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A Method to Measure Productivity Trends during Software Evolution

  • Conference paper
Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2009, ENASE 2008)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 69))

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Abstract

Better measures of productivity are needed to support software process improvements. We propose and evaluate indicators of productivity trends that are based on the premise that productivity is closely related to the effort required to complete change tasks. Three indicators use change management data, while a fourth compares effort estimates of benchmarking tasks. We evaluated the indicators using data from 18 months of evolution in two commercial software projects. The productivity trend in the two projects had opposite directions according to the indicators. The evaluation showed that productivity trends can be quantified with little measurement overhead. We expect the methodology to be a step towards making quantitative self-assessment practices feasible even in low ceremony projects.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Simula Research Laboratory and University of Oslo, P.O. Box 134, 1325, Lysaker, Norway

    Hans Christian Benestad, Bente Anda & Erik Arisholm

Authors
  1. Hans Christian Benestad
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  2. Bente Anda
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  3. Erik Arisholm
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing, Macquarie University, 2109, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Leszek A. Maciaszek

  2. LaPa - CSIC, Spain

    César González-Pérez

  3. University of Bayreuth, Germany

    Stefan Jablonski

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© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Benestad, H.C., Anda, B., Arisholm, E. (2010). A Method to Measure Productivity Trends during Software Evolution. In: Maciaszek, L.A., González-Pérez, C., Jablonski, S. (eds) Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering. ENASE ENASE 2009 2008. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 69. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14819-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14819-4_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-14818-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-14819-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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