Ebook: Value-Based Software Engineering

Ross Jeffery When, as a result of pressure from the CEO, the Chief Information Officer poses the question “Just what is this information system worth to the organization?” the IT staff members are typically at a loss. “That’s a difficult question,” they might say; or “well it really depends” is another answer. Clearly, neither of these is very satisfactory and yet both are correct. The IT community has struggled with qu- tions concerning the value of an organization’s investment in software and ha- ware ever since it became a significant item in organizational budgets. And like all questions concerning value, the first step is the precise determination of the object being assessed and the second step is the identification of the entity to which the value is beneficial. In software engineering both of these can be difficult. The p- cise determination of the object can be complex. If it is an entire information s- tem in an organizational context that is the object of interest, then boundary defi- tion becomes an issue. Is the hardware and middleware to be included? Can the application exist without any other applications? If however the object of interest is, say, a software engineering activity such as testing within a particular project, then the boundary definition becomes a little easier. But the measure of benefit may become a little harder.

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The IT community has always struggled with questions concerning the value of an organization’s investment in software and hardware. It is the goal of value-based software engineering (VBSE) to develop models and measures of value which are of use for managers, developers and users as they make tradeoff decisions between, for example, quality and cost or functionality and schedule – such decisions must be economically feasible and comprehensible to the stakeholders with differing value perspectives. VBSE has its roots in work on software engineering economics, pioneered by Barry Boehm in the early 1980s. However, the emergence of a wider scope that defines VBSE is more recent. VBSE extends the merely technical ISO software engineering definition with elements not only from economics, but also from cognitive science, finance, management science, behavioural sciences, and decision sciences, giving rise to a truly multi-disciplinary framework.

Biffl and his co-editors invited leading researchers and structured their contributions into three parts, following an introduction into the area by Boehm himself. They first detail the foundations of VBSE, followed by a presentation of state-of-the-art methods and techniques. The third part demonstrates the benefits of VBSE through concrete examples and case studies.

This book deviates from the more anecdotal style of many management-oriented software engineering books and so appeals particularly to all readers who are interested in solid foundations for high-level aspects of software engineering decision making, i.e. to product or project managers driven by economics and to software engineering researchers and students.

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The IT community has always struggled with questions concerning the value of an organization’s investment in software and hardware. It is the goal of value-based software engineering (VBSE) to develop models and measures of value which are of use for managers, developers and users as they make tradeoff decisions between, for example, quality and cost or functionality and schedule – such decisions must be economically feasible and comprehensible to the stakeholders with differing value perspectives. VBSE has its roots in work on software engineering economics, pioneered by Barry Boehm in the early 1980s. However, the emergence of a wider scope that defines VBSE is more recent. VBSE extends the merely technical ISO software engineering definition with elements not only from economics, but also from cognitive science, finance, management science, behavioural sciences, and decision sciences, giving rise to a truly multi-disciplinary framework.

Biffl and his co-editors invited leading researchers and structured their contributions into three parts, following an introduction into the area by Boehm himself. They first detail the foundations of VBSE, followed by a presentation of state-of-the-art methods and techniques. The third part demonstrates the benefits of VBSE through concrete examples and case studies.

This book deviates from the more anecdotal style of many management-oriented software engineering books and so appeals particularly to all readers who are interested in solid foundations for high-level aspects of software engineering decision making, i.e. to product or project managers driven by economics and to software engineering researchers and students.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages I-XXII
Value-Based Software Engineering: Overview and Agenda....Pages 3-14
An Initial Theory of Value-Based Software Engineering....Pages 15-37
Valuation of Software Initiatives Under Uncertainty: Concepts, Issues, and Techniques....Pages 39-66
Preference-Based Decision Support in Software Engineering....Pages 67-89
Risk and the Economic Value of the Software Producer....Pages 91-105
Value-Based Software Engineering: Seven Key Elements and Ethical Considerations....Pages 109-132
Stakeholder Value Proposition Elicitation and Reconciliation....Pages 133-154
Measurement and Decision Making....Pages 155-177
Criteria for Selecting Software Requirements to Create Product Value: An Industrial Empirical Study....Pages 179-200
Collaborative Usability Testing to Facilitate Stakeholder Involvement....Pages 201-223
Value-Based Management of Software Testing....Pages 225-244
Decision Support for Value-Based Software Release Planning....Pages 247-261
ProSim/RA — Software Process Simulation in Support of Risk Assessment....Pages 263-286
Tailoring Software Traceability to Value-Based Needs....Pages 287-308
Value-Based Knowledge Management: the Contribution of Group Processes....Pages 309-325
Quantifying the Value of New Technologies for Software Development....Pages 327-344
Valuing Software Intellectual Property....Pages 345-366
Back Matter....Pages 367-388

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The IT community has always struggled with questions concerning the value of an organization’s investment in software and hardware. It is the goal of value-based software engineering (VBSE) to develop models and measures of value which are of use for managers, developers and users as they make tradeoff decisions between, for example, quality and cost or functionality and schedule – such decisions must be economically feasible and comprehensible to the stakeholders with differing value perspectives. VBSE has its roots in work on software engineering economics, pioneered by Barry Boehm in the early 1980s. However, the emergence of a wider scope that defines VBSE is more recent. VBSE extends the merely technical ISO software engineering definition with elements not only from economics, but also from cognitive science, finance, management science, behavioural sciences, and decision sciences, giving rise to a truly multi-disciplinary framework.

Biffl and his co-editors invited leading researchers and structured their contributions into three parts, following an introduction into the area by Boehm himself. They first detail the foundations of VBSE, followed by a presentation of state-of-the-art methods and techniques. The third part demonstrates the benefits of VBSE through concrete examples and case studies.

This book deviates from the more anecdotal style of many management-oriented software engineering books and so appeals particularly to all readers who are interested in solid foundations for high-level aspects of software engineering decision making, i.e. to product or project managers driven by economics and to software engineering researchers and students.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages I-XXII
Value-Based Software Engineering: Overview and Agenda....Pages 3-14
An Initial Theory of Value-Based Software Engineering....Pages 15-37
Valuation of Software Initiatives Under Uncertainty: Concepts, Issues, and Techniques....Pages 39-66
Preference-Based Decision Support in Software Engineering....Pages 67-89
Risk and the Economic Value of the Software Producer....Pages 91-105
Value-Based Software Engineering: Seven Key Elements and Ethical Considerations....Pages 109-132
Stakeholder Value Proposition Elicitation and Reconciliation....Pages 133-154
Measurement and Decision Making....Pages 155-177
Criteria for Selecting Software Requirements to Create Product Value: An Industrial Empirical Study....Pages 179-200
Collaborative Usability Testing to Facilitate Stakeholder Involvement....Pages 201-223
Value-Based Management of Software Testing....Pages 225-244
Decision Support for Value-Based Software Release Planning....Pages 247-261
ProSim/RA — Software Process Simulation in Support of Risk Assessment....Pages 263-286
Tailoring Software Traceability to Value-Based Needs....Pages 287-308
Value-Based Knowledge Management: the Contribution of Group Processes....Pages 309-325
Quantifying the Value of New Technologies for Software Development....Pages 327-344
Valuing Software Intellectual Property....Pages 345-366
Back Matter....Pages 367-388
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