Methods and Standards Research at Lero

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Methods and Standards

Research at Lero

Research Portfolio

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Agile Methods and Regulated Domains

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Agile methods have seen widespread adoption in industry, with estimates that more than 80% of development projects now use an agile approach. While agile methods are becoming increasingly popular, they have also a number of limitations, such as their focus on small projects, co-located teams and non-critical software projects. Lero researchers investigate how agile methods can be tailored to address the needs of our industry partners.

Inner Source

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Inner Source refers to the adoption of Open Source development practices, methods and tools within the boundaries of a corporation. Inner Source is an emerging approach to software development with increasing attention and interest from industry. Lero are leading global research on Inner Source. Based on work in Rolls Royce and Philips Healthcare Lero researchers have derived frameworks and models to better understand how and when to adopt Inner Source.

Crowdsourcing Software Development

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Crowdsourcing is an emerging strategy in software development, whereby software development is outsourced to an unknown group of developers—a crowd. While crowdsourcing has been applied to various domains, the use of crowdsourcing in software development has received little attention. Lero researchers are the first to study crowdsourcing software development from a customer perspective.

Software Ecosystems

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A global development in the software landscape is that of software ecosystems. Software product development no longer takes place is in isolation, but in a complex network of various stakeholders, such as keystone companies, third-party plug-in (“app”) developers, and customers who can compose a solution consisting of the various building blocks. Lero researchers develop frameworks to help companies better understand how to benefit from such value networks.

Lean Software Development

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Lean Thinking has caused a paradigm shift in global manufacturing, and the principles of Lean Thinking can also be applied to software development. While lean is often used as a synonym for agile, lean represents a different school of thought with great potential for complete enterprise transformations. One area of research that Lero researchers focus on is Waste Reduction, the removal of all unnecessary work.

Project Portfolio Management

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Large organisations can have hundreds of projects running simultaneously and managing those projects can be challenging. Projects may start, stop or be cancelled as company roadmaps and strategies evolve. Lero researchers offer models and metrics to help identify challenges and measure strategic alignment for dynamic portfolios.

Business Value of Big Data Analytics

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Big Data is Big – with an increasing focus on Cloud Computing and Inner Source refers to the adoption of Open Source development practices, methods and tools within the boundaries of a corporation. Inner Source is an emerging approach to software development with increasing attention and interest from industry. Lero is a global pioneer on Inner source research.

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Agile Methods and Regulated Domains

gile methods have seen widespread adoption in industry, with estimates

that more than 80% of development projects now use an agile approach. While agile methods are becoming increasingly popular, they have also a number of limitations, such as their focus on small projects, co-located teams and non-critical software projects. Lero researchers investigate how agile methods can be tailored to address the needs of our industry partners.

Lero’s Approach

Lero researchers have studied agile methods for the last decade, first in the context of distributed software development, and more recently in the context of regulated and critical domains. Based on our research, Lero have extended the standard Scrum process model. The result of this is R-Scrum – Scrum for Regulated Environments, which is based on research conducted with QUMAS, a world leader in quality management and compliance solutions for the Pharma and Biotech domains.

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Selected Publications

Fitzgerald B, Hartnett G and Conboy K (2006) Customising agile methods to

software practices at Intel Shannon, European Journal of Information Systems

Holmström H, Fitzgerald B, Agerfalk P and O Conchuir E (2006) Agile practices

reduce distance in global software development, Information Systems Management

Fitzgerald B, Stol, K, O’Sullivan R and O’Brien D (2013) Scaling Agile Methods

to Regulated Environments: An Industry Case Study,35th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)

R-Scrum: Scrum for Regulated Environments

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Inner Source

nner Source refers to the adoption of Open Source development practices,

methods and tools within the boundaries of a corporation. Inner Source is an emerging approach to software development

with increasing attention and interest from industry. Lero are leading global research on Inner Source, and Lero researchers offer frameworks and models to better understand how and when to adopt Inner Source.

Various multinational organisations have

adopted Inner Source, and several potential benefits have been reported, such as increased reuse, improved quality, faster time-to-market of up to 30% and facilitating Open Innovation. Inner Source can also be a suitable sourcing strategy in the commodification of software.

Lero’s Approach

Lero identified a strong global industry interest in Inner Source, but there is little clarity about how a successful Inner Source initiative can be started. Lero’s focus on Inner Source is concerned with identifying key factors that are important to establish successful Inner Source initiatives. Lero researchers have worked with various companies with extensive experience in Inner Source, such as Philips Healthcare, but also organisations who

have expressed an

interest, such as

Rolls-Royce and Neopost

Technologies.

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_Pr od_uc t (s ou rce co_de , lic_en se₎ Proc ess (“com mun ity b ound aries”) Closed 1. Traditional proprietary software 2. Inner Source Software 3. “Controlled Open Source Software” 4. Open Source Software Open Closed Open Selected Publications

Höst M, Stol K, Oručević-Alagic A (2014) Inner Source Project Management, Project

Management for the 21st_{Century, Springer (to appear)}

Morgan L, Feller J, Finnegan P (2011) Exploring inner source as a form of

intra-organisational open innovation, European Conference on Information Systems

Stol K, Babar MA, Avgeriou P, Fitzgerald B (2011) A comparative study of

challenges in Inner Source and Open Source, Information and Software Technology

Key Factors for Adopting Inner Source

Inner Source as Sourcing Strategy

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Crowdsourcing Software Development

rowdsourcing is an emerging strategy in software development, whereby software development is outsourced to an unknown group of developers— a crowd. While crowdsourcing has been applied to various domains, the use of crowdsourcing in software development has received little attention. Lero researchers are amongst the first who study crowdsourcing in a software development context

Lero’s Approach

Crowdsourcing is a novel approach to software development, and this topic has largely remained unexplored. Lero researchers have identified the key concerns that must be considered when crowdsourcing software development

tasks. Based on this analytical

framework, Lero are conducting case studies at companies to identify the key

challenges, which will assist in

formulating new approaches to software

development that can integrate

crowdsourcing as a systematic strategy.

Task

Decomposition

How to decompose a software system effectively to enable crowdsourcing?

Coordination and communication

How to coordinate among the potentially large workforce – the crowd – and keeping communication overhead to a minimum? Planning and

Scheduling

How to effectively plan and schedule crowdsourcing contests, ensuring timely delivery of the various parts of a product?

Quality Assurance How to ensure that the quality of crowdsourced deliverables is

sufficient to integrate into the main product? Knowledge and

Intellectual Property

How to facilitate a process where crowdworkers can build up knowledge of the product domain?

How to protect intellectual property? Motivation and

Remuneration

How to decide the right price for a contest?

How to motivate crowd developers to participate and thus ensure sufficient submissions for a contest?

Key concerns in Crowdsourcing Software Development

C

Selected Work

Stol K, Fitzgerald B (working paper) Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd: A

Case Study of Crowdsourcing Software Development

Copilot'Selec+on' Design' • Studio' • Conceptualiza0on1 • Architecture1 1 Development' • Component1 development11 • Assembly1 • Test1Suites1 Crowd1 Catalog1 database1 UI1Development' • UI1Prototype1 • Rich1Internet1 Applica0on1Build1 • Content1Crea0on1 QA'&'Maintenance' • Test1Scenarios1 • Bug1Race1 •  Specification •  Component design •  Bug Hunt

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Software Ecosystems

global development in the software landscape is that of software ecosystems. Software product development no longer takes place is in isolation, but in a complex network of various stakeholders, such as keystone companies (e.g. Apple), third-party plug-in (“app”) developers, and customers who can compose a solution consisting of the various building blocks. Lero researchers develop frameworks to help companies better understand how to benefit from such value networks.

Companies are making the transition from software product lines to software ecosystems for two key reasons:

• First, the company may realise that the amount of functionality that needs

to be developed to satisfy customer needs is far more that what can built in-house

• Second, the trend towards mass customisation drives the needs for

significant R&D investment for successful software applications

Lero’s Approach

Lero’s research has resulted in a framework that can help companies to establish a sound strategy that considers not only technical aspects but also business and governance aspects. Based on the framework that has been developed, our future focus is to improve several Ecosystem qualities, including:

• the speed of innovation, deployment, replication, evolution, and

commodification of software assets (e.g., functions, products, and services) in the Ecosystem;

• the mobility of software assets within the Ecosystem;

• the accessibility of the Ecosystem for new and existing partners;

• the cost of new product and service development;

• the quality of decisions by Ecosystem partner

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Governance Business Model Technology Keystone company Managing and coordinating the ecosystem Identity change needed without  losing revenue Technology asset management External Developers Concern about “fair treatment” and  opportunisti c behavior by others Finding a viable business model that pays off. High dependency on technology from  keystone company (vendor lock-in) Customers Influence (“power”) on ecosystem management Potential danger of increased cost of end- solution due to potential market “monopoly” of keystone player Responsible for composing the overall product rather than receiving a pre- integrated solution

Selected Work

Morgan L, Stol K (working paper) A Research Framework for Capturing

Stakeholders and Concerns for Software Ecosystems

Framework to capture software ecosystem stakeholders and their concerns

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Lean Software Development

ean Thinking has caused a paradigm shift in global manufacturing, and the principles of Lean Thinking can also be applied to software development. While lean is often used as a synonym to agile, lean represents a different school of thought with great potential for complete enterprise transformations. One area of research that Lero researchers focus on is Waste Reduction, the removal of all unnecessary work

Lero’s Approach

• Focus on improving flow of work in teams and organizations. This involves

the identification of impediments of flow, and the development of core metrics to measure and manage those impediments.

• Adapting the Lean concept of Waste to software product development. As

part of the research on reducing waste in software development, we developed a framework to increase awareness of the various types of waste that can occur.

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Selected Publications

Power K (2010) Refactoring the Organization. In First International Conference on

Lean Enterprise Software and Systems

Power K (2011) Using Silent Grouping to Size User Stories. In Agile Processes in

Software Engineering and Extreme Programming 12th International Conference.

Drury M, Conboy K, Power K (2012) Obstacles to decision making in Agile software

development teams, Journal of Systems and Software

Extra&Features& • Features&that&are&not&wanted& • Do&not&have&an&economically&jus9fied& need& Handovers& • Includes&tacit&knowledge&lost&when&work& is&handed&off&between&people&or&groups& • Causes&delays.& Failure&Demand& • Demand&created&on&our&system&because& of&something&we&did&wrong,&or&failed&to& do.&& • Includes&Defects,&Technical&Debt,&Work& caused&by&poor&docs&or&service& Work&In&Progress& • Work&that&does&not&yet&meet&its& Defini9on&of&Done& • Hides&problems& Task&Switching& • Waste&caused&by&working&on&mul9ple& tasks&at&the&same&9me&and&the&9me&lost& in&switching&between&them.& • Decreases&produc9vity.& Unnecessary&Mo9on& • Difficult&to&see&in&soMware&development.& OMen&caused&by&inaOen9on&to&team& environment&and&workspace&layout,&e.g.,& teams&not&coPlocated& Unmet&Human&Poten9al& • Underu9liza9on&of&people&and&in& par9cular&their&ideas&and&crea9ve&input& to&make&improvements& Extra&Processes& • Aspects&of&the&process&used&by&the&team,& or&mandated&by&the&organiza9on,&that& do&not&add&value.&&& • Process&that&cause&knowledge&to&be&lost,& forcing&relearning&to&occur.&& Delays& • Slow&down&or&inhibit&movement& • Slow&down&feedback&and&hinder&learning& • The&fastest&learner&wins&(Ries)& • Can&occur&anywhere&along&Value&Stream& Framework for identifying and managing waste in Software Development.

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Project Portfolio Management

arge organisations can have hundreds of projects running simultaneously

and managing those projects can be challenging. Projects may start, stop or be cancelled as company roadmaps and strategies evolve. Lero researchers offer models and metrics to help identify challenges and measure strategic alignment for dynamic portfolios.

There has been an overwhelming focus on project management, but not on

portfolio management. Success of individual projects does not necessarily result in a strategic portfolio success; in fact, we can observe tensions between project and portfolio. Furthermore, there is a lack of appropriate IT portfolio metrics and tools to effectively measure and manage portfolios.

Lero’s Approach

Lero’s approach focuses on three aspects of portfolio management:

1. Identification of challenges and solutions to address those challenges for managing software project portfolios.

2. Measurement of strategic alignment

3. Development of project portfolio management simulations for training purposes.

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Selected Work

O'Dwyer O, Conboy K, Lang M (2013) A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Clan Control in

ISD Project Teams, 21st European Conference on Information Systems

McHugh O, Conboy K, Lang M (2012) Agile Practices: The Impact on Trust in Software Project

Teams,IEEE Software

McHugh O, Hogan M (2011) Investigating the rationale for adopting an internationally-recognised

project management methodology in Ireland: The view of the project manager,International Journal of Project Management

Sweetman R, O’Dwyer O, Conboy K (2012) How to Manage Effectively in a Multi-Project

Environment,The Engineers Journal

Project 1 Project 2 Portfolio Project 3 Project 4 Planned completion of projects in a portfolio Story Points Project 5 Project 7 Project 6 Project 8 Planned and actual portfolio

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Business Value of Big Data Analytics

ig Data is Big – data is generated everywhere and by everyone. Companies have an increasing focus on Cloud Computing, storing data in the cloud as well as computing in the cloud (with a need to transfer the results – data – back to clients), but the rise of social networks have also contributed to an increase of data. Some statistics to characterize Big Data:

• 42% of companies have invested in Big Data

• 15 million jobs are expected by 2015

• 2,7 Billion Tera-Bytes of data available

No fewer than 80% of Executives have cited the need for better real-time analytics and improvement in converting those data into actionable intelligence – that is, convert data into information based on which decisions can be made.

Lero’s Approach

Lero’s approach to establishing and optimizing business value using Big Data analytics is organised around three strands:

1. Data analytics for task effort estimation 2. New techniques for Social Network Analytics

3. Value assessment of the European mobile App economy

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Selected Work

Dabrowski M, Griffin K, Passant A (2011) Approaches for real-time

integration of Semantic Web data in distributed enterprise systems, 5th IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing (ICSC)

Big Data Capability 1 Big Data Capability 2 Big Data Capability 3 Big Data Capability 4 Big Data Capability 5 Big Data Capability 6 Big Data Capability 7 Big Data Capability 8 Company A Company B Company C Company D Company E Industry Average Evaluated Company

Assessment using a radar plot to establish “Big Data”

capabilities to facilitate

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