Engineering topics

Kim, Yong-Mi

Publications and source records attributed to Kim, Yong-Mi.

3 records

NASA NTRS1996

Understanding and Predicting the Process of Software Maintenance Releases

One of the major concerns of any maintenance organization is to understand and estimate the cost of maintenance releases of software systems. Planning the next release so as to maximize the increase in functionality and the improvement in quality are vital to successful maintenance management. The objective of this paper is to present the results of a case study in which an incremental approach was used to better understand the effort distribution of releases and build a predictive effort model for software maintenance releases. This study was conducted in the Flight Dynamics Division (FDD) of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center(GSFC). This paper presents three main results: 1) a predictive effort model developed for the FDD's software maintenance release process; 2) measurement-based lessons learned about the maintenance process in the FDD; and 3) a set of lessons learned about the establishment of a measurement-based software maintenance improvement program. In addition, this study provides insights and guidelines for obtaining similar results in other maintenance organizations.

Basili, Victor↗

NASA NTRS1996

Qualitative Analysis for Maintenance Process Assessment

In order to improve software maintenance processes, we first need to be able to characterize and assess them. These tasks must be performed in depth and with objectivity since the problems are complex. One approach is to set up a measurement-based software process improvement program specifically aimed at maintenance. However, establishing a measurement program requires that one understands the problems to be addressed by the measurement program and is able to characterize the maintenance environment and processes in order to collect suitable and cost-effective data. Also, enacting such a program and getting usable data sets takes time. A short term substitute is therefore needed. We propose in this paper a characterization process aimed specifically at maintenance and based on a general qualitative analysis methodology. This process is rigorously defined in order to be repeatable and usable by people who are not acquainted with such analysis procedures. A basic feature of our approach is that actual implemented software changes are analyzed in order to understand the flaws in the maintenance process. Guidelines are provided and a case study is shown that demonstrates the usefulness of the approach.

Brand, Lionel↗

NASA NTRS1994

Building an experience factory for maintenance

This paper reports the preliminary results of a study of the software maintenance process in the Flight Dynamics Division (FDD) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Goddard Space Flight Center (NASA/GSFC). This study is being conducted by the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL), a research organization sponsored by the Software Engineering Branch of the FDD, which investigates the effectiveness of software engineering technologies when applied to the development of applications software. This software maintenance study began in October 1993 and is being conducted using the Quality Improvement Paradigm (QIP), a process improvement strategy based on three iterative steps: understanding, assessing, and packaging. The preliminary results represent the outcome of the understanding phase, during which SEL researchers characterized the maintenance environment, product, and process. Findings indicate that a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis is effective for studying the software maintenance process, that additional measures should be collected for maintenance (as opposed to new development), and that characteristics such as effort, error rate, and productivity are best considered on a 'release' basis rather than on a project basis. The research thus far has documented some basic differences between new development and software maintenance. It lays the foundation for further application of the QIP to investigate means of improving the maintenance process and product in the FDD.

Valett, Jon D.↗