2018,
López, Lidia,
Martínez-Fernández, Silverio,
Gómez, Cristina,
Choras, Michal,
Kozik, Rafal,
Guzmán, Liliana,
Vollmer, Anna Maria,
Franch, Xavier,
Jedlitschka, Andreas
Software quality is an essential competitive factor for the success of software companies today. Increasing the software quality levels of software products and services requires an adequate integration of quality requirements (QRs) in the software life-cycle, which is still scarcely supported in current rapid software development (RSD) approaches. One of the goals of the Q-Rapids (Quality-aware Rapid Software Development) method is providing tool support to decision-makers for QR management in RSD. The Q-Rapids method is based on gathering data from several and heterogeneous sources, to be aggregated into quality-related strategic indicators (e.g., customer satisfaction, product quality) and presented to decision-makers using a highly informative dashboard. The current release of Q-Rapids Tool provides four sets of functionality: (1) data gathering from source tools (e.g. GitLab, Jira, SonarQube, and Jenkins), (2) aggregation of data into three levels of abstraction (metrics, product/process factors, and strategic indicators), (3) visualization of the aggregated data, and (4) navigation through the aggregated data. The tool has been evaluated by four European companies that follow RSD processes.
A Quality Model for Actionable Analytics in Rapid Software Development
2018,
Martínez-Fernández, Silverio,
Jedlitschka, Andreas,
Guzmán, Liliana,
Vollmer, Anna Maria
Background: Accessing relevant data on the product, process, and usage perspectives of software as well as integrating and analyzing such data is crucial for getting reliable and timely actionable insights aimed at continuously managing software quality in Rapid Software Development (RSD). In this context, several software analytics tools have been developed in recent years. However, there is a lack of explainable software analytics that software practitioners trust. Aims: We aimed at creating a quality model (called Q-Rapids quality model) for actionable analytics in RSD, implementing it, and evaluating its understandability and relevance. Method: We performed workshops at four companies in order to determine relevant metrics as well as product and process factors. We also elicited how these metrics and factors are used and interpreted by practitioners when making decisions in RSD. We specified the Q-Rapids quality model by comparing and integrating the results of the four workshops. Then we implemented the Q-Rapids tool to support the usage of the Q-Rapids quality model as well as the gathering, integration, and analysis of the required data. Afterwards we installed the Q-Rapids tool in the four companies and performed semi-structured interviews with eight product owners to evaluate the understandability and relevance of the Q-Rapids quality model. Results: The participants of the evaluation perceived the metrics as well as the product and process factors of the Q-Rapids quality model as understandable. Also, they considered the Q-Rapids quality model relevant for identifying product and process deficiencies (e.g., blocking code situations). Conclusions: By means of heterogeneous data sources, the Q-Rapids quality model enables detecting problems that take more time to find manually and adds transparency among the perspectives of system, process, and usage.