Motivation in software engineering...

Motivation in Software Engineering (review of systematic review)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2007.09.004

I've read this paper and recommend it to managers who instantly seek how to motivate their employees. What I find particularly interesting is that they actually reflect on the question "Who are software engineers?" - please take a look at their research questions, they really do a nice work!

RQ1: What are the characteristics of Software Engineers?

RQ2: What (de)motivates Software Engineers to be more (less) productive?

RQ3: What are the external signs or outcomes of (de)motivated Software Engineers?

RQ4: What aspects of Software Engineering (de)motivate Software Engineers?

RQ5: What models of motivation exist in Software Engineering?

In the light of this I like this main result best: "M. 17 Identify with the task (clear goals, personal interest, know purpose of task, how it fits in with whole, job satisfaction; producing identifiable piece of quality work)" which is the number one motivational factor for software engineering professionals. This means that code-ownership practices stimulate and help the practitioners to feel needed. So, let me ask a question: How about off-shoring? 24/7 development? Who owns the code? Who is motivated?

Ok, it was more than one question, but still. I've seen this happening in many companies - off-shore does not mean better.

@MiroslawStaron

When to stop testing...

Quantifying software validation...
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/52.28120

The article is probably the predecessor of modern statistical methods in testing. It postulates that statistics could help in finding out when to release. I would also like to point the attention that this article came out of Bell Labs, where maturity modelling - a way of statistical software quality modelling - has been practiced since the 80's.

I recommend this article as a starting point and a reflection point for the testing teams... can we build simple models that would show that we've reached the saturation point? What if we relate it to the previous blog entry - coverate metrics.... hmm... I'll try that in my next development project.

If anyone has more articles in this line - please do not hesitate to recommend them to me and I'll make sure to put them in the blog.

Test Coverage and Post-Verification Defects: A Multiple Case Study

Why your test coverage is never going to be 100%...
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ESEM.2009.5315981

Yet again MS Research has proven to provide interesting and nice paper. In this article they describe dependencies between test effort, test coverage and post-release defect inflow.

It is interesting to note that the effort grows exponentially with test coverage while the post-release quality only linearly. I will recommend that to my students who often ask about the cost of quality....

Looking forward to more research from MS.

Motivations (paper review again)

Motivational factors for software engineers:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2010.12.017

I've blogged about motivational factors in software engineering before. Here is another, more recent paper about that. I recommend the reading since the study seems solid and the results are rather interesting.

Table 11 lists "Use of competence in Software Engineering" as the main motivational factor. This means that software engineers like to be called that and that the profession has very specific skill requirements.

Lean efficiency (paper review)

Lean efficiency
http://www.informs.org/content/download/242195/2304425/file/ASP,%20The%20Art%20and%20Science%20of%20Practice.pdf

I've posed a number of reviews of metrics in the "Agile" world and then I though that I've not done so much in the area of Lean development. Lean software development creeps in more and more often into larger companies and the topic begins to be "hot" increasingly often.

So, what kind of metrics are there in Lean development except for the famous Six-Sigma that is simple, yet complex. The Six-sigma book review I started with a while ago was, let's be honest, a starter.

In my work I often refer to this article. This is an interesting piece of analysis of ONE simple metric - inventory - in the context of Lean effectiveness and efficiency. What I like about this paper is the solid analytical ground for it. The analysis of companies and data from a number of years. The only thing that I wonder is the presence of the geopolitics (or the lack of it). Could that play a part in the intentory levels of the studied companies? Does a market pressure affect the inventory levels of software development companies?

I guess I'll need to do that analysis myself one day.

Beyond accuracy...

Beyond accuracy...
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1189572

Working with metrics one gets to understand that there is billions of metrics that could measure one attribute and that there are equally many ways to collect these metrics. However, one often forgets that metrics are to be used by stakeholder - often humans:)

This paper is a nice touch on the subject. Recommend this reading for the long winter evenings.

Picture: screenshot from ACM Digital library.

Metrics leading to agility

Metrics leading to agility...
http://www.slideshare.net/Softwarecentral/microsoft-word-metrics-of-agility-leads-to-agility-in-testing

This paper from Tata services shows a number of interesting metrics. RTF, which I've already mentioned and others. Like the time from business decision to delivery.

The metric itself is no rocket science, but it is interesting to read about how they measure it.