. This article presents a multiple-case study that aims at better understanding the process of introducing continuous experimentation into an organization with an already established development process. The results from the study show that companies are open to adopting such an approach and learning throughout the introduction process. Several benefits were obtained, such as reduced development efforts, deeper customer insights, and better support for development decisions. Challenges included complex stakeholder structures, difficulties in defining success criteria, and building experimen- tation skills. Our findings indicate that organizational factors may limit the benefits of experimentation. Moreover, introducing continuous experimentation requires fundamental changes in how companies operate, and a systematic introduction process can increase the chances of a successful start.
Empirical software engineering experts on the use of students and professionals in experiments
(2018)
Using students as participants remains a valid simplification of reality needed in laboratory contexts. It is an effective way to advance software engineering theories and technologies but, like any other aspect of study settings, should be carefully considered during the design, execution, interpretation, and reporting of an experiment. The key is to understand which developer population portion is being represented by the participants in an experiment. Thus, a proposal for describing experimental participants is put forward.
Context: Development of software intensive products and services increasingly occurs by continuously deploying product or service increments, such as new features and enhancements, to customers. Product and service developers must continuously find out what customers want by direct customer feedback and usage behaviour observation. Objective: This paper examines the preconditions for setting up an experimentation system for continuous customer experiments. It describes the RIGHT model for Continuous Experimentation (Rapid Iterative value creation Gained through High-frequency Testing), illustrating the building blocks required for such a system. Method: An initial model for continuous experimentation is analytically derived from prior work. The model is matched against empirical case study findings from two startup companies and further developed. Results: Building blocks for a continuous experimentation system and infrastructure are presented. Conclusions: A suitable experimentation system requires at least the ability to release minimum viable products or features with suitable instrumentation, design and manage experiment plans, link experiment results with a product roadmap, and manage a flexible business strategy. The main challenges are proper, rapid design of experiments, advanced instrumentation of software to collect, analyse, and store relevant data, and the integration of experiment results in both the product development cycle and the software development process.
Software engineering education is under constant pressure to provide students with industry-relevant knowledge and skills. Educators must address issues beyond exercises and theories that can be directly rehearsed in small settings. Industry training has similar requirements of relevance as companies seek to keep their workforce up to date with technological advances. Real-life software development often deals with large, software-intensive systems and is influenced by the complex effects of teamwork and distributed software development, which are hard to demonstrate in an educational environment. A way to experience such effects and to increase the relevance of software engineering education is to apply empirical studies in teaching. In this paper, we show how different types of empirical studies can be used for educational purposes in software engineering. We give examples illustrating how to utilize empirical studies, discuss challenges, and derive an initial guideline that supports teachers to include empirical studies in software engineering courses. Furthermore, we give examples that show how empirical studies contribute to high-quality learning outcomes, to student motivation, and to the awareness of the advantages of applying software engineering principles. Having awareness, experience, and understanding of the actions required, students are more likely to apply such principles under real-life constraints in their working life.
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 startups often make assumptions about the problems and customers they are addressing as well as the market and the solutions they are developing. Testing the right assumptions early is a means to mitigate risks. Approaches such as Lean Startup foster this kind of testing by applying experimentation as part of a constant build-measure-learn feedback loop. The existing research on how software startups approach experimentation is very limited. In this study, we focus on understanding how software startups approach experimentation and identify challenges and advantages with respect to conducting experiments. To achieve this, we conducted a qualitative interview study. The initial results show that startups often spent a disproportionate amount of time focusing on creating solutions without testing critical assumptions. Main reasons are the lack of awareness, that these assumptions can be tested early and a lack of knowledge and support on how to identify, prioritize and test these assumptions. However, startups understand the need for testing risky assumptions and are open to conducting experiments.
Context: The current situation and future scenarios of the automotive domain require a new strategy to develop high quality software in a fast pace. In the automotive domain, it is assumed that a combination of agile development practices and software product lines is beneficial, in order to be capable to handle high frequency of improvements. This assumption is based on the understanding that agile methods introduce more flexibility in short development intervals. Software product lines help to manage the high amount of variants and to improve quality by reuse of software for long term development.
Goal: This study derives a better understanding of the expected benefits for a combination. Furthermore, it identifies the automotive specific challenges that prevent the adoption of agile methods within the software product line.
Method: Survey based on 16 semi structured interviews from the automotive domain, an internal workshop with 40 participants and a discussion round on ESE congress 2016. The results are analyzed by means of thematic coding.
Die Kombination von Softwareproduktlinien und agiler Softwareentwicklung in der Automobilbranche ist vielversprechend. Das Ziel ist hierbei, sowohl die Vorteile agiler Methoden wie kurze Entwicklungszyklen als auch die Vorteile systematischer Wiederverwendung wie beispielsweise das effektive Management von Varianten zu erzielen. Allerdings ist die Kombination auch mit Herausforderungen verbunden und erfordert eine geeignete Einführungs- oder Transformationsstrategie. Basierend auf Erkenntnissen einer Interviewstudie und existierenden Produktlinienentwicklungen werden Herausforderungen und Lösungsideen aufgezeigt.
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.
Context: The current transformation of automotive development towards innovation, permanent learning and adapting to changes are directing various foci on the integration of agile methods. Although, there have been efforts to apply agile methods in the automotive domain for many years, a wide-spread adoption has not yet taken place.
Goal: This study aims to gain a better understanding of the forces that prevent the adoption of agile methods.
Method: Survey based on 16 semi-structured interviews from the automotive domain. The results are analyzed by means of thematic coding.
Results: Forces that prevent agile adoption are mainly of organizational, technical and social nature and address inertia, anxiety and context factors. Key challenges in agile adoption are related to transforming organizational structures and culture, achieving faster software release cycles without loss of quality, the importance of software reuse in combination with agile practices, appropriate quality assurance measures, and the collaboration with suppliers and other disciplines such as mechanics.
Conclusion: Significant challenges are imposed by specific characteristics of the automotive domain such as high quality requirements and many interfaces to surrounding rigid and inflexible processes. Several means are identified that promise to overcome these challenges.
Context: Companies need capabilities to evaluate the customer value of software intensive products and services. One way of systematically acquiring data on customer value is running continuous experiments as part of the overall development process. Objective: This paper investigates the first steps of transitioning towards continuous experimentation in a large company, including the challenges faced. Method: We conduct a single-case study using participant observation, interviews, and qualitative analysis of the collected data. Results: Results show that continuous experimentation was well received by the practitioners and practising experimentation helped them to enhance understanding of their product value and user needs. Although the complexities of a large multi-stakeholder business to-business (B2B) environment presented several challenges such as inaccessible users, it was possible to address impediments and integrate an experiment in an ongoing development project. Conclusion: Developing the capability for continuous experimentation in large organisations is a learning process which can be supported by a systematic introduction approach with the guidance of experts. We gained experience by introducing the approach on a small scale in a large organisation, and one of the major steps for future work is to understand how this can be scaled up to the whole development organisation.
Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs have been implemented, inter alia, to improve quality and speed of software development. 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 organizational 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 Software Quality Management (SQM) being of certain relevance in SPI programs. 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 SQM (including testing). From the main study’s result set, 92 papers were selected for an in-depth systematic review to study the contributions and to develop an initial picture of how these topics are addressed in SPI. Our findings show a fairly pragmatic contribution set in which different solutions are proposed, discussed, and evaluated. Among others, our findings indicate a certain reluctance towards standard quality or (test) maturity models and a strong focus on custom review, testing, and documentation techniques, whereas a set of five selected improvement measures is almost equally addressed.
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.
Software development consists to a large extent of human-based processes with continuously increasing demands regarding interdisciplinary team work. Understanding the dynamics of software teams can be seen as highly important to successful project execution. Hence, for future project managers, knowledge about non-technical processes in teams is significant. In this paper, we present a course unit that provides an environment in which students can learn and experience the role of different communication patterns in distributed agile software development. In particular, students gain awareness about the importance of communication by experiencing the impact of limitations of communication channels and the effects on collaboration and team performance. The course unit presented uses the controlled experiment instrument to provide the basic organization of a small software project carried out in virtual teams. We provide a detailed design of the course unit to allow for implementation in further courses. Furthermore, we provide experiences obtained from implementing this course unit with 16 graduate students. We observed students struggling with technical aspects and team coordination in general, while not realizing the importance of communication channels (or their absence). Furthermore, we could show the students that lacking communication protocols impact team coordination and performance regardless of the communication channels used.