The influence of organizational structure on software quality

Nagappan, Nachiappan; Murphy, Brendan; Basili, Victor R.

doi:10.1145/1368088.1368160

Cited by 304 publications

(267 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…They studied the Windows Vista code base and found that the physical distance did not contribute negatively to a large extent to the quality of the software products in term of postrelease defects. This result exhibits the differences in the organizational structure of companies [Nagappan, Murphy, and Basili, 2008], but it might change in an outsourcing context where several companies develop or maintain differ- …”

Section: Industrial Evidence Of the Scm Reference Modelmentioning

confidence: 95%

Managing software development information in global configuration management activities

Capilla

Dueñas

Krikhaar³

2012

Systems Engineering

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Software Configuration Management (SCM) techniques have been considered the entry point to rigorous software engineering, where multiple organizations cooperate in a decentralized mode to save resources, ensure the quality of the diversity of software products, and manage corporate information to get a better return of investment. The incessant trend of Global Software Development (GSD) and the complexity of implementing a correct SCM solution grow not only because of the changing circumstances, but also because of the interactions and the forces related to GSD activities. This paper addresses the role SCM plays in the development of commercial products and systems, and introduces a SCM reference model to describe the relationships between the different technical, organizational, and product concerns any software development company should support in the global market.

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Section: Industrial Evidence Of the Scm Reference Modelmentioning

confidence: 95%

Managing software development information in global configuration management activities

Capilla

Dueñas

Krikhaar³

2012

Systems Engineering

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“…For example, Nagappan et al (2008) found that there is a strong link between the software development organizational structure and code quality. In GSD contexts, organizational structures are often characterized by distributed or dispersed teams, which can make work challenging.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Handover of managerial responsibilities in global software development: a case study of source code evolution and quality

2014

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Context: Studies report on the negative effect on quality in global software development (GSD) due to communication and coordination related challenges. However, empirical studies reporting on the magnitude of the effect are scarce. Research Method: This paper presents findings from an embedded explanatory case study on the change in quality over time, across multiple releases, for products that were developed in a GSD setting. The GSD setting involved periods of distributed development between geographically dispersed sites as well as a handover of project management responsibilities between the involved sites. Investigations were performed on two medium-sized products from a company that is part of a large multinational corporation. Quality is investigated quantitatively using defect data, and measures that quantify two source code properties, size and complexity. Observations were triangulated with subjective views from company representatives. Results and Findings: There were no observable indications that the distribution of work or handover of project management responsibilities had an impact on quality on both products. Among the product-, process-, and people-related success factors, we identified welldesigned product architectures, early handover planning, support from the sending site to the receiving site after the handover, and skilled employees at the involved sites. Overall, these results can be useful input for decision-makers who are considering distributing development work between globally dispersed sites or handing over project management responsibilities from one site to another. Moreover, our study shows that analyzing the evolution of size and complexity properties of a product's source code can provide valuable information to support decision-making during similar projects. Finally, the strategy used by the company to relocate responsibilities can also be considered as an alternative for software transfers, which have been linked with a decline in efficiency, productivity and quality.

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“…al. [63] defined a metric suite to quantify the complexity of organizations consisting of many teams of software professionals working together. The authors built a model to predict the failure proneness of Windows Vista.…”

Section: People Related Metrics In Software Defect Predictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of confirmation biases of developers on software quality: an empirical study

Çalıklı

Bener

2012

Software Qual J

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The thought processes of people have a significant impact on software quality, as software is designed, developed and tested by people. Cognitive biases, which are defined as deviations of human mind from the laws of logic and mathematics, are likely to cause software defects. However, there is little empirical evidence to date to substantiate this assertion. In this research, we focus on a specific cognitive bias type called confirmation bias, which is defined as the tendency of people to seek for evidence to verify hypotheses rather than seeking for evidence to falsify them. Due to confirmation bias, developers might perform unit tests to make their program work rather than to break. Hence, confirmation bias is believed to be one of the factors that lead to increased software defect density. In this research, we present a metric scheme to explore the impact of developers' confirmation bias on software defect density. In order to estimate effectiveness of our metric scheme in quantification of confirmation bias within the context of software development, we performed an empirical study that addressed the prediction of the defective parts of software. In our empirical study, we used confirmation bias metrics on five datasets obtained from two companies. Our results provide empirical evidence that human thought processes and cognitive aspects deserve further investigation to improve decision making in software development for effective process management and resource allocation.

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The influence of organizational structure on software quality

Cited by 304 publications

References 34 publications

Managing software development information in global configuration management activities

Managing software development information in global configuration management activities

Handover of managerial responsibilities in global software development: a case study of source code evolution and quality

Influence of confirmation biases of developers on software quality: an empirical study

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