A training process for improving the quality of software projects developed by a practitioner

📝 Abstract

Background: The quality of a software product depends on the quality of the software process followed in developing the product. Therefore, many higher education institutions (HEI) and software organizations have implemented software process improvement (SPI) training courses to improve the software quality. Objective: Because the duration of a course is a concern for HEI and software organizations, we investigate whether the quality of software projects will be improved by reorganizing the activities of the ten assignments of the original personal software process (PSP) course into a modified PSP having fewer assignments (i.e., seven assignments). Method: The assignments were developed by following a modified PSP with fewer assignments but including the phases, forms, standards, and logs suggested in the original PSP. The measurement of the quality of the software assignments was based on defect density. Results: When the activities in the original PSP were reordered into fewer assignments, as practitioners progress through the PSP training, the defect density improved with statistical significance. Conclusions: Our modified PSP could be applied in academy and industrial environments which are concerned in the sense of reducing the PSP training time

💡 Analysis

Background: The quality of a software product depends on the quality of the software process followed in developing the product. Therefore, many higher education institutions (HEI) and software organizations have implemented software process improvement (SPI) training courses to improve the software quality. Objective: Because the duration of a course is a concern for HEI and software organizations, we investigate whether the quality of software projects will be improved by reorganizing the activities of the ten assignments of the original personal software process (PSP) course into a modified PSP having fewer assignments (i.e., seven assignments). Method: The assignments were developed by following a modified PSP with fewer assignments but including the phases, forms, standards, and logs suggested in the original PSP. The measurement of the quality of the software assignments was based on defect density. Results: When the activities in the original PSP were reordered into fewer assignments, as practitioners progress through the PSP training, the defect density improved with statistical significance. Conclusions: Our modified PSP could be applied in academy and industrial environments which are concerned in the sense of reducing the PSP training time

📄 Content

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A training process for improving the quality of software projects developed by a practitioner Cuauhtémoc López-Martín Department of Information Systems
Universidad de Guadalajara Periférico Norte N° 799, C.P. 45100, Zapopan, Jalisco, México (+52) 33 37-70-33-00 ext. 25717 cuauhtemoc@cucea.udg.mx Ali Bou Nassif Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Sharjah Sharjah, UAE anassif@sharjah.ac.ae Alain Abran Department of Software Engineering and Information Technology École de technologie supérieure Université du Québec, Canada alain.abran@etsmtl.ca

Abstract.
Background: The quality of a software product depends on the quality of the software process followed in developing the product. Therefore, many higher education institutions (HEI) and software organizations have implemented software process improvement (SPI) training courses to improve the software quality.
Objective: Because the duration of a course is a concern for HEI and software organizations, we investigate whether the quality of software projects will be improved by reorganizing the activities of the ten assignments of the original personal software process (PSP) course into a modified PSP having fewer assignments (i.e., seven assignments). Method: The assignments were developed by following a modified PSP with fewer assignments but including the phases, forms, standards, and logs suggested in the original PSP. The measurement of the quality of the software assignments was based on defect density.
Results: When the activities in the original PSP were reordered into fewer assignments, as practitioners progress through the PSP training, the defect density improved with statistical significance. Conclusions: Our modified PSP could be applied in academy and industrial environments which are concerned in the sense of reducing the PSP training time. Keywords: Software engineering education and training, software process improvement, software quality improvement, personal software process.

1. Introduction In 2013, the $407.3 billion software industry [1] was forecast to have a 9.4% compound annual growth rate through 2018 [2]. The quality of the software product is a major ongoing concern in the industry. It relies on the degree of compliance to specified requirements that are related to the features and functions to be developed [3]. A study based on an analysis of 50,000 software projects developed between 2003 and 2012, reported that only 39% of the projects were delivered with the required quality, 43% delivered less than the quality required, and the remaining 18% were cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used [4]. Another survey based on 8,380 projects and involving 365 information technology executive managers of large, medium, and small companies (from banking, securities, manufacturing, retail, wholesale, heath care, insurance, services, and local, state, and federal organizations), reported that more than a quarter of the software projects were completed with only 25% to 49% of the originally specified features and functions. On average, only 61% of the originally specified features and functions were available at project completion. More specifically, large companies reported that the end product contained 42% of the features and functions, medium companies 65%, and small companies, 74% [5]. Software engineering research aims to improve practice in any of its areas such that research results are useful [6]. The software process is a set of activities, methods, and practices that software engineers and users use to develop and maintain software products [7]. Software process improvement (SPI) aims to understand the software process that is used within an organization and to drive the implementation of changes to that process to achieve objectives such as higher product quality or reduced costs [8]. 2

A systematic literature review of 148 SPI studies published between 1991 and 2008 reported the following findings [9]:

1. Seven distinct evaluation strategies were identified: the most common type, a pre-post comparison (i.e., the SPI strategy was evaluated by comparing the success indicators before and after the SPI strategy took place) was found in 49% of the studies.
2. In 62% of the 148 studies, the process quality was the most measured attribute. The quality of a software product depends on the quality of the software process used to build the product [10]; hence, software development organizations strive to improve their software processes [10]. Training is one of the most important and reliable human resource techniques to enhance organizations and individual productivity [11]. Furthermore, training in SPI requires an effort that should be addressed three levels of training: the organization, team, and individual [12]. There have been SPI proposals focused on software organizations such as capability maturity model

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