On Software Architecture Processes and their Use in Practice

Software architecture is a very important software artifact, as it describes a system’s high-level structure and provides the basis for its development. Software architecture development is not a trivial task; to this end, a number of methods have been proposed to try to systematize their related processes to ensure predictability, repeatability, and high quality. In this chapter, the authors review some of these methods, discuss some specific problems that they believe complicate their adoption, and present one practical experience where the problems are addressed successfully.

Managing Tacit Knowledge to Improve Software Processes

In general, software process improvement entails significant benefits such as increased software product quality, decreased time and development cost, and decreased risks. To obtain these, organizations must apply knowledge management because the identification of new knowledge is considered key to success when improving software processes. Existing knowledge is, however, difficult to find, and when found, it is often difficult to reuse in practice. This is due to the fact that a considerable part of the knowledge that is useful for executing software processes is tacit and not all of it can be captured and made explicit. The purpose of this chapter is to present a framework for software process improvement based on the enrichment of organizational knowledge by means of the acquisition of tacit knowledge from individuals working in different teams and environments. The framework includes the specification of roles, processes, and tools, and is based on a process asset library and the introduction of configuration and change management mechanisms.

Preventing the Increasing Resistance to Change through a Multi-Model Environment as a Reference Model in Software Process Improvement

Organizational process improvement offers a key opportunity for organizations to become more efficient. As a consequence, the software industry, among others, is more interested in software process improvement. However, one of the most common issues identified when an organization tries to implement a software process improvement initiative is the difficulty that they face in selecting the reference model and its adaptation to the current organization scenario. Moreover, selecting the wrong reference model according to the way the organization works becomes a trigger to increase resistance to change. This chapter presents a methodology that allows the use of a multi-model environment as a reference model so that the organization can select best practices that best fit the way it works to implement software process improvement. The results of the implementation of an improvement using the methodology proposed are also presented.

The Influence of Personality Traits on Software Engineering and its Applications

In Software Engineering, personality traits have helped to better understand the human factor. In this chapter, the authors give an overview of important personality traits theories that have influenced Software Engineering and have been widely adopted. The theories considered are Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Big Five Personality Traits, and Belbin Roles. The influence of personality traits has provided remarkable benefits to Software Engineering, especially in the making of teams. For software project managers, it is useful to know what set of soft skills correlates to a specific team role so as to analyze how personality traits have contributed to high performance and cohesive software engineering teams. The study of software engineers’ personality traits also helps to motivate team members. Creating teams that involve compatible individuals, each working on tasks that suit them, and having a motivated team improves team performance, productivity, and reduces project costs.

Technique for Risk Identification of Software Acquisition and Information Technologies

In this chapter, the authors present the automatization of a technique for identifying the risks that may affect software acquisition projects. The proposed technique can have an impact in two software acquisition areas: 1) acquisition software contract for: Fully Developed (FD) software, Modified-Off-The-Shelf (MOTS) software, and Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software; and 2) information technology services contract, which can be a result of using the required technological tools for the operation of any organization. In both cases, it is indispensable to manage and address (track) the risks that may affect the success of any project type mentioned above.

Cloud Computing Decisions in Real Enterprises

Money is one of the most important things for enterprises today. Computer Centers represent a large part of the total costs of enterprises, irrespective of their size. This chapter describes some (real) ways to convince enterprises to use Cloud computing in order to save money and obtain better returns from their computer (hard and soft) resources.

Learning to Innovate

Using a large sample of Spanish organizations, in this chapter, the authors empirically reveal the state of health of the Spanish software industry in terms of software process improvement, both in the monitoring of working methodologies and the usage of tools, and they provide the necessary information in order to understand the real skills and efforts to improve the quality of products and end-user services. Having found that a significant number of organizations do not have specific training programs or their own software quality department, it is an essential point of departure for professionals to increase awareness of the need to implement quality processes to improve the competitiveness of the company. The state of knowledge of the methodologies aimed at quality and existing national and international standards shows that these are barely known by professionals in Spanish companies, especially among SMEs and micro-enterprises. However, most Spanish small businesses and large enterprises think the CMMI model best suits their needs, both business and technical. This growing interest is the main reason behind the fact that Spain has almost 38% of the European CMMI certifications, including 22 new certifications since 2010, and is the fourth country in the world in terms of number of CMMI appraisals.

A Method to Design a Software Process Architecture in a Multimodel Environment

In the multimodel improvement context, Software Organizations need to incorporate into their processes different practices from several improvement technologies simultaneously (i.e. CMMI, PSP, ISO 15504, and others). Over the last few years, software process architectures have been considered a means to harmonize these technologies. However, it is unclear how to design a software process architecture supporting a multimodel environment. In this chapter, an overview of the method to design a software process architecture is presented, identifying basic concepts, views, phases, activities, and artifacts. In addition, important aspects in the creation of this method are explained. This method will assist process stakeholders in the design, documentation, and maintenance of their software process architecture.

Towards Knowledge Management to Support Decision Making for Software Process Development

The complexity of decision making in software process development and the need for highly competitive organizations require new supporting tools to coordinate and optimize the information flow among decision levels. Decision levels are related to strategic planning, tactical process management, and operational activities development and control. This chapter presents the theory for developing a framework that integrates the different decision levels in software development companies in order to reach their business objectives. Furthermore, the proposed framework coordinates the information exchange among the different modeling paradigms/conventions currently used.

Estimating Methods for Small Teams

This chapter reviews the estimation techniques in software development focused on small teams and provides useful estimation guidelines for software practitioners. The techniques selected are based on one principle: easy to learn, easy to apply. The authors have included both agile techniques and traditional techniques. Agile techniques are suitable for small teams. Nevertheless, traditional techniques, like PROBE, have proven to be useful. Finally, they discuss sustainable estimation infrastructure.