An experiment measuring the effects of personal software process (PSP) training

Abstract

The Personal Software Process is a process improvement methodology aiming at individual software engineers. It claims to improve software quality in particular defect content, effort estimation capability, and process adaptation and improvement capabilities. We have tested some of these claims in an experiment comparing the performance of participants who had just previously received a PSP course to a di erent group of participants who had received other technical training instead. Each participant of both groups performed the same task. We found the following positive e ects: The PSP group estimated their productivity though not their e ort more accurately, made fewer trivial mistakes, and their programs performed more careful error-checking; further, the performance variability w as smaller in the PSP group in various respects. However, the improvements are smaller than the PSP proponents usually assume, possibly due to the low actual usage of PSP techniques in the PSP group. We conjecture that PSP training alone does not automatically realize the PSP's potential bene ts as seen in some industrial PSP success stories when programmers are left alone with motivating themselves to actually use the PSP techniques.

Attributes Contributing to Students' Use of Quality Software Development Practices

“…For process improvement some students indicated that they would spend more time on creating effective designs, and need to learn the skill to do effective reviews to pick up defects earlier in the life cycle. Participants in Prechelt and Unger's (2000) study made almost identical remarks. In McAlpin and Liu's (1995) study the programmers' software quality increased because they were motivated to spend more time on designs and reviews.…”

“…In an attempt to test the process improvement claims of PSP, Prechelt and Unger (2000) conducted an experiment to compare the performance of PSP-trained programmers (P-group) and non-PSP trained programmers (N-group). They report that 18 of the 24 P-group participants did not use PSP techniques at all.…”

“…They report that 18 of the 24 P-group participants did not use PSP techniques at all. Prechelt and Unger (2000) claim that the low level of PSP usage might be explained by the "different temperaments of the programmers", the small size of the PSP tasks as well as the absence of "a working environment which actively encourages PSP usage" (p. 471). They call for further investigations into the technical, social and organisational attributes (beyond the level of training and infrastructure provided) that might influence the use of PSP methods.…”

VDM over PSP: a pilot course for VDM beginners to confirm its suitability for their development

“…The PSP includes the following techniques [13]: measuring product and process (In particular, they report time log, defect log and software size), recording the data into forms along with the process script, and analyzing the data. During the introductory programming course using the PSP [8] , PSP learners learn the above techniques.…”

Jasmine: A PSP Supporting Tool

“…The PSP provides a set of methods and practices to assist individual software developers to improve product and process quality such as defined and measurable process, size and effort estimation based on historical data, code and design review, precise designs, process quality measures, detailed plan, and earned value tracking. While the PSP has been proved as an effective way to improve the accuracy of effort estimation and to reduce defects in case studies [13,14,15], its manual data recording and paperbased process guide act as barriers in following the PSP process.…”