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Software Engineering (SU) group

Reidar Conradi et al.

IDI, NTNU, May 8, 2006

http://www.idi.ntnu.no/grupper/su/ , conradi@idi.ntnu.no

Reidar Conradi, 30.jan.06

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NTNU in short• Established as NTH in 1905, now NTNU

since 1996.• Seven faculties, 53 departments.• 20 000 students, 1700 scientific personnel.• IME: Faculty of IT, Mathematics and Electrical

Engineering.• IME: five departments, incl. IDI: Dept. of

Computer and Information Science.• IDI: 50 teachers, 75 PhD fellows,10-12 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• Five postdocs: Alan J. Munro, Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland,

Parastoo Mohagheghi, Sobah Abbas Petersen, Carl-Fredrik Sørensen

• 14 active PhD-students, common theme: empirical sw.eng. research

• 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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Teachers (1): prof. Reidar Conradi

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

CBSE/COTS/OSS, distributed systems, versioning.

• Projects: mostly in SU group

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Teachers (2): prof. Tor Stålhane

• Born in Skien, 1944• MSc (1970) and PhD (1988) from NTNU• At SINTEF 1970-2000, prof.II at UiS since 1997, at

NTNU since 1 Oct. 2000• Interests: software quality (especially safety and

reliability), process improvement, industrial development, data analysis (statistics) and empirical methods

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

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Teachers (3): prof. M. Letizia Jaccheri

• Born in Pisa, 1965• MSc (1988) in Pisa, PhD (1994) in Torino• Politecnico di Torino 1991-97, NTNU since 1997• Interests: empirical software engineering, software

architecture, OSS/COTS, software and art, software engineering education

• Projects: E3, INCO (past), Simula Research Lab, software engineering education, CRIT

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Teachers (4): prof. Monica Divitini

• Born in Tirano, Italy, 1964• MSc (1991) in Milano, PhD (1999) in 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, projects with Telenor R&D,

Eu projects

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Teachers (5): dr. Alf Inge Wang

• Born in Levanger, 1970• BSc (1993) HiST, MSc (1996) NTNU, researcher at NTNU in

1996, PhD March 2001• Interests: Software architecture, agents/XML, configuration

management, process modelling, XP, mobile technology for work support. Also music, football and family life.

• Projects (past): ESERNET (EU), CAGIS, MOWAHS• Thesis: Agent-based process support

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SU motivation• 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, Geomatikk, Telenor R&D, Abelia/IKT-Norge etc.

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Research fields of the SU group

Distributed

Software Eng. Software Engineering Education

CBSE: COTS/OSS,Evolution, SCM

Reliability, safety

Co-operativework

SPI, learning organisations

Software quality

Mobile technology

Software architecture

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SU research projects, part 1Supported by NFR: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. SPIKE, 2003-05: industrial sw process improvement, Finn Olav Bjørnson

(Conradi); with Simula/UiO, SINTEF, Abelia, and 10 companies - successor of SPIQ and PROFIT.

8. EVISOFT, 2006-10, empirically-driven process improvement, Geomatikk, 10 companies, Simula, SINTEF (two PhD students).

9. NorskCOSI, 2006-2008: OSS in European companies, IKT-Norge and three companies, C.-F. Sørensen, Øyvind Hauge (Conradi).

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SU research projects, part 2IDI/NTNU-supported:• Software safety, 2002-06: Siv Hilde Houmb (Stålhane).• Component-based development, 2002-06: OSS survey, Jingyue Li

(Conradi). Now extended, coop. with prof. Liu at BJUT in 2005-2007.• CRIT: Creative methods in Education/software and art, 2003-4 (NTNU):

novel educational practices, no PhD, Jaccheri at IDI w/ other dept.• MOTUS, 2002-2006 (NTNU), pervasive and cooperative computing, Birgit

R. Krogstie (Divitini), Telenor R&D.

Supported from other sources:• ESE/Empirical software engineering, 2003-06 (SU funds): open source

software, Thomas Østerlie (Jaccheri).• ESERNET, 2001-03 (EU): network on Experimental Software Engineering,

no PhD, Fraunhofer IESE + 25 partners.• Net-based cooperation learning, 2002-05 (HiNT): learning and

awareness, COO lab, Glenn Munkvold (Divitini).• New EU project on cooperation technology, 2006-2009: one PhD

student and postdoc, Monica Divitini.

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Ex. New EVISOFT project: Evidence-based Software Improvement

• NFR industrial R&D project, 2006-10. NTNU, SINTEF, UiO/Simula, Geomatikk. 3 PhD students (NTNU, UiO), 10 part-time researchers, 10 active companies. NFR funding: 8 mill. kr/year.

• Project manager: Tor Ulsund, 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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Ex. 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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Ex. Possible CBSE work topics for a company in EVISOFT project

• Get an overview of present products and processes?• What are the new service-oriented architectures (SOA)?• How to evolve old to new applications?• What software components: internal, outsourced, OSS, COTS?• Guidelines to help evaluate, select and integrate components?• Arbitrate requirements vs. available components?• Decide proper increments?• Risk management in all this?• What are the relevant data: size, defects, …?

17 Ex. Possible error analysis topics for a company in the EVISOFT project• Plan: E.g. analyze trouble reports to identify frequent

trouble sources and possible causes and remedies. Are different systems having different trouble profiles, e.g. related to CBSE?

• Do: Implement one or more remedies and follow up• Check: Did it help – less defects?• Act: Change process to include new remedies and

disseminate results.