PAISEAN

Plan-driven, Agile, Inner-Source Environment Analysis Network

Background and justification for work programme

This project will use the research team’s understanding of the implementation of successful processes within specific software development environments (Global Software, Services, Regulated, Small to Medium Sized Enterprises) and the successful implementation of software development process models (plan-driven, inner source) within industry to develop hybrid software process models for industrial use. While, in previous Lero projects, we have carried out research into individual environments and processes, this has progressed to combining environments and processes bilaterally Ongoing research includes the development of hybrid process models combining agile with plan-driven, plan-driven with services, regulated with plan-driven and GSD with agile.

Industry involvement

This project will be industry-focused as process models to support software engineering are required in industry. However, what we see happening is that industry takes on software engineering projects and implements those ‘parts’ of the process models that suit them – often after a ‘trial and error’ implementation period. There is very little guidance on how they should choose these ‘parts’ or how they should be implemented if they are not taking their particular environment into account. In our research we discover that many companies have found it very difficult to implement processes as recommended in the standards – they have had to modify them to suit themselves. This project will provide those companies with hybrid process models which we have researched in industry and upon which we have based our developments. The majority of work packages will need industry involvement, either for the collection of data to understand what is happening in industry, or for the evaluation of the process models within industry.

Tasks

This work programme will deliver process models for use in industry which can be used in specific environments. There will be 5 specific tasks which are outlined below, and tasks proposed here will be carried out in parallel with research funded from other sources such as S-Cube, Transform and Dr. Fergal McCaffery’s SFI funded PI project[I1] .

Task 1 – Evaluation of Global Teaming and Global Teaming Project Management Models

Building on the research with the Financial Services sector within Lero to-date, this research will provide a modified Global Teaming model which focuses on the Financial Services sector. The model will support Financial Services companies in achieving financial regulatory compliance. In addition, this research will also complete the development of Global Teaming Project Management model from the vender perspective.

Task 2 - Development of Global Teaming Decision Support System

The Global Teaming model developed in Task 1 will be developed into a Decision Support System. This will make this model more accessible to industry and will provide output which can be used when companies are developing their Global Development strategy. It will also be used as input to the Lero demonstrator, the ECS (Evolving Critical Systems) Advisor.

Task 3 - Development of Inner Source Process Model

While companies are using an Inner Source development process, a model for such processes has not been published. We propose to study and understand how companies are carrying out this process, and follow this with the development of a model which can support these practices. It is envisaged that this will allow companies to implement more efficient processes.

Task 4 - Development of Inner Source / SME Process Model

This task will investigate what is currently happening within Small to Medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and using the Inner Source model developed in Task 3, we will modify and validate the model for use within the SME sector. This will give us an insight into the successful practices that are used along with the difficulties faced when organisations are developing Inner Source projects.

Task 5 - Investigation into development of Hybrid Process Model – Global Software Development / Software for Health Information Systems/ Inner Source

This task is viewed as a capstone which will pull strands of software process research together. Apart from research funded by SFI in the CSET program, current research which Dr. Ita Richardson is undertaking includes investigation of software processes for services (S-Cube), for Health Informatics (Transform) and for the Medical Device sector (PI Project – Dr. McCaffery). Thus, building on Tasks 1-4 as outlined and research funded from other sources, this task will investigate and culminate successful software processes into an initial hybrid model on which we can build further research.

Task 6 – Study of development of Process Models

When developing these different process models, we envisage that some commonalities will arise in our research and development process. We will study how each of the process models is developed, and, using formal methods, model how this is done. Our aim is to develop the basis of a tool that allows a software engineer to come up with their own hybrid process model as required, thus resulting in the automation of the future development of such models.