A database for publications published by researchers and students at SimulaMet.
Research area
Journal articles
Agile Uncertainty Assessment for Benefit Points and Story Points
IEEE Software 36, no. 4 (2019): 50-62.Status: Published
Agile Uncertainty Assessment for Benefit Points and Story Points
Estimates are inherently uncertain, and it’s fair to expect that business value estimates are even more so. By making this uncertainty explicit, you can manage and monitor your agile project according to upper and lower margins of uncertainty. The trick is to instantiate benefit points and story points with values reflecting various scenarios.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Journal | IEEE Software |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pagination | 50--62 |
| Date Published | 10/2018 |
| Publisher | IEEE Computer Society |
Relations between Project Size, Agile Practices and Successful Software Development
IEEE Software 36, no. 2 (2019): 39-43.Status: Published
Relations between Project Size, Agile Practices and Successful Software Development
The use of agile methods in the execution of large-scale software development is increasing. To find out more about the effect of this on project performance, information was collected about 196 Norwegian IT-projects. Increased project size was associated with decreased project performance for both agile and non-agile projects, but the projects using agile methods had better performance than the non-agile projects for all examined project size categories. Flexible scope, frequent deliveries to production, a high degree of requirement changes and more competent providers are candidates to explain the better performance of agile projects.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Journal | IEEE Software |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pagination | 39-43 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
Evaluating Probabilistic Software Development Effort Estimates Maximizing Informativeness Subject to Calibration
Information and Software Technology (2019).Status: Accepted
Evaluating Probabilistic Software Development Effort Estimates Maximizing Informativeness Subject to Calibration
Context: Probabilistic effort estimates inform about the uncertainty and may give useful input to plans, budgets and investment analyses. Objective & Method: This paper introduces, motivates and illustrates two principles on how to evaluate the accuracy and other performance criteria of probabilistic effort estimates in software development contexts. Results: The first principle emphasizes a consistency between the estimation error measure and the loss function of the chosen type of probabilistic single point effort estimates. The second principle points at the importance of not just measuring calibration, but also informativeness of estimated prediction intervals and distributions. The relevance of the evaluation principles is illustrated by a performance evaluation of estimates from twenty-eight software professionals using two different uncertainty assessment methods to estimate the effort of the same thirty software maintenance tasks.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Journal | Information and Software Technology |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
Sequence effects in the estimation of software development effort
Journal of Systems and Software (2019).Status: Accepted
Sequence effects in the estimation of software development effort
Currently, little is known about how much the sequence in which software development tasks or projects are estimated affects judgment-based effort estimates. To gain more knowledge, we examined estimation sequence effects in two experiments. In the first experiment, 362 software professionals estimated the effort of three large tasks of similar sizes, whereas in the second experiment 104 software professionals estimated the effort of four large and five small tasks. The sequence of the tasks was randomised in both experiments. The first experiment, with tasks of similar size, showed a mean increase of 10% from the first to the second and a 3% increase from the second to the third estimate. The second experiment showed that estimating a larger task after a smaller one led to a mean decrease in the estimate of 24%, and that estimating a smaller task after a larger one led to a mean increase of 25%. There was no statistically significant reduction in the sequence effect with higher competence. We conclude that more awareness about how the estimation sequence affects the estimates may reduce potentially harmful estimation biases. In particular, it may reduce the likelihood of a bias towards too low effort estimates.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Journal | Journal of Systems and Software |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
Posters
Efficient Processing of Medical Videos in a Multi-auditory Environment Using Gpu Lending
NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference (GTC), 2019.Status: Published
Efficient Processing of Medical Videos in a Multi-auditory Environment Using Gpu Lending
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | No Simula project, Department of Holistic Systems |
| Publication Type | Poster |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Place Published | NVIDIA's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) |
Proceedings, refereed
Experiences of studying Attention through EEG in the Context of Review Tasks
In the Evaluation and AssessmentProceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment on Software Engineering - EASE '19. Copenhagen, DenmarkNew York, New York, USA: ACM Press, 2019.Status: Published
Experiences of studying Attention through EEG in the Context of Review Tasks
Context: Electroencephalograms (EEG) have been used in a few cases in the context of software engineering (SE). EEGs allow capturing emotions and cognitive functioning. Such human factors have already shown to be important to understand software engineering tasks. Therefore, it is essential to gain experience in the community to utilize EEG as a research tool. Objective: To report experiences of using EEG in the context of a software engineering education (review of master theses proposals). We provide our reflections and lessons learned of (1) how to plan an EEG study, (2) how to conduct and execute (e.g., tools), (3) how to analyze. Method: We carried out an experiment using an EEG headset to measure the participants' attention rate. The experiment task includes reviewing three master thesis project plans. Results: We describe how we evolved our understanding of experimentation practices to collect and analyze psychological and cognitive data. We also provide a set of lessons learned regarding the application of EEG technology for research. Conclusions: We believe that that EEG could benefit software engineering research to collect cognitive information under certain conditions. The lessons learned reported here should be used as inputs for future experiments in software engineering, where human aspects are of interest.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management, Simula Metropolitan Center for Digital Engineering |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Conference Name | the Evaluation and AssessmentProceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment on Software Engineering - EASE '19 |
| Publisher | ACM Press |
| Place Published | Copenhagen, DenmarkNew York, New York, USA |
| ISBN Number | 9781450371452 |
| Keywords | attention, experiment, human subjects, lectroencephalogram |
| URL | http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3319008http://dl.acm.org/citation.cf... |
| DOI | 10.1145/331900810.1145/3319008.3319357 |
FACT: a Framework for Analysis and Capture of Twitter Graphs
In The Sixth IEEE International Conference on Social Networks Analysis, Management and Security(SNAMS-2019) , 2019.Status: Accepted
FACT: a Framework for Analysis and Capture of Twitter Graphs
In the recent years, online social networks have become an important source of news and the primary place for political debates for a growing part of the population. At the same time, the spread of fake news and digital wildfires (fast- spreading and harmful misinformation) has become a growing concern worldwide, and online social networks the problem is most prevalent. Thus, the study of social networks is an essential component in the understanding of the fake news phenomenon. Of particular interest is the network connectivity between participants, since it makes communication patterns visible. These patterns are hidden in the offline world, but they have a profound impact on the spread of ideas, opinions and news. Among the major social networks, Twitter is of special interest. Because of its public nature, Twitter offers the possibility to perform research without the risk of breaching the expectation of privacy. However, obtaining sufficient amounts of data from Twitter is a fundamental challenge for many researchers. Thus, in this paper, we present a scalable framework for gathering the graph structure of follower networks, posts and profiles. We also show how to use the collected data for high-performance social network analysis.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | UMOD: Understanding and Monitoring Digital Wildfires, Department of Holistic Systems |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Conference Name | The Sixth IEEE International Conference on Social Networks Analysis, Management and Security(SNAMS-2019) |
Proceedings, refereed
Scope Creep or Embrace Change? A Survey of the Connections Between Requirement Changes, Use of Agile, and Software Project Success
In 12th International Conference on Project Management (ProMac). Tokyo, Japan: The Society of Project Management, 2018.Status: Published
Scope Creep or Embrace Change? A Survey of the Connections Between Requirement Changes, Use of Agile, and Software Project Success
Traditionally, a high degree of requirement change has been considered harmful for the success of software projects. Software professionals who use agile software development methods tend to view this topic differently. They tend to view requirement changes more as opportunities, which should be welcomed. Possibly, both views are correct but valid in different software development contexts. This paper aims at increasing the understanding of the connections between the degree of requirement change, choice of development method, and project success. Seventy software professionals were asked to provide information about their last software project. A higher degree of requirement changes, here defined as more than 30% of the requirements added, deleted, or changed during the project’s execution, was connected with a higher proportion of successful projects in an agile development context, but only when this included frequent deliveries to production. Our results consequently support that the agile claim of “embrace change” has merit, but only in agile contexts.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2018 |
| Conference Name | 12th International Conference on Project Management (ProMac) |
| Pagination | 673-689 |
| Publisher | The Society of Project Management |
| Place Published | Tokyo, Japan |
Looking back on previous estimation error as a method to improve the uncertainty assessment of benefits and costs of software development projects
In The 9th International Workshop on Empirical Software Engineering in Practice (IWESEP2018). IEEE, 2018.Status: Published
Looking back on previous estimation error as a method to improve the uncertainty assessment of benefits and costs of software development projects
Knowing the uncertainty of estimates of benefits and costs is useful when planning, budgeting and pricing projects. The traditional method for assessing such uncertainty is based on prediction intervals, e.g., asking for minimum and maximum values believed to be 90% likely to include the actual outcome. Studies report that the traditional method typically results in too narrow intervals and intervals that are too symmetric around the estimated most likely outcome when compared with the actual uncertainty of outcomes. We examine whether an uncertainty assessment method based on looking back on the previous estimation error of similar projects leads to wider and less symmetric prediction intervals. Sixty software professionals, with experience from estimating software project costs and benefits, were randomly divided into a group with a traditional or a group with a looking back-based uncertainty assessment method. We found that those using the looking back-based method had much wider prediction intervals for both costs and benefits. The software professionals of both groups provided uncertainty assessment values suggesting a left-skewed distribution for benefits and a right-skewed distribution for cost, but with much more skew among those using the looking back-based method. We argue that a looking back-based method is promising for improved realism in uncertainty assessment of benefits and costs of software development projects.
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
| Publication Type | Proceedings, refereed |
| Year of Publication | 2018 |
| Conference Name | The 9th International Workshop on Empirical Software Engineering in Practice (IWESEP2018) |
| Pagination | 19-24 |
| Publisher | IEEE |
Books
Time predictions: Understanding and avoiding unrealism in project planning and everyday life
In Simula SpringerBriefs on Computing. Switzerland: Springer, 2018.Status: Published
Time predictions: Understanding and avoiding unrealism in project planning and everyday life
| Afilliation | Software Engineering |
| Project(s) | Department of IT Management |
| Publication Type | Book |
| Year of Publication | 2018 |
| Secondary Title | Simula SpringerBriefs on Computing |
| Series Volume | 5 |
| Number of Pages | 110 |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Place Published | Switzerland |