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Software Engineering (SU) group: general info, persons and R&D projects

Reidar Conradi, conradi@idi.ntnu.no

IDI, NTNU, Trondheim, 22. Aug. 2007

Reidar Conradi, 22.aug.07

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NTNU in short• Established as NTH in 1905, as NTNU since 1996.• Seven faculties, 53 departments.• 20 000 students, 1700 scientific personnel.• IME: Faculty of IT, Mathematics and Electrical

Engineering, five departments incl. IDI.• IDI: Dept. of Computer and Information Science,

50 teachers, 75 PhD fellows,15 researchers.• IDI: 12 PhD candidates and 150 master candidates

per year. Over 100 taught topics.• IDI: Ten research groups, incl. SU group.

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SU: Who we are – what we doIDI’s software engineering group:• Five faculty members: Reidar Conradi, Tor Stålhane, Letizia

Jaccheri, Monica Divitini, Alf Inge Wang.• Four researchers: Anna Trifonova, Sven Ziemer, Jingyue Li,

Sobah Abbas Petersen.• 16 active PhD-students, common theme: empirical software

engineering research and practise. • 30 MSc-cand. per year• Research-based education: students participate in projects,

project results are used in courses

• A dozen R&D projects, basic and industrial, in all our research fields – industry is our lab.

• Half of our papers are based on empirical research, and 25% are written with international co-authors.

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Faculty (1): prof. Reidar Conradi

• Born in Oslo, 1946• MSc (1970, NTH) and PhD (1976, NTH)• At SINTEF 1972-75, later at NTNU• Interests: software quality and process improvement,

CBSE/COTS/OSS, software architecture, versioning, research methods.

• Projects: ca. 25 before, now BUCS, SEVO, EVISOFT, norskCOSI.

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Faculty (2): prof. Tor Stålhane

• Born in Skien, 1944• MSc (1970, NTH) and PhD (1988, statistics, NTH)• At SINTEF 1970-2000, at NTNU since 1 Oct. 2000,

prof.II at HiØ since 2006.• Interests: software quality (safety and reliability),

process improvement, industrial development, data analysis, PMAs, and empirical methods

• Projects: EVISOFT, WebSys, BUCS, ...

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Faculty (3): prof. Letizia Jaccheri

• Born in Pisa, 1965• MSc (1988, Pisa) and PhD (1994, Torino+”NTNU”)• ICT companies in Pisa, 1988-90.• Politecnico di Torino, 1991-1997.• At NTNU in 1989-91, from 1997, full prof. from 2002.• Prof. II at UiO since 2005.• Interests: process improvement, OSS, software architecture,

software engineering education, empirical software engineering, software and art.

• Projects: EPOS, INCO, Empirical studies of OSS, KRITT, Sart, ESTIA-Net (EU) on females in academia, int’l master in OSS

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Faculty (4): prof. Monica Divitini

• Born in Tirano, Italy, 1964• MSc (1991, Milano), PhD (1999, Aalborg)• University of Milano 1994-97, NTNU since 1997, first as

a CAGIS postdoc 1997-99• Interests: CSCW, community-ware, mobile technology

for education.• Projects: CO2 Lab, MOTUS (Telenor R&D), FABULA

(NFR), ASTRA (EU).

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Faculty (5): ass.prof. Alf Inge Wang

• Born in Levanger, 1970• BSc (1993, HIST), MSc (1996, NTNU), PhD (2001,

NTNU), researcher (1996, 2001-2003, NTNU), ass.prof. 2003, NTNU.

• Interests: Software architecture, agents/XML, configuration management, process modelling, XP, mobile technology for work support, computer games. Also music, football and family life.

• Thesis: Agent-based process support• Project: EU projects, CAGIS, MOWAHS, computer

games (3 PhD stud. from 2007).

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Postdoc: Jingyue Li (“Bill”)

• Born in Beijing, 1974• MSc (2001, BJUT in Beijing), PhD (2006, NTNU,

advisor Conradi)• At IBM in China 2001-02• PhD fellowship at IDI 2002-06, postdoc 2006-09.• Interests: COTS/OSS, effort estimation, defect

analysis, outsourcing, empirical work• Projects: internal, INCO, SEVO, EVISOFT.

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SU motivation (0)• Software essential in many important societal activities.

50-60,000 system developers in Norway – many without formal SW education. Still many challenges wrt. software quality and delivery on time and budget; cf. [US Standish report, 1995], cited in [PITAC, 1999], on projects for tailored software:

– 31% stopped before finish, 81 bill. $ loss/year (1% of GNP!)– 53% have serious overruns (189% average), 59 bill. $/year

• Some challenges:– Web-systems: Manage time-to-market (TTM) vs. reliability?

– Component-based development (OSS, COTS): quality, risks

– Business critical systems

– How do software systems evolve over time, cf. Y2K?

– What is empirically known about software products and processes?

– How can small companies carry out systematic improvement?

– How to perform valid sw.eng. research in a university -- by student projects and having industry serving as a lab?

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Research fields of SU group (1)

• Software Quality: reliability and safety, software process improvement, process modelling

• Software Architecture: CBSE with COTS/OSS, evolution• Co-operative Work: learning, awareness, mobile technology, project

work

What is important for us:• Empirical methods and studies in industry and among students,

experience bases.• Software engineering education: partly project-based.• Tight cooperation with Simula Research Laboratory/UiO and SINTEF,

15-20 active companies: EDB, Vital, DnVS, Telenor R&D, … Abelia/IKT-Norge etc.

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Research fields of the SU group (2)

Distributed

Software Eng. Software

and Art

CBSE: COTS/OSS,Evolution, SCM

Reliability, safety

Co-operativework

SPI, learning organisations, SE

education

Software quality

Mobile technology

Software architecture

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SU research projects since 2000, part 1Supported by NFR, basic research:

1. CAGIS-2, 1999-2002: distributed learning environments, COO lab, Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland (Divitini).

2. MOWAHS, 2001-04: mobile technologies, Carl-Fredrik Sørensen (Conradi); coop. with DB group.

3. INCO, 2001-04: incr. and comp.-based development, Parastoo Mohagheghi at Ericsson (Conradi); with Simula/UiO.

4. WebSys, 2002-05: web-systems – reliability vs. time-to-market, Sven Ziemer and Jianyun Zhou (Stålhane).

5. BUCS, 2003-06: business critical software, Jon A. Børretzen, Per T. Myhrer and Torgrim Lauritsen (Stålhane and Conradi).

6. SEVO, 2004-2007: software evolution, Anita Gupta and Odd Petter

N. Slyngstad (Conradi), with Statoil-IT. 7. FABULA, 2006-09, mobile learning, Canovaca Calori (Divitini).

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SU research projects, part 2Supported by NFR, user-driven:

8. SPIQ, PROFIT, 1996-2002: industrial sw process improvement, Tore Dybå, Torgeir Dingsøyr (Conradi); with Simula/UiO, SINTEF, Abelia, and 10 companies.

9. SPIKE, 2003-05: industrial sw process improvement, Finn Olav Bjørnson (Conradi); with Simula/UiO, SINTEF, Abelia, and 10 companies - successor of SPIQ and PROFIT. Book on Springer.

10. EVISOFT, 2006-10, empirically-driven process improvement, Vital, 10 companies, Simula & SINTEF, G.K. Hanssen, NN (Conradi, Stålhane) – successor of SPIKE etc.

11. NorskCOSI, 2006-2008: OSS in Europe, IKT-Norge and three companies, C.-F. Sørensen, S. Ziemer, T. Østerlie, Øyvind Hauge

(Conradi).

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SU research projects, part 3IDI/NTNU-supported:• Software security, 2002-06: Siv Hilde Houmb (Stålhane).• Component-based development, 2002-06: OSS survey, Jingyue Li

(Conradi). • ESE/Empirical software engineering, 2003-07 (SU funds): open source

software, Thomas Østerlie (Jaccheri).• KRITT, Sart: Creative methods in education/software and art, 2003-09

(NTNU): novel educational practices, Salah Uddin Ahmed (Jaccheri).• MOTUS, 2002-2006 (NTNU), pervasive and cooperative computing, Birgit

R. Krogstie, Eli M. Morken (Divitini), Telenor R&I.• GAMES, Computer games, 2007-10,Telenor R&I and IME-faculty, NN1,

NN2, NN3 (Alf Inge Wang).

Supported from other sources:• ESERNET, 2001-03 (EU): network on Experimental Software Engineering,

no PhD, Fraunhofer IESE + 25 partners. Book on Springer.• Net-based cooperation learning, 2002-06 (HiNT): learning and

awareness, CO2 lab, Glenn Munkvold (Divitini).• ASTRA, 2006-09 (EU), awareness and mobile technology, Otto Helge

Nygård (Divitini).

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Ex. EVISOFT: Evidence-based Software Improvement

• NFR industrial R&D project, 2006-10. NTNU, SINTEF, UiO/Simula, Vital. 3 PhD stud. (NTNU, UiO), 5-10 researchers, 10 active companies. NFR funding: 8 mill. kr/year, covers direct expenses.

• Project manager: Tor Ulsund, Vital ex.Geomatikk.• Builds on SPIQ (1996-99), PROFIT (2000-02), SPIKE (2003-2005)

• Help (“facilitate”) IT companies to improve, by pilot projects in each company: e.g. on cost estimation and risk analysis, UML-driven development, agile methods, component-based software engineering (CBSE) – coupled with quality/SPI efforts.

• Couple academia and industry: win-win in profile and effect, by action research.

• Empirical studies – in/across companies and with other projects• General results: Method book, reports and papers, experience

clusters, shared meetings and seminars

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Project model in EVISOFT

Plan Check

Development/implementation project

DoNext company project

Common projects (generalization)

Company project (pilot project)

Act

Dissemination

Dissemination

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Student assignments: linked to ongoing R&D projects• Conradi: process improvement, SCRUM, open source,

sw evolution. Companies: Vital, EDB, Opera.• Divitini: Coop. technology,awareness. Telenor, NTNU

and pedagogics.• Jaccheri: open source, software and art, pedagogics,

research methods.• Stålhane: reliability, safety, defect analysis. Vital, EDB,

Opera.• Wang: Computer games, mobile systems, sw

architecture.

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References on software process

– [Brown91] John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, “Organizational Learning and Communities of Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation”, Organization Science, 2(1):40-57 (Feb. 1991).

– [Wenger02] E. Wenger, R. McDermott & W.M. Snyder, Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge, Harvard Business School Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2002.