Technical Reports
USC-CSE-2005-519PDF
Recovering Architectural Views of OO Systems
In this paper, we present an iterative, user-guided approach to recovering architectural information of OO legacy systems based on a framework for analyzing and visualizing software systems. The framework is built around a pluggable and extensible set of clues and rules about a given problem domain, execution environment, and/or programming language. Architecture-relevant information is recovered by providing several architectural views. While the purpose view captures the high-level functionality of the system elements, the usage view identifies the regions of related elements. These views are then used as input to the phase which results in high-level structure and interaction views of the system. We have developed an implementation prototype of our framework targeted at Java systems. The tool is integrated with IBM Rational Rose®. added: Dec. 12, 2005 USC-CSE-2005-518PDF
SimVBSE: Developing a Game for Value-Based Software Engineering
Apurva Jain and Barry Boehm The development of games in aid of improving and enriching a student's learning experience is again on the rise. The beer game [6] in the field of system dynamics was developed to instill the key principles of production and distribution. SimSE [5] provides a simulated game for its players to take on the role of a project manager, and experience the fundamentals of software engineering through cause-effect models. In this paper we present an initial design of SimVBSE as a game for students to better understand value-based software engineering [1] , and its underlying theory [3] . Submitted to CSEET 2006. All right reserved (c) by authors. added: Nov. 15, 2005 USC-CSE-2005-517PDF
Finding the Right Data for Software Cost Modeling Zhihao Chen Boehm, B. Menzies, T. Port, D. Strange to say, when building a software cost model, sometimes it's useful to ignore much of the available cost data. One way to do this is to perform data-pruning experiments after data collection and before model building. Experiments involving a set of Unix scripts that employ a variable-subtraction algorithm from the WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis) data-mining toolkit illustrate this approach's effectiveness. This article is part of a special issue on predictor modeling.
Document characteristics: added: Nov. 11, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-516PDF
Management challenges to implementing agile processes in traditional development organizations Boehm, B. Turner, R.
Discussions with traditional developers and managers concerning agile software development practices nearly always contain two somewhat contradictory ideas. They find that on small, stand-alone projects, agile practices are less burdensome and more in tune with the software industry's increasing needs for rapid development and coping with continuous change. Managers face several barriers, real and perceived, when they try to bring agile approaches into traditional organizations. They categorized the barriers either as problems only in terms of scope or scale, or as significant general issues needing resolution. From these two categories, we've identified three areas - development process conflicts, business process conflicts, and people conflicts - that we believe are the critical challenges to software managers of large organizations in bringing agile approaches to bear in their projects.
Document characteristics: added: Nov. 11, 2005 USC-CSE-2005-515PDF
Value - based processes for COTS - based applications Yang, Y. Jesal Bhuta, Boehm, B. Port, D.N.
Economic imperatives are changing the nature of software development processes to reflect both the opportunities and challenges of using COTS products. Processes are increasingly moving away from the time-consuming composition of custom software from lines of code (although these processes still apply for developing the COTS products themselves) toward assessment, tailoring, and integration of COTS or other reusable components. Two factors are driving this change: COTS or other reusable components can provide significant user capabilities within limited costs and development time, and more COTS products are becoming available to provide needed user functions.
Document characteristics: added: Nov. 11, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-514PDF
Assessing COTS Integration Risk Using Cost Estimation Inputs
Ye Yang, Barry Boehm, Betsy Clark
Most risk analysis tools and techniques require the user to enter a good deal of information before they can provide useful diagnoses. In this paper, we describe an approach to enable the user to obtain a COTS glue code integration risk analysis with no inputs other than the set of glue code cost drivers the user submits to get a glue code integration effort estimate with the COnstructive COTS integration cost estimation (COCOTS) tool. The risk assessment approach is built on a knowledge base with 24 risk identification rules and a 3-level risk probability weighting scheme obtained from an expert Delphi analysis. Each risk rule is defined as one critical combination of two COCOTS cost drivers that may cause certain undesired outcome if they are both rated at their worst case ratings. The 3-level nonlinear risk weighting scheme represents the relative probability of risk occurring with respect to the individual cost driver ratings from the input. Further, to determine the relative risk impact, we use the productivity range of each cost driver in the risky combination to reflect the cost consequence of risk occurring. We also develop a prototype called COCOTS Risk Analyzer to automate our risk assessment method. The evaluation of our approach shows that it has done an effective job of estimating the relative risk levels of both small USC e-services and large industry COTS-based applications.
Document characteristics: added: Nov. 11, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-513PDF
Achievements and challenges in software resources estimation
Barry Boehm, Ricardo Valerdi
Submitted to ICSE 2006
Document characteristics: added: Nov. 11, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-512PDF
Empirical Results from an Experiment on Value-Based Review (VBR) Processes Keun Lee, Barry Boehm
As part of our research on value-based software engineering, we conducted an experiment on the use of value-based review (VBR) processes. We developed a set of VBR checklists with issues ranked by successcriticality, and a set of VBR processes prioritized by issue criticality and stakeholder-negotiated product capability priorities. The experiment involved 28 independent verification and validation (IV&V) subjects (full-time working professionals taking a distance learning course) reviewing specifications produced by 18 real-client, full-time student e-services projects. The IV&V subjects were randomly assigned to use either the VBR approach or our previous valueneutral checklist-based reading (CBR) approach. The difference between groups was not statistically significant for number of issues reported, but was statistically significant for number of issues per review hour, total issue impact, and cost effectiveness in terms of total issue impact per review hour. For the latter, the VBRs were roughly twice as cost-effective as the CBRs.
ISESE 2005
Document characteristics: added: Nov. 11, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-511PDF
Value-based Feedback in Software and Information Systems Development LiGuo Huang, Barry Boehm
The role of feedback control in software and information system development
has traditionally focused on a milestone plan to deliver a pre-specified set
of capabilities within a negotiated budget and schedule. One of the most
powerful approaches available for controlling traditional software projects
is called the Earned Value system. However, the Earned Value Management
process is generally good for tracking whether a project is meeting its
original plan. It becomes difficult to administer if the project plans
change rapidly. And more significantly it has absolutely nothing to say
about the actual value being earned for the organization by the results of
the project.
Software Evolution and Feedback
Document characteristics: added: Nov. 11, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-510 PDF
How Much Software Quality Investment is Enough: A Value-Based Approach
LiGuo Huang, Barry Boehm
A classical problem facing many software projects is how to determine when to stop testing and release the product for use. We have found that risk analysis helps to address such "how much is enough?" questions, by balancing the risk exposure of doing too little with the risk exposure of doing too much. However, people have often found it difficult to quantify the relative probabilities and sizes of loss in order to provide practical approaches for determining a risk-balanced "sweet spot" operating point. We provide a quantitative approach based on the COCOMO II cost estimation model and the COQUALMO quality estimation model to help project decision-makers determine "how much software quality investment is enough?" We also provide examples of its use under differing value profiles. Further, we use the models and some representative empirical data to assess the relative payoff of value-based testing as compared to value-neutral testing. To appear in IEEE Software Document characteristics: added: Nov. 10, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-509PDF COCOMO Suite Methodology and Evolution Dr. Barry Boehm, Ricardo Valerdi, Jo Ann Lane, and A. Winsor Brown Over the years, software managers and software engineers have used various cost models such as the Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) to support their software cost and estimation processes. These models have also helped them to reason about the cost and schedule implications of their development decisions, investment decisions, client negotiations and requested changes, risk management decisions, and process improvement decisions. Since that time, COCOMO has cultivated a user community that has contributed to its development and calibration. COCOMO has also evolved to meet user needs as the scope and complexity of software system development has grown. This eventually led to the current version of the model: COCOMO II.2000.3. The growing need for the model to estimate different aspects of software development served as a catalyst for the creation of derivative models and extensions that could better address commercial off-the-shelf software integration, system engineering, and system-of-systems architecting and engineering. This article presents an overview of the models in the COCOMO suite that includes extensions and independent models, and describes the underlying methodologies and the logic behind the models and how they can be used together to support larger software system estimation needs. It concludes with a discussion of the latest University of Southern California Center for Software Engineering effort to unify these various models into a single, comprehensive, user-friendly tool. CrossTalk, April 2005 Document characteristics: added: Nov. 10, 2005
USC-CSE-2005-508 PDF System of Systems Lead System Integrators: Where do They Spend Their Time and What Makes Them More/Less Efficient? - Background for COSOSIMO Jo Ann Lane
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