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Co-changes in source code - change periods are usually 20-40 hours....

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smr.1635/pdf

The article describes the co-changes in code for a number of open source projects (e.g. ArgoUML).

What is interesting is that they have found that in open source projects the change periods are usually 1/2 - 1 week in duration. This is an interesting finding when mining related changes from software repositories.

Looking forward to industrial evaluation of the tool.

@MiroslawStaron

Visualization of Defect Inflow and Resolution Cycles: Before, During and After (review)...

Visualization of Defect Inflow and Resolution Cycles: Before, During and After Transfer

http://www.bth.se/fou/forskinfo.nsf/0/b3767af60ecfd34dc1257c10007c060f/$file/BTH_Visualization_of_Defect_Inflow_and_Resolution_Cycles.pdf

When making decision about outsourcing there is always some degree of uncertainty what the effects will be. Will the quality be the same? Will the cost be lower? ....

In this paper the authors looked at the efficiency of defect management/resolution processes and visualized them. The results show that during and immediately after the transfer the defect inflow is higher, bottlenecks are more visible, and defect resolution cycles are longer.

The authors identify a set of factors which can explain some of the trends in the defect inflow/removal processes - e.g. competence, unstable maintenance team, etc.

Very interesting article with a solid empirical focus.

What's important for continuous integration...

What's important for continuous integration...
review of "Modeling Continuous Integration Practice Differences in Industry Software Development", http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2013.08.032

I've got this article on ScienceDirect alerts and was a bit skeptical to the method - literature review - but when I read the paper it turned out to be great stuff.

The authors look at what is important in continuous integration - see top 3:
- build duration
- build frequency
- build triggering

and they also looked at  the meaning of common phrases - e.g. what is a failure or success of continuous integration. Turns out not that simple...

Generally very interesting article with a lot of insights.

A teamwork model for understanding an agile team... review

A teamwork model for understanding an agile team...
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950584909002043

I came across an article which analyzed a number of situations in a single Agile/Scrum team. I was skeptical in the beginning, but after I got to browse it my attention was drawn to the quotes from the team.

In the end I've read the whole paper and liked the retrospective of the team. For example how they evolved to work together in the first project, shared risks and opportunities. and a few more.

really recommend!

Sensing high performance software teams

Interesting article on measuring team performance

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-30350-0_6

The article shows a design of a survey that would help to continuously monitor software teams and their performance. Sounds a bit like the old fashioned PSP or TSP, but might actually work. Looking forward to more case studies with this method. 

The article contains two case studies, but more wild be welcomed and their more thorough analysis together with the proper description of the center would be great. 

Clone detection at Microsoft

Detecting clones at Microsoft seems to be a planned and well executed activity...

http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/175195/code_clone_detection_experience_at_microsoft.pdf

I was looking at the clone detection research recently and found a new development from Microsoft. It seems that the company puts a lot of effort to reduce the waste in their source code and work with refactoring. They report an impressive number of downloads if the tool and show why they use it. 

Unfortunately no real results of how much improvement was introduced thanks to the tool. Perhaps that will come later.