Are developers complying with the process: an XP study

  • Authors:

  • Nico Zazworka;Kai Stapel;Eric Knauss;Forrest Shull;Victor R. Basili;Kurt Schneider

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland and Fraunhofer Center, College Park, Maryland;Leibniz Universität, Hannover, Germany;Leibniz Universität, Hannover, Germany;Fraunhofer Center, College Park, Maryland and University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland;University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland and Fraunhofer Center, College Park, Maryland;Leibniz Universität, Hannover, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2010 ACM-IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Adapting new software processes and practices in organizational and academic environments requires training the developers and validating the applicability of the newly introduced activities. Investigating process conformance during training and understanding if programmers are able and willing to follow the specific steps are crucial to evaluating whether the process improves various software product quality factors. In this paper we present a process model independent approach to detect process non-conformance. Our approach is based on non-intrusively collected data captured by a version control system and provides the project manager with timely updates. Further, we provide evidence of the applicability of our approach by investigating process conformance in a five day training class on eXtreme Programming (XP) practices at the Leibniz Universität Hannover. Our results show that the approach enabled researchers to formulate minimal intrusive methods to check for conformance and that for the majority of the investigated XP practices violations could be detected.