Building quality into scientific software

Abstract

This paper has developed from the SoFEA project at The Open University which is studying the non-technical aspects of quality in software. This involves seeing the technical elements of software development as very much part of a wider context. The culture of an organization as a whole, particularly its management strategies, are regarded as driving and shaping the technology. A particular challenge for management we have observed is how to harmonize a skilled individualist (affectionately dubbed a 'maverick') and a quality management system. We explore the characteristics of an individualist programmer and discuss the options for managing such a person. Some of the experiences of a scientific organization are reported.

Ethnographically-informed empirical studies of software practice

“…Similarly, in our work on software quality, we did not expect to Wnd a particular problem around the role of a maverick individual, but only discovered that this was an issue while collecting our data. In this case, we then developed potential solutions to the problem in consultation with one of our collaborators, and informed by our studies [19].…”

“…These studies have concentrated on four diVerent areas: the adoption and evolution of software quality management systems [19,45], the emergence of object technology [42], the particular problems of professional end-user developers [36,37] and agile software development, particularly eXtreme Programming (XP) teams [30,31,41]. The Wndings from these studies have provided insight into the social dimensions that are an intrinsic part of software development, including shared values, assumptions and beliefs, and the inXuence of particular individuals.…”

Tensions around the adoption and evolution of software quality management systems: a discourse analytic approach

“…We have used qualitative data collection and analysis. Our analyses so far have underlined the importance of involving influential developers in the production of the SQMS (Hovenden et al, 1996), discussed observations on the effect an organization's culture may have on attitudes to software quality , and presented some reflections on the implications for software engineers of our interdisciplinary approach (Sharp et al, 2000).…”

Organizational and customer related challenges of software testing: An empirical study in 11 software companies

“…According to Hovenden et al [1], quality is a result of many factors, including people, tools, methods, processes, management, techniques and quality assurance, working together to accomplish quality goals. The quality management system should address situations that relate to resources, customers and the environment in which the software is developed, from design to specification, coding and testing.…”

“…Software quality construction is a complex socialtechnical process through which software quality is implemented into the software product throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC) [1]. According to Hovenden et al [1], quality is a result of many factors, including people, tools, methods, processes, management, techniques and quality assurance, working together to accomplish quality goals.…”