József Györkös

Managing the complexity of SPI in small companies

Most known models for SPI (e.g. SEI CMM, ISO standards and other methods derived from those mentioned) are primarily suited for large or medium organizations, but with some tailoring they provide substantial support also for the SPI in small organizations considering their specific characteristics. In the article a case of such tailoring – the PROCESSUS model – is presented. The baseline of the methodology is the integration of the CMM and the ISO 9001 together with the ISO 9000-3. According to the integrated model and the study of different lifecycles, a set of standard procedures (SP) and standard documents (SD) was defined. Each standard procedure provides guidelines on how to perform related activities, who is involved, which documents are supposed to be used/derived within the procedure etc. The set of SP and SD is the essential help for SPI conduction – for the purpose of small companies the optimal use of suggested documents and the disposition of roles was defined. The SP-SD set is also described in the article. Copyright

PROCESSUS – Integration of SEI CMM and ISO quality models

Integration of the two best-known quality management models for software production and maintenance, the Capability Maturity Model and the ISO 9001 Model (including ISO 9000-3) is of great interest for both the European and the American software market. The definition of a quality management model which would conform to the requirements of both models and use the advantages of each was a key goal of our research work within the project PROCESSUS.1 Research work was conducted in two steps: first, the detailed comparison of both models was made in order to define their common issues and specifics of each model, and secondly, the integrated model based on the results of the comparison was defined. In this paper the comparison method and results are described. Further, a method for the integration and a framework of the integrated model are presented. The core of our work is actually the content of the integrated model. Due to extensive content of the integrated model examples of some parts only are given in the appendix. The integrated model presented in this paper has already been successfully used in organizations which are cooperating in the project PROCESSUS o these organizations achieved the needed maturity for certification to the ISO 9001 standard and a maturity level near level 3 of CMM.

The concept of an efficient computer aided software engineering tool

Abstract In our contribution the acquired experiences by developing of a Computer Aided Software Engineering ( CASE ) tool concept are described. The tool is named ASET ( Automated Software Engineering Tool ). The most important feature of ASET is the covering of most phases of software life cycle. In the paper, the assortment of formal methods is founded, on which the fundamental rules on the tool are based. ASET is foreseen for the developing of the program systems, realized with the procedural languages and optionally with the data base support. A nonprocedural fifth generation language is used for the accomplishment of some components of the tool. Special attention is paid to the dialogue with the user.

United view on ISO 9001 model and SEI CMM

The current activities of organizations are marked with awareness of importance of quality improvement management. The end product quality assurance is not efficient enough. The quality should be introduced during the whole product development process. In this paper, the two models for software process quality improvement, the ISO 9001 (Quality Systems Model for quality assurance in design/development, production, installation, and servicing) and the SEI CMM (Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model), are introduced and compared. Based on experience with simultaneous introduction of both models in organizations, suggestions for the unification of both models are given.<<ETX>>

Diagnostics and a qualitative model

First generation expert systems were using shallow knowledge based on heuristic information to solve a diagnostic problem. This approach has many disadvantages, which can be avoided by using deep knowledge. Diagnostic reasoning based on deep knowledge is called model-based diagnostics. Recently, the use of qualitative modeling in relation to deep knowledge in expert systems has become increasingly important. The main purpose of our contribution is to present the model-based diagnostic approach at a formal level. The originality of the presented formalization is the concept of the diagnostic space, the characterization of the minimal diagnoses, and the measurement. The formalization serves as the theoretical background to prove our view to the design of qualitative system models and to establish the diagnostic architecture called DISY. The qualitative system model in our diagnostic approach needs not to be specially adopted for use in the diagnostic domain. The only requirement is that it must simulate the system behavior expressed by normal or abnormal functioning of its components. Proposed DISY architecture is not complex and simply takes into an account the previous diagnostic result to obtain a new one from the additional observation-measurement (medical tests or examinations) of the system.

Measurements in software requirements specification process

Abstract We are seeking to find measures of risk that can be used by management and the developers. We will show which characteristics and constraints could be assessed directly from the requirements specification document in the form of numeric values. These numeric must be normalised and used in a comparative manner with other events in the software development process. The required characteristics — the specific risks — will be expressed by the proposed metrics. The construction of a database with requirements analysis process data is emphasised as a testbed for metrics evaluation. In summary our approach is as follows: First decide what the important areas of risk are, then identify attributes available in a CASE (Computer Aided Software engineering) repository that may give an insight into these risks and then combine these attributes to provide risk measures.

OO metrics data gathering environment

Object technology has been recognized as an enabling factor and it is largely introduced into MIS departments. However, the benefits and improvements related to object technology are not obvious and could not be realized and achieved without appropriate evaluation criteria and metrics. The paper presents some evaluation criteria, measures and metrics, suitable for object oriented software development. Basic concepts of the OOMetDaGa Environment that provides automatic support for metrics data gathering are described and some empirical data presented.

Assessment and Control of Requirements Elicitation Process in a CASE Environment

Abstract In the computer aided software engineering environments a wide range of data about the development process can be collected. Basing on these easy - collected data our aim is to upgrade a CASE tool to bid such an information on the basis of past activities to the subjects of the software development team which can be interpreted as an estimation of the development process. This information must be evaluated upon the dynamics of the system specification in progress. The dynamic of this process is influenced by the needs of the user. The needs are mostly based on his/her assumptions about the planned system. In this paper studies on the unsteadiness of requirements specification with special attention to identification and assessment of the requirements risk are presented. Results of assessment can be used for management, control and avoidance of requirements risk detected during the system analysis phase.

Understandability of the software engineering method as an important factor for selecting a case tool

The article highlights the understandability of a software engineering methodology as an important criterion for selecting a CASE tool. This aspect is treated through the comparison of learning properties for two very well known methodology on which the CASE tools are usually based on. The first one is SA-SD and the second one is JSD. In the purpose to compare both methodology a group of young engineers has been tested. Each of them wrote a seminar theme, answered a questionnaire and explained his observations. At the end of the paper, a general conclusion is presented.

Relation Between Source Code Metrics and Structure Analysis Metrics

The article suggests a hypothesis that a correlation between Source Code Metrics and Structure Analysis Metrics exists. For this purpose a definition of Structure Analysis Metrics which results are comparable with results of Source Code Metrics is given. Some presented examples made by different people involved into experiment (students) verify the hypothesis.