Georg Kalus
ABSTRACT
Independently from which software process was selected for a company or a project, the selected software process usually cannot be applied without any customization. Although the need to tailor a software process to specific project requirements seems to be widely accepted and unquestioned, the way of doing the tailoring remains unclear and is, therefore, often left to the expertise of process engineers or project managers. What are the criteria to be applied in the tailoring? What are dependencies between different criteria and how should certain criteria influence the software process? In this paper we investigate concrete tailoring criteria for the tailoring of software processes. To this end, we present a collection of 49 tailoring criteria as the outcomes of a systematic literature review. We further analyze the impact of the discovered tailoring criteria by relating them to a set of 20 exemplary tailoring actions, which affect the project-specific software process. Our outcomes show that the factors influencing the tailoring are well understood, however, the consequences of the criteria remain abstract and need to be interpreted on a project-per-project basis.
- Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE 2. The Stationery Office Ltd., 2009.Google Scholar
- P. Abrahamsson, O. Salo, J. Ronkainen, and J. Warsta. Agile software development methods - review and analysis. Technical Report 478, VTT PUBLICATIONS, 2002.Google Scholar
- T. J. Allen. Managing the Flow of Technology: Technology Transfer and the Dissemination of Technological Information Within the R&D Organization, volume 1 of MIT Press Books. The MIT Press, December 1984.Google Scholar
- D. Baccarini. The concept of project complexity—a review. International Journal of Project Management, 14(4):201–204, Aug. 1996.Google ScholarCross Ref
- V. R. Basili and H. D. Rombach. Tailoring the Software Process to Project Goals and Environments. In ICSE ’87: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Software Engineering, pages 345–357, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 1987. IEEE Computer Society Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- V. R. Basili and H. D. Rombach. The TAME project: towards improvement-oriented software environments. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 14(6):758–773, June 1988. Google ScholarDigital Library
- K. Beck and C. Andres. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (2nd Edition). Addison-Wesley Professional, 2004. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. D. Blackburn, G. D. Scudder, and L. N. Van Wassenhove. Improving speed and productivity of software development: a global survey of software developers. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 22(12):875–885, 1996. Google ScholarDigital Library
- B. W. Boehm. A spiral model of software development and enhancement. Computer, 21:61–72, May 1988. Google ScholarDigital Library
- B. W. Boehm. Software risk management: principles and practices. IEEE Software, 8(1):32–41, 1991. Google ScholarDigital Library
- S. Brinkkemper. Method engineering: engineering of information systems development methods and tools. Information and Software Technology, 38(4):275 – 280, 1996. Method Engineering and Meta-Modelling.Google ScholarCross Ref
- A. Camci and T. Kotnour. Technology Complexity in Projects: Does Classical Project Management Work? Technology Management for the Global Future, 2006.Google ScholarCross Ref
- A. Cockburn. Selecting a project’s methodology. IEEE Softw., 17:64–71, July 2000. Google ScholarDigital Library
- A. Cockburn. Crystal Clear: A human-powered methodology for small teams. Addison-Wesley Professional, first edition, 2004. Google ScholarDigital Library
- A. Cockburn. Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game (agile software development series). Addison-Wesley Professional, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- G. Coleman and R. O’Connor. Investigating software process in practice: A grounded theory perspective. J. Syst. Softw., 81(5):772–784, May 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Confédération Suisse. The HERMES Method. Online: http://www.hermes.admin.ch, 2011.Google Scholar
- D. Costache, G. Kalus, and M. Kuhrmann. Design and Validation of Feature-based Process Model Tailoring - A Sample Implementation of PDE. In Proceedings of the 8th European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEM/FSE 2011), pages 464–467. ACM Press, Sept. 2011. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Friedrich, U. Hammerschall, M. Kuhrmann, and M. Sihling. Das V-Modell XT. Informatik im Fokus. Springer, 2. edition, 2009.Google Scholar
- M. Ginsberg and L. Quinn. Process tailoring and the software capability maturity model. Technical Report CMU/SEI-94-TR-024, Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, Nov. 1995.Google ScholarCross Ref
- A. F. Harmsen. Situational Method Engineering. PhD thesis, University of Twente, Utrecht, January 1997.Google Scholar
- F. Harmsen, I. Lubbers, and G. Wijers. Success-driven selection of fragments for situational methods: The s3 model. In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundations of Software Quality, volume 13 of Aachener Beiträge zur Informatik, pages 104–115, 1995.Google Scholar
- R. Heeks, S. Krishna, B. Nicholsen, and S. Sahay. Synching or Sinking: Global Software Outsourcing Relationships. Software, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. D. Herbsleb and A. Mockus. An empirical study of speed and communication in globally distributed software development. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 29(6):481–494, June 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- R. Höhn and S. Höppner. Das V-Modell XT. eXamen.press. Springer, 2006.Google Scholar
- J. J. Jiang, G. Klein, S. P. J. Wu, and T. P. Liang. The relation of requirements uncertainty and stakeholder perception gaps to project management performance. Journal of Systems and Software, 82(5):801–808, May 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- B. Kitchenham, O. P. Brereton, D. Budgen, M. Turner, J. Bailey, and S. Linkman. Systematic literature reviews in software engineering – A systematic literature review. Information and Software Technology, 51(1), 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- P. Kroll and P. Kruchten. The Rational Unified Process Made Easy – A Practinioner’s Guide to RUP. Addison-Wesley, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Kuhrmann and G. Kalus. Providing Integrated Development Processes for Distributed Development Environments. In Workshop on Supporting Distributed Team Work at Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008), Nov. 2008.Google Scholar
- M. Kuhrmann, G. Kalus, M. Then, and E. Wachtel. From Design to Tools: Process Modeling and Enactment with PDE and PET. In Proceedings of Third International Workshop on Academic Software Development Tools and Techniques (WASDeTT-3), co-located with the 25th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineer, Sept. 2010.Google Scholar
- Kuhrmann, M., Méndez Fernández, D., and Tiessler, M. A Mapping Study on Method Engineering – First Results. In International Conference on Evaluation & Assessment in Software Engineering, 2013. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Y. Lichtenstein. Puzzles in software development contracting. Communications of the ACM, 2004. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Méndez Fernández, S. Wagner, K. Lochmann, A. Baumann, and H. de Carne. Field study on requirements engineering: Investigation of artefacts, project parameters, and execution strategies. Inf. Softw. Technol., 54(2):162–178, Feb. 2012. Google ScholarDigital Library
- R. J. Offen and R. Jeffery. Establishing software measurement programs. IEEE Software, 14(2):45–53, 1997. Google ScholarDigital Library
- OMG. Software & systems process engineering metamodel specification version 2.0. Technical report, Object Management Group, April 2008.Google Scholar
- M. Paasivaara and C. Lassenius. Collaboration practices in global inter-organizational software development projects. Software Process: Improvement and Practice, 8(4):183–199, 2004.Google ScholarCross Ref
- D. L. Parnas and P. C. Clements. A Rational Design Process: How And Why To Fake It. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 12(2):1–10, Jan. 1986. Google ScholarDigital Library
- O. Pedreira, M. Piattini, M. Luaces, and N. Brisaboa. A Systematic Review of Software Process Tailoring. SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 32(3):1–6, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Project Management Institute. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Project Management Institute, fourth edition, 2009.Google Scholar
- P. Runeson and M. Höst. Guidelines for Conducting and Reporting Case Study Research in Software Engineering. Empirical Software Engineering, 14(2):131–164, 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- E. Salas, D. Rozell, B. Mullen, and J. E. Driskell. The Effect of Team Building on Performance: An Integration. Small Group Research, 30(3):309–329, June 1999.Google ScholarCross Ref
- T-Systems. SE Book. internal handbook.Google Scholar
- A. H. M. ter Hofstede and T. F. Verhoef. On the feasibility of situational method engineering. Information Systems, 22(6-7):401 – 422, 1997. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Torchiano and M. Morisio. Overlooked aspects of COTS-based development. IEEE Software, 21(2):88–93, 2004. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tuckman, B. W. Development sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 1965.Google Scholar
- J. Voas. COTS software: the economical choice? IEEE Software, 15(2):16–19, 1998. Google ScholarDigital Library
- L. Wallace and M. Keil. Software project risks and their effect on outcomes. Communications of the ACM, 47(4):68–73, Apr. 2004. Google ScholarDigital Library
- L. Wallace, M. Keil, and A. Rai. How Software Project Risk Affects Project Performance: An Investigation of the Dimensions of Risk and an Exploratory Model*. Decision Sciences, 35(2):289–321, May 2004.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Weit e.V. The V-Modell XT Online Portal. Online http://www.v-modell-xt.de/.Google Scholar
- J. Wolfe and T. I. Chacko. Education TEAM-SIZE EFFECTS ON BUSINESS GAME PERFORMANCE AND DECISION-MAKING BEHAVIORS. Decision Sciences, 14(1):121–133, Jan. 1983.Google ScholarCross Ref
- W. Xia and G. Lee. Grasping the complexity of IS development projects. Communications of the ACM, 47(5):68–74, May 2004. Google ScholarDigital Library
- P. Xu and B. Ramesh. Using Process Tailoring to Manage Software Development Challenges. IT Professional, 10(4):39–45, July 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Zowghi and N. Nurmuliani. A study of the impact of requirements volatility on software project performance. In Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conferenc, pages 3–11. IEEE Comput. Soc, 2002. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Criteria for software process tailoring: a systematic review
Recommendations
A systematic review of software process tailoring
Although software process proposals appear continuously, it is difficult to fit any of them into a given company as they are. Thus, some kind of adaptation or tailoring is always necessary. The goal of software process tailoring is to adapt an "off-the-...
Software Process Tailoring: An Empirical Investigation
A well-defined software process is critical for success in software projects. Software process tailoring refers to the activity of tuning a standardized process to meet the needs of a specific project. We conducted two case studies that address the ...
An MDE approach to software process tailoring
ICSSP '11: Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Software and Systems ProcessDefining organizational processes is essential for enhancing maturity. However the best process depends on the particularities of each project. Typically a process engineer defines a specific process for each project in an ad-hoc fashion, which is ...
Comments