Tips and hints for an effective cosmic learning process gained from industrial trainings sanae saadaoui

Tips and Hints for an effective COSMIC learning Process gained from Industrial Trainings

Sanae Saadaoui, Annick Majchrowski, Christophe Ponsard

IWSM Mensura 2015 Poland, Cracow 5-7.10.2015

© CETIC – www.cetic.be 06/10/2014 2

So$ware & System

Engineering

Futur Internet

Internet of Things

CETIC: An ICT technology Transfer Center

•  Process & Product Quality •  Requirement engineering •  OpAmizaAon •  Modelling •  Security

•  Cloud CompuAng •  SemanAc Web •  Big Data •  Open Source & Open Data

•  Programmable Systems •  Smart Objects •  Wireless Sensor Network


Structure of the presentation

•  General context of the COSMIC trainings – Audience – ObjecAves – OrganisaAon

•  Highlighted issues •  RecommendaAons on how to address issues •  Conclusion and related work

GENERAL CONTEXT OF THE COSMIC TRAININGS

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Audience of trainings

Industrials with different profiles: •  Different domains: ReArement, banking, So$ware companies, space

•  Different size : small, medium and big companies •  Different maturity level: low, medium and high •  Different business goals and expectaAons


Objectives of the trainings Different companies with different needs •  A more suited measurement method

– Get an introducAon to discover COSMIC •  Adopt and implement COSMIC measurement

– Master COSMIC and pracAce •  Use of COSMIC mandatory (Customer requirement, call of tender) – Learn to direct pracAce in call of tender


Trainings organisation

•  Group sessions – Theory: COSMIC concepts with academic examples and general exercises

– PracDce: Customized cases studies based on projects, documents and reports from the trained company

•  Help understand the culture of the company and speak the same language

• MoDvate trainees to use and pracAce directly

•  Individual trainings: Coaching sessions a$er group sessions –  PracAce on real work master the method


A Company profile example

•  Banking systems •  Big company, medium maturity level •  Regular submissions for call of tenders •  Challenges

–  offshore divisions, In Europe & outside Europe: lack of a standardized measurement method è difficulty in comparing projects è High costs & waste of Ame

•  Business objecAves related to COSMIC: –  Implement a standardized measurement method in all divisions –  A compeDDve advantage


Characteristics of industrial trainings

HIGHLIGHTED ISSUES

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Understanding Software functional size-1

•  A recurrent quesAon: “Why funcAonal size is a good esAmaAon of so$ware size ? It doesn't count all aspects of SW”

•  Trainees roles and relevance to measurement tasks – Developer's role: more focused on technical aspects and no helicopter view of the project

– Small companies: person play different roles (PM, analyst, developer) in the same project; and in general more focused on development tasks

•  Difficulty to think in terms of requirements anlysis and get distance from technical aspects


Understanding Software functional size-2

•  Psychological resistance: Habits are hard to change –  tendency to think « how will be the size? » In terms of lines of code, to validate the funcAonal size

– My experience tell me it should be bigger / smaller…

– Melt COSMIC method with personal judgment based esAmaAon method


Non-functional requirements (NFRs)

•  NFRs are not counted by the COSMIC method – Difficult to agree on that funcAonal size is a good measure for projects with many NFRs

•  A smarter NFRs analysis shows many NFRs may evolve to funcAonal requirements and be counted –  Issue related to requirement analysis experAse –  Issue o$en met in low maturity companies

•  Real NFRs won’t be counted – Related to COSMIC method


Level of granularity

•  Difficulty to understand the level of granularity concept –  In COSMIC: One standard measurement level of granularity = “Where individual processes & and their data movement can be idenAfied and defined”

–  How to be sure the good level of granularity is reached? –  O$en, requirements documents with many levels of details (different modelling/requirement methods)

•  Lack of standard language: Requirements/COSMIC •  Complexity of COSMIC measurement task/method •  Complexity of requirements analysis task


Identifying data groups and data movement

•  COSMIC Measurement process: idenAfy data groups and funcAonal processes and funcAonal sub-‐processes (data movement types and data manipulaAon)

•  Difficulty to think of data movement of data group instead of ajributes separately

•  Psychological resistance and development tasks influence – “with ajributes, the count should be correct, because in my experience …”


Development Effort estimation

•  Most companies interested in development effort esAmaAon in Man-‐Months

•  Difficulty to go from CFP to MM – Lack of a standardized way – Need of real data (use of a repository ISBSG) – Lack of a structured project management method to help get numbers


Summary of identified issues

•  Issues related to COSMIC concepts – DefiniAon highly improved through the different COSMIC versions

– Complexity of the method also related to requirement analysis task

•  Issues related requirement engineering aspects – Lack of a structured/standard requirement analysis method

– Low of maturity in so$ware pracAces


Summary of higlighted issues

•  Issues related to project management issues – Lack of a high view of the project – Assign adapted role for measurement tasks to get distance from technical and development tasks

•  Issues related to psychological resistance – Change resistance – Tendancy to use unconsciously personal judgment while measuring with COSMIC method


Maturity level impact

A clear correlaAon between low maturity level of a company and the number of issues met during the

trainings

HOW TO ADDRESS IDENTIFIED ISSUES ?

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Recommendations

•  Enhance maturity level to limit impact of highlighted issues

•  Integrate requirement engineering and project management concepts into trainings

•  Re-‐design of COSMIC trainings to include first points

•  Address psychological aspects


Re-design of trainings

•  Define a global long term training process – Different successive levels to match the maturity and goals of the company • Use of coaching to speed up the learning

– Leave 3 to 6 months between trainings sessions (levels) •  Take Ame to assimilate the training and pracAce it • Give Ame to the company (if necessary) to adapt its processes


Training levels-1

Basic level •  addresses two points:

– Acquire fundamentals of requirements and project management and why it is important to measure

– Learn the principals of the COSMIC method

•  Main target: low maturity companies


Training levels - 2

Intermediate level •  More in depth concepts, focus on special cases,

group work •  Goal: be able to apply the learning in most cases •  Main target:

–  companies o$en using in-‐house methods and conscious about need of standardized methods

–  Companies with basic level training


Training levels -3

Advance level

•  Deep understanding of the method: theory and pracAces

•  Be able to use it in all situaAons •  Focus on complex case studies addressing real complex situaAons

•  Targets: – companies already using some other measurement methods and aware of their problems and needs

– Compangnies with level 2 training


Assess maturity level

•  Assess the maturity level of the company before deciding on the training level

– Through the lightweight ISO29110 quesAonnaire (SW pracAces for VSE)

–  If possible, improve first the maturity level on SW development

•  Requirement analysis and modelling •  Implement ISO29110 pracAces


Phsychological aspects

•  Improve moAvaAon and make sure people feel engaged in the same way

–  idenAfy potenAal causes (role, background etc.) Important to understand the companies context before training

•  Can be idenAfied through the ISO29110 quesAonnaire

– Use of real cases for pracAce is a strong moAvaAon tool


Future and related work

•  What next ? – Validate and Improve the training design through a survey

•  Provide efficient tools to support and ease the whole process: from requirements gathering to measurement – Based on the KAOS methodology (goal-‐oriented requirement methodology)

– Map to the COSMIC method – A First prototype has been developed recently


A automated measurement tool

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