The SMPI model [Elektronische Ressource] : a stepwise process model to facilitate software measurement process improvement along the measurement paradigms / von: René Braungarten

René Braungarten

Sujets

• Informatik

Informations

• Publié par: otto-von-guericke-universitat_magdeburg
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 18
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The SMPI model:
A stepwise process model to facilitate software
measurement process improvement along the
measurement paradigms
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doktoringenieuer (Dr. Ing.)
angenommen durch die Fakultät für Informatik
der Otto von Guericke Universität Magdeburg
von: Dipl. Inform. René Braungarten
geb. am 08.02.1980 in Stendal, Deutschland
Gutachter:
Prof. Dr. Ing. habil. Reiner Dumke
Prof. Dr. Juan José Cuadrado Gallego
Prof. Dr. Alain Abran
Magdeburg, den 18. Mai 2007To Claudia, the wind beneath my wings...
and
To Angelika, Gunter, Marko, and Dina.Acknowledgments
“If I have seen further than most men,
it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”
– Isaac Newton –
Several people considerably contributed to the successful completion of this re
search project and the resulting PhD thesis by continuously providing me with their
guidance, encouragement, and support during the years 2004–2007. I would like to
express my sincerest gratitude to all of you!
First of all, I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Reiner R. Dumke, the supervisor of this
research at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg. Working on and writing this
dissertation has never been a bed of roses — and without his guidance on all concerns
of the research, our numerous fruitful discussions over the years, and the valuable
comments he has given on the draft versions of this thesis, by far the result would not
have been that successful. Moreover, Prof. Dr. Juan José Cuadrado Gallego and Prof.
Dr. Alain Abran deserve my sincere thanks for their efforts in reviewing and providing
their expert opinions on the thesis at hand.
InretrospectontheentireperiodthatIhavebeenworkingonthatresearchproject,
I cannot thank enough Martin Kunz and Daniel Reitz. As PhD candidates in the Soft
ware Engineering Group we have been sharing the same office space, goals, and sor
rows for years. Together we look back on interesting academic and private discussions
as well as on joint research work and conference travels. All of this has resulted in a
deepfriendshipandatmosphereoftrustandmutualencouragement,whichwasessen
tial in completing my thesis. Especially Martin was always pushing me a bit further
towards completion. I have many good memories from these years and I hope to be
able to tie up to that somewhere along the way. Good luck for your research, guys!
Furthermore, my thanks go to the other former and present team members that
were instrumental in performing the work, especially Dr. Mathias Lother, Prof. Dr.
Cornelius Wille, Prof. Dr. Andreas Schmietendorf, Dr. Fritz Zbrog, Dagmar Dörge,
Martin Tröger, and Ayaz Farooq. I am also very much obliged to the management
and employees of the host organization that offered me to validate the results of that
research.
Parallel to the last year of my thesis work, I took the opportunity to work as a soft
ware quality engineer at the Bosch Rexroth Electric Drives and Controls GmbH (BRC)
in Lohr am Main, Germany. It has been (and still is) very interesting to be confronted
with hardware and software engineers being thirsty for practicable methodologies and
research results of any kind to continuously assure the high quality of their complex
products. But mastering the span between fulltime employment in industry and com
pleting the PhD thesis meant a considerable challenge to me. Without the provident
backing and flexibility of my line manager at BRC, Christian Steinisch, I would not
have been able to succeed. Additionally, he was very inspirational and a great partner
in coffee kitchen discussions! Thus, I want to acknowledge my deep gratitude to him.
vUltimately, let me extend my deepest gratitude to those, who made all of this pos
sible: Starting from my earliest childhood until now, my parents, Angelika and Gunter,
haveattachedimportancetomyeducationasatoolandprerequisiteformyfuturelive.
With all their love, benignity, and belief in my capabilities they got never tired of en
couragingmeandofferingmetheirinvaluablemoralsupportduringallthetimes. Iam
proud to have those parents and I will be eternally grateful. Moreover, I am indebted
tomybrother,Marko,whoneverdoubtedmeandprovidedvitalsupportinhardtimes.
Duringthetimeofthisresearchprojecttheheaviestburdenwasputonmyfiancee,
Claudia. In consequence of my research work, she had do without me longer than
beingabletoabsorbweekdaybyweekdayandweekendbyweekend,especiallyduring
the last year. Thus, I highly impute Claudia that she shouldered much of my worries
with patience and also got never tired to understand, motivate, and encourage me. I
will also be eternally grateful to her. My final thanks shall go to my future parents in
law, Silvia and Bernd, and my sister in law, Anita, for supporting Claudia and me that
strong in this endeavor.
Retzstadt, June 2007
René Braungarten
ThisresearchhasbeeninpartsfundedbyaresearchscholarshipoftheGermanFederal
State “Saxony Anhalt”.
viAbstract
Undoubtedly, measuring artifacts such as development processes, employed resources,
intermediate deliverables, and the completed software product itself turns out to be
a root discipline for the field of software engineering. Due to its importance, there
are supportive documents, guidelines, and experiences with software measurement in
industrial software engineering settings that can be a significant aid for organizations
willingtoshoulderitsimplementation. Butestablishingandsustainingasoftwaremea
surement process in a particular industrial environment is often regarded as a difficult
venture; these ventures are not infrequently reported to fail in practice.
It is the dedicated task of this research project to address the lack of maturity in
implementing and sustaining software measurement processes in software engineer
ing industry through a stepwise process improvement model along the measurement
paradigms. In order to tackle that issue, the engineering research path is taken to be
able to adopt advantageous features of prior, incomplete attempts to the problem.
Part I of the thesis deals with the observation and evaluation of those existing solu
tions using previously elicited criteria in terms of required content and model related
properties of software measurement process improvement models. Starting from the
evaluation’s results, the most promising of the prior solution attempts is adopted as
basis model and its shortcoming is analyzed.
Afterwards, in part II a development concept and a design rationale for a process
model to overcome the shortcoming of the basis model are proposed, and the comple
mented SMPI (Software Process Improvement Model) is developed. The SMPI model
isthenpresentedgraphicallyusingdiagramsaccordingtotheBPMN(BuisinessProcess
Modeling Notation) and textually using the EITVOX (Entry criteria - Inputs - Tasks -
Validation - Outputs - Exit criteria) process modeling methodology.
Finally,inpartIIIofthedissertationtheexternalcase studyvalidationofthedevel
oped SMPI is presented and interpreted by means of statistical test of hypotheses.
viiContents
List of Tables xiii
List of Figures xvi
List of Acronyms xvii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background and motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Software engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.2 Research problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.3 R questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.4 A retrospect on research in software engineering . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.5 Validation methods in empirical software . . . . . . 8
1.2.6 Classification of the research project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2.7 Striking the engineering research path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Structure of the thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
I Observation of existing solutions 15
2 Measurement in software engineering industry 17
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 Clarification of terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Entities and attributes of interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1 Process entity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.2 Product entity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.3 Resource entity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.4 Projects as conglomerate of entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4 The importance of software measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.1 Intentional functions and negative effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.2 Aspired value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4.3 Concerned audiences and information needs . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5 Software measurement paradigms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5.1 The top down approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.5.2 The bottom up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.5.3 The mixed approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.6 Synthesis of elements: The software measurement system . . . . . . . . 33