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Understanding cost drivers of software evolution: a quantitative and qualitative investigation of change effort in two evolving software systems

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Abstract

Making changes to software systems can prove costly and it remains a challenge to understand the factors that affect the costs of software evolution. This study sought to identify such factors by investigating the effort expended by developers to perform 336 change tasks in two different software organizations. We quantitatively analyzed data from version control systems and change trackers to identify factors that correlated with change effort. In-depth interviews with the developers about a subset of the change tasks further refined the analysis. Two central quantitative results found that dispersion of changed code and volatility of the requirements for the change task correlated with change effort. The analysis of the qualitative interviews pointed to two important, underlying cost drivers: Difficulties in comprehending dispersed code and difficulties in anticipating side effects of changes. This study demonstrates a novel method for combining qualitative and quantitative analysis to assess cost drivers of software evolution. Given our findings, we propose improvements to practices and development tools to manage and reduce the costs.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the managers and developers at Esito and Know IT who provided us with high quality empirical data. The research was funded by the Simula School of Research and Innovation.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Hans Christian Benestad & Erik Arisholm

  2. University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1080, Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Bente Anda

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  1. Hans Christian Benestad
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Correspondence to Hans Christian Benestad.

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Editor: Arie van Deursen

Appendix A

Appendix A

1.1 Interview Guide

Part 1. (Only in first interview with each developers—Information about the purpose of the research. Agree on procedures, confidentiality voluntariness, audio-recording).

Question: Can you describe your work and your role in the project?

Part 2. Project context (factors intrinsic to the time period covered by the changes under discussion)

How would you describe the project and your work in the last time period? Did any particular event require special focus in the period?

For each change (CR-nnnn, CR-nnnn, CR-nnnn….,)

Part 3. Measurement control (change effort and name of changed components shown to the interviewee)

Are change effort and code changes correctly registered?

Part 4. Change request characteristics (change tracker information shown on screen to support discussion)

Can you describe the change from the viewpoint of the user? Why was the change needed?

Part 5. General cost factors

Can you roughly indicate how the X hours were distributed on different activities?

Part 6. Properties of relevant code (output from windiff showed on screen to support the discussions)

Can you summarize the changes that you made to the components?

What can you say about the code that was relevant for the change? Was it easy or difficult to understand and make changes to the code?

Part 7. Stability

Did you go through several iterations before you reached the final solution? If so, why?

Did anything not go as expected?

How did you proceed to test the change?

Go to Part 3 for next change

Part 8. Concluding remarks

Do you think this interview covered your activities during the last period?

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Benestad, H.C., Anda, B. & Arisholm, E. Understanding cost drivers of software evolution: a quantitative and qualitative investigation of change effort in two evolving software systems. Empir Software Eng 15, 166–203 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-009-9118-8

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