Rj Rob Kusters

Dealing with risk: a practical approach

Most software projects take place in a volatile environment in which many dangers exist that may affect the successful outcome of the project. After completion of the project an evaluation may show that many of the problems encountered during the project could have been foreseen before they actually occurred. Risk management is an approach that is aimed at predicting the occurrence of this type of problem and at taking counter measures to either prevent them from affecting the project or to soften their impact. In this paper the basic activities related to risk management are described. Furthermore a concrete method aimed at supporting risk management is presented. This method has been used successfully in practice. Some of the results obtained by using it are presented on the basis of five cases. Some conclusions are that:(1) the use of a short and structured checklist will ease identification of and discussions about risks,(2) a risk management method in which explicit use is made of a group related approach, involving all parties, will increase reliability and acceptance of the results, and(3) involvement of a neutral process risk advisor will further both the successful use of the method and the acceptance of the results.

Modelling resource availability in general hospitals design and implementation of a decision support model

Admission planning in general hospitals means selecting elective patients from a waiting list in order to obtain optimal utilisation of the available beds, nursing staff and operating theatre facilities while taking into account emergency admissions. Also, a wide variety of other factors, often situational and not explicitly stated, play a part in this decision process. As such, it is a complex problem which is difficult to handle for any decision maker. In this paper a statistical model for the prediction of resource availability is presented. The model is first tested on empirical data. On the basis of the model a DSS was designed which is now in daily use in several hospitals. Problems encountered in that implementation process will be stated. The results obtained with the model show that such an approach based on statistical data provides sufficiently accurate results to be useful.

From process improvement to people improvement: enabling learning in software development

The importance of people factors for the success of software development is commonly accepted, because the success of a software project is above all determined by having the right people on the right place at the right time. As software development is a knowledge intensive industry; the ‘quality’ of developers is primarily determined by their knowledge and skills. This paper presents a conceptual model of nine ‘learning enablers’ to facilitate learning in software projects. These enablers help identifying whether individual and/or organisational learning is facilitated. The main question addressed in this paper is: ‘Which factors enable learning in software projects and to what extent?’ q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Identification of factors that influence defect injection and detection in development of software intensive products

The objective of this study is the identification of factors that influence defect injection and defect detection. The study is part of a broader research project with the goal to lower the number of residual defects in software intensive products, by using the influencing factors to decrease injection of defects and to increase detection of defects. As a first step, we performed an extensive literature search to find influencing factors and processed the factors to achieve consistently formulated sets of factors without duplications. As a second step, we used a cluster analysis to reduce the number influencing factors to manageable-sized sets for practical application. As a last step, final groupings of factors were obtained by expert interpretation of the cluster analysis results. These steps were separately performed for defect injection and detection influencing factors, resulting in sets of, respectively, 16 and 17 factors. Finally, the resulting factor groupings were evaluated. The findings (1) are the basis for further research focusing on a framework for lowering residual defects, (2) already provide information to enable practitioners to devise strategies for lowering residual defects, and (3) may create awareness in organizations to reconsider policies regarding development and Verification & Validation.

Are software cost-estimation models accurate

Abstract The use of a model is one way to estimate a software development project. The paper describes an experiment in which a number of automated versions of estimating models were tested. During the experiment, experienced project leaders were asked to make a number of estimates for a project. This related to a project that had actually been carried out. On the basis of the differences found between the estimates and reality, it is concluded that no proof is given that the models can be used for estimating projects at an early stage of system development. Therefore, only limited confidence should be placed in estimates that are obtained with a model only.

Product Focused Software Process Improvement: Concepts and Experiences from Industry

Management problems in the development of software have been addressed over the last years by a strong focus on the improvement of the development processes. Software process improvement (SPI) activities are characterized by an internal focus on a software development department and its procedures. However, the quality of the product is hardly addressed in software process improvement programs. This paper presents the application of a model for product focused SPI (P-SPI) and describes experiences with this model in practice. The main conclusions are that P-SPI puts products to be developed in a central position in improvement programs, results in fulfilling specific quality goals of a company and project, and industrial experiments show interesting benefits. Applying the approach in industrial projects showed that P-SPI is relatively cheap and gives fast results and high benefits.

Quality through Managed Improvement and Measurement (QMIM): Towards a Phased Development and Implementation of a Quality Management System for a Software Company

The paper describes results of a longitudinal study of developments in the area of software product and process quality improvement within a Hungarian software company, IQSOFT Ltd. This company has been active in this area since 1993, trying to build, introduce and maintain an efficiently working quality management system which, e.g., fulfils the ISO 9001 requirements, allows steady software process improvement and, at the same time, conforms to companys own needs. Over the last eight years five phases could be distinguished. Each phase is described shortly, following the same structure, namely: basic starting points, key problem areas, literature consulted, activities and design executed, reflections on what happened and why. The lessons resulting from the analysis of this case have been formulated in terms of guidelines. We feel that these are applicable to any low maturity software development organisation embarking on a product or process quality improvement endeavour. These guidelines are developed around a framework containing the basic issues of software production (project management, technical processes and products). The guidelines advocate a careful step-by-step development of definitions, quality characteristics, and metrics related to these objects while at the same time developing and introducing the associated process.

Entropy based software processes improvement

Actual results of software process improvement projects show different levels of success. Although many software development organisations have adopted improvement models such as CMMI, it appears to be difficult to improve software development processes in the right way, e.g. tuned to the actual needs of the organisation. This paper presents a new approach to determine the direction of improvement for an organisation. This approach is based on an elaboration of the concept of entropy. The approach is empirically validated by carrying out interviews in 11 software development organisations in The Netherlands. The results of the research show that software development organisations can be classified and can be positioned on the basis of their internal and external entropy, c.q. the level of (dis)order in the business system and its environment. Based on a possible out-of-balance situation between the internal and external entropy, directions for software process improvement can be discussed. As such the proposed approach can support the application of current software process improvement methodologies such as the CMMI.

Defect detection oriented lifecycle modeling in complex product development

As the complexity of todays products increases, single projects, single departments or even single companies can no longer develop total products, resulting in concurrent and distributed development. To manage the resulting organizational complexity, projects need a lifecycle that explicitly reflects the concurrent and distributed nature of the project context. This paper addresses the essence of lifecycle modeling, with emphasis on defect detection. An adequately modeled lifecycle allows the localization and recognition of defect-sensitive areas in complex product development. A case study involving real-life development projects indicates that transitions between constituent sub-projects are in particular defect-sensitive. A second case study shows that by a defect detection-driven construction of a project-specific lifecycle, fewer residual defects can be expected.

Towards Decision Support for Waiting Lists: An Operations Management View

This paper considers the phenomenon of waiting lists in a healthcare setting, which is characterised by limitations on the national expenditure, to explore the potentials of an operations management perspective. A reference framework for waiting list management is described, distinguishing different levels of planning in healthcare – national, regional, hospital and process – that each contributes to the existence of waiting lists through managerial decision making. In addition, different underlying mechanisms in demand and supply are distinguished, which together explain the development of waiting lists. It is our contention that within this framework a series of situation specific models should be designed to support communication and decision making. This is illustrated by the modelling of the demand for cataract treatment in a regional setting in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands. An input–output model was developed to support decisions regarding waiting lists. The model projects the demand for treatment at a regional level and makes it possible to evaluate waiting list impacts for different scenarios to meet this demand.