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The surveyed companies applied hybrid development approaches to specific projects even when company-wide policies for process usage existed. These approaches emerged from the evolution of different work practices and were consistently used regardless of company size or industry sector.

The first international HELENA workshop was held co-located with the 2017 International Conference on Software and Systems Process (ICSSP). The goals of this workshop were to bring the HELENA team together, foster general networking, discuss the current state of the project, and develop a roadmap towards future activities. From the 84 researchers and practitioners from 25 active countries, 25 participated in this workshop. The overall status report shows that the HELENA survey is increasingly gaining attention, and more then 300 data points have been collected so far. The team agreed on a number of topics for future activities, e.g., organizational transformation, adaptation and evolution, and development approaches for safety-critical systems.

Context: Agile software development is widely-used by small teams and has benefits like increased transparency or faster feedback. However, companies want to benefit from Agile also in the development of big products, where multiple teams are involved. Many Scaling Agile Frameworks exist, but only few can be found in industry, especially SAFe, LeSS, and Nexus. Objective: The aim of this work is to identify commonalities of existing Scaling Agile Frameworks concerning their practices. Method: We extracted and consolidated the practices of twelve frameworks and compared the frameworks based on their practices using a visualization. Results: Frameworks prescribe scaling practices as well as practices on team level. There are practices common to most frameworks like the scaled Scrum events, e.g., a scaled planning meeting or retrospective. Conclusion: Practitioners are enabled to make informed decisions when choosing or tailoring their individual Scaling Agile Framework.

Agile is the widespread software development approach. But many projects are still working with traditional methods. In addition, non-technical business units continue working in traditional ways. Thus, problems arise on the interface of agile and traditional due to their fundamental differences. To prevent potential problems, one must be aware of the existing interfaces and common pitfalls. Based on a literature search and workshops, we identified existing interfaces, collected and grouped problems. We present the identified problems and propose a matrix that facilitates classification of interface problems. This matrix can be used to identify and classify more problems as well as understanding and preventing problems on the interface of agile and traditional.

Smaller software companies, such as start-ups do not often follow an explicit process, but rather develop in a more or less unstructured way. Especially when they grow or customer involvement increases. This development without any structured process results in problems. Thus, our objective was the improvement of the current development process of one software start-up by introducing appropriate agile practices and eliciting their effects. For this reason, we performed a pre and post process assessment using interviews. Based on the initial assessment, agile practices were selected and implemented. Finally, the post assessment and additional code metrics served as controlling mechanism to check whether weak points are addressed. The comparison of the two assessments showed that 13 ISO 29110 base practices have been improved by the introduced eight agile practices. Thus, even more aspects have casually been improved than initially planned. Finally, the additional retrospective with company employees showed how the introduced agile practices positively influenced their work.

Software and system development faces numerous challenges of rapidly changing markets. To address such challenges, companies and projects design and adopt specific development approaches by combining well-structured comprehensive methods and flexible agile practices. Yet, the number of methods and practices is large, and available studies argue that the actual process composition is carried out in a fairly ad-hoc manner. The present paper reports on a survey on hybrid software development approaches. We study which approaches are used in practice, how different approaches are combined, and what contextual factors influence the use and combination of hybrid software development approaches. Our results from 69 study participants show a variety of development approaches used and combined in practice. We show that most combinations follow a pattern in which a traditional process model serves as framework in which several fine-grained (agile) practices are plugged in. We further show that hybrid software development approaches are independent from the company size and external triggers. We conclude that such approaches are the results of a natural process evolution, which is mainly driven by experience, learning, and pragmatism.

There is the widespread belief that Agile neglects the product quality. This lack of understanding how Agile processes assure the quality of the product prevents especially companies from regulated domains from an adoption of Agile. This work aims to identify which Agile Practices contribute towards product quality. Hence, data from a survey study is analyzed to identify Agile Practices which are beneficial or harmful for the quality of the product. From 49 practices that were used in the survey so far, 36 were perceived to have a positive impact on product quality, while four practices were rated as being harmful. The results enrich understanding of how product quality can be achieved in Agile, and support selection of practices to improve quality.

Since software became a major part of the car, we were interested in identifying which agile practices are used and adapted at Bosch automotive. Therefore, we conducted a multi-case study with nine interviews from five Bosch projects. Our results showed a strong focus on Scrum. Most of the Scrum practices are adapted due to the specific project context. Practices from other agile methods, e.g. XP, are used and adapted as well. We further collected the benefits of the practices, most often resulting in improved transparency and planning. The results are used to support automotive projects in selecting and applying agile practices according to their specific process improvement goals.

For decades, Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs have been implemented, inter alia, to improve quality and speed of software development. To set up, guide, and carry out SPI projects, and to measure SPI state, impact, and success, a multitude of different SPI approaches and considerable experience are available. SPI addresses many aspects ranging from individual developer skills to entire organizations. It comprises for instance the optimization of specific activities in the software lifecycle as well as the creation of organization awareness and project culture. In the course of conducting a systematic mapping study on the state-of-the-art in SPI from a general perspective, we observed Global Software Engineering (GSE) becoming a topic of interest in recent years. Therefore, in this paper, we provide a detailed investigation of those papers from the overall systematic mapping study that were classified as addressing SPI in the context of GSE. From the main study’s result set, a set of 30 papers dealing with GSE was selected for an in-depth analysis using the systematic review instrument to study the contributions and to develop an initial picture of how GSE is considered from the perspective of SPI. Our findings show the analyzed papers delivering a substantial discussion of cultural models and how such models can be used to better address and align SPI programs with multi-national environments. Furthermore, experience is shared discussing how agile approaches can be implemented in companies working at the global scale. Finally, success factors and barriers are studied to help companies implementing SPI in a GSE context.

In software engineering, emprirical evaluations play a major role in discovering the advantages and disadvantages of newly developed methods, techniques, and tools.

In software engineering, transferring innovative concepts, techniques and methods into the practice of existing organizations is an expensive and complex task. This chapter gives an overview on the transfer of the SPES XT modeling framework to different organization.

Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs have been implemented, inter alia, to improve quality and speed of software development. SPI addresses many aspects ranging from individual developer skills to entire organizations. It comprises, for instance, the optimization of specific activities in the software lifecycle as well as the creation of organizational awareness and project culture. In the course of conducting a systematic mapping study on the state-of-the-art in SPI from a general perspective, we observed Software Quality Management (SQM) being of certain relevance in SPI programs. In this paper, we provide a detailed investigation of those papers from the overall systematic mapping study that were classified as addressing SPI in the context of SQM (including testing). From the main study’s result set, 92 papers were selected for an in-depth systematic review to study the contributions and to develop an initial picture of how these topics are addressed in SPI. Our findings show a fairly pragmatic contribution set in which different solutions are proposed, discussed, and evaluated. Among others, our findings indicate a certain reluctance towards standard quality or (test) maturity models and a strong focus on custom review, testing, and documentation techniques, whereas a set of five selected improvement measures is almost equally addressed.

Background: Technology transfer is one key to the success of research projects, especially in Software Engineering, where the (practical) impact of the outcome may depend not only on the reliability and feasibility of technologies, but also on their applicability to industrial settings. However, there is limited knowledge on the current state of practice and how to assess the success of technology transfer. Objective: We aim at elaborating a set of hypotheses on how technology transfer takes place in Software Engineering research projects. Method: We designed an exploratory survey with the participants of two large research projects in Germany, which involve both industrial and academic partners in the area of model driven development for embedded systems. Results: Base on the extracted respondents answers of this survey, we defined a resulting theory which is based on the following set of main hypothesis: Most of the technologies developed in research projects are not mature enough for a direct application, but need post-project customisation to fit the industrial contexts (H1). Common models that represent technology transfer as a transaction of an object from a transferor to a transferee does not fit industrial reality (H2). Additionally, technology transfer takes place without an explicit process (H3). Regarding transfer mediums, most used mediums are human-intensive (H5) and industry organisations gain new knowledge mainly within their own confines (H4). Finally the motivations that drive the transfer in industry and academia are heterogenous (H6). Conclusions: From the theoretical perspective, this theory and set of hypotheses extracted from the survey results will be further explored and tested in different follow-up activities. This initial set, however, already may serve as a basis for independent assessments from other researchers to collaboratively shed light on a how technology transfer takes place in Software Engineering research projects, which are the barriers, and how to improve the transfer into practice. From the practical perspective, our results may be used as a basis for an evaluation framework for the transfer of the developed technologies in our projects. This would also help companies in getting new developed technologies transfer easier to their specific context.

For years, agile methods are considered the most promising route toward successful software development, and a considerable number of published studies the successful use of agile methods and reports on the benefits companies have from adopting agile methods. Yet, since the world is not black or white, the question for what happened to the traditional models arises. Are traditional models replaced by agile methods? How is the transformation toward Agile managed, and, moreover, where did it start? With this paper we close a gap in literature by studying the general process use over time to investigate how traditional and agile methods are used. Is there coexistence or do agile methods accelerate the traditional processes' extinction? The findings of our literature study comprise two major results: First, studies and reliable numbers on the general process model use are rare, i.e., we lack quantitative data on the actual process use and, thus, we often lack the ability to ground process-related research in practically relevant issues. Second, despite the assumed dominance of agile methods, our results clearly show that companies enact context-specific hybrid solutions in which traditional and agile development approaches are used in combination.

Successful transfer of the results of research projects into practice is of great interest to all project participants. It can be assumed that different transfer mediums fulfill technology transfer (TT) with different levels of success and that they are impaired by different kinds of barriers. The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding about the different mediums used for TT in software engineering, and to identify barriers weakening the success of the application of such mediums. We conducted an exploratory study implemented by a survey in the context of a German research project with a broad range of used mediums. The main reported barriers were low expectations of usefulness, no awareness of existence, lack of resources, or inadequateness in terms of outdated material or being in an immature state. We interpreted our results as symptoms of a lack of a dissemination plan in the project. Further work will be needed to explore the implications for the transfer of research results (knowledge and techniques) to practice., Proceedings of the International Conference on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, 2015

Background: Agile software development has become a popular way of developing software. Scrum is the most frequently used agile framework, but it is often reported to be adapted in practice. Objective: Thus, we aim to understand how Scrum is adapted in different contexts and what are the reasons for these changes. Method: Using a structured interview guideline, we interviewed ten German companies about their concrete usage of Scrum and analysed the results qualitatively. Results: All companies vary Scrum in some way. The least variations are in the Sprint length, events, team size and requirements engineering. Many users varied the roles, effort estimations and quality assurance. Conclusions: Many variations constitute a substantial deviation from Scrum as initially proposed. For some of these variations, there are good reasons. Sometimes, however, the variations are a result of a previous non-agile, hierarchical organisation., Comment: 12 pages

Background: Particularly during and after research projects, technology transfer into practice plays an important role for academia to get technologies into use and for industry to improve their development. Objective: Our goal was to gain more and current knowledge about how technology transfer from software engineering (SE) research into industrial practice is accomplished best and how to measure the effectiveness of this transfer. Method: We conducted a study in the context of two German research projects, covering many different organizations from industry and academia. Results: This paper presents the design of the study and the survey performed. After introducing the concept of technology transfer we used and adapted, we present preliminary results. Conclusions: We observed that traditional means such as meetings or workshops are still the most widely used mediums for technology transfer in SE. We also discovered that, even though the duration of transfer depends on the object being transferred, the average duration is three years, which is far less than previously published (~18 years).