Paper presentation on ICGSE 2012

1. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
Faculdade de Informática
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação
FTSProc: a Process to Alleviate
the Challenges of Projects that Use the
Follow-the-Sun Strategy
Estevão Ricardo Hess Jorge Luis Nicolas Audy
Computer Science School Computer Science School
PUCRS PUCRS
Porto Alegre, Brazil Porto Alegre, Brazil
estevaorh@gmail.com audy@pucrs.br

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Related Works
• FTSProc
• The Experimental Process
• FTSProc: Processo Proposto
• Main Results
• Conclusions
2

3. Introduction
• Globalization process;
• During global projects, the time zone difference is difficult to
manage. However, this difference can also be used as an advantage;
• In this sense, emerge the Follow-the-Sun (FTS) concept;
• The FTS approach utilizes distributed team members spread across
time zones to achieve a single project outcome. The main objective
of FTS is to reduce the time-to-market in GSD environments;
3

4. Introduction
• This paper shows a proposal process to be used during the
development phase of the SDLC to alleviate the challenges
presented in the FTS strategy;
• This process focuses in the handoffs
• The Process was named FTSProc and it was created based in the
Composite Personae and the process called 24hr Design and
Development;
• It also uses the Test-driven development (TDD) technique;
• Using the created process, this paper also presents an experiment
used to validate the proposed process;
• The findings during the experimental process brought evidences
that a project that uses the FTSProc is more efficient then a project
that does not use it;
4

5. Related Works
• Fadel et al. – 2000
– 24hr Design and Development
– To reduce the needed time to develop a software project
– Experiment – distributed team in different time zones
– Developed a work transfer process
– Each development center uses 30 minutes to prepare the hand-off information – overlap
– The team stating its shift do a planning meeting to define the job to be developed during the day
• Brainstorming
– This cycles finishes when all features have been developed
• Denny et al. – 2008
– Composite Personae
– Transitions based in the stand-up meetings
– At the end of the day
• All developers should add their results in the code repository
• Fulfill an automated form
– i. What have you done since last meeting?
– ii. What are you planning to do until next meeting?
– iii. Is there any impediments or blocker?
– Next site continues the work based in the information providede by the previous team
5

6. FTSProc
• This process aims to mitigate the challenges of
coordination, synchronization and communication during the
handoffs in the development phase of SDLC. In this sense, the main
objectives of this process are:
1. When a team starts a working day (shift), it should simply have the
perception of the work that must be developed and the work already done
by previous development center.
2. Avoid the needed for synchronous communication between distributed
teams.
3. Ensure that the handoff from a development center to another occurs
without problems, and that the work can be continued from the point
where the previous development center left off. 6

7. FTSProc
3. Coding
4. Check-in
2. Brainstorming
Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
7

8. FTSProc – Requirements
• Requirements are defined as 3. Coding
specifically as possible
[18], preferably using the
concept of User Stories 4. Check-in
[19], having have well-defined
acceptance criteria
2. Brainstorming
Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
8

9. FTSProc - Design
• Artifacts showing how the
3. Coding
requirements will be
implemented
4. Check-in
• TDD usage based in the
acceptance criteria
2. Brainstorming
Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
9

10. FTSProc
• Requirements clearly defined
3. Coding
• Unit tests created for the
TDD technique usage
4. Check-in
• Development phase starts at
this point 2. Brainstorming
Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
10

11. FTSProc – Starts a shift
• Starts a work day (shift)
3. Coding
• Download the latest source
code from repository
4. Check-in
• Generates a report with the
covered tests
2. Brainstorming
• Generates a report with all Shift
information provided by the
team that worked on the
previous shift (Hand-off from)
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
11

12. FTSProc – Brainstorming
• Daily planning
3. Coding
• Task assignments
• Assignments should consider 4. Check-in
the report with information
regarding the previous shift, as
2. Brainstorming
well as the result from the unit
tests report provided by the Shift
previous site
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
12

13. FTSProc – Coding
• This step represents the
requirements implementation 3. Coding
phase, following the
assignments agreed during the
brainstorm. 4. Check-in
• At this stage, the team
2. Brainstorming
focuses on the feature
development. Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
13

14. FTSProc – Check-In
• Each team member must
perform the check-in of the 3. Coding
work done during the
day, providing all necessary
information to the next team 4. Check-in
to continue the work where it
was left off.
2. Brainstorming
Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
14

15. FTSProc – Hand-Off Form
• Each team member must
take time to fill out the hand- 3. Coding
off form
• This form is based in the 4. Check-in
stund-up meetings
2. Brainstorming
• This state represents the end
of a shift Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
15

16. FTSProc – Hand-Off Form
• Each team member must
take time to fill out the hand- 3. Coding
off form
• This form is based in the 4. Check-in
stund-up meetings
2. Brainstorming
• This state represents the end
of a shift Shift
i. What has been done during the last period?
5. Hand-off
ii. How the work should be continued?
Form
1. Shift Start
iii. Is there any obstacle blocking the team?
Requirements Design
iv. What unit tests have been covered during this shift? Feature
implemented
16

17. FTSProc – Feature completed
• This process is interative and 3. Coding
these five steps will be repited
each day (shift), for each
distributed team 4. Check-in
2. Brainstorming
Shift
5. Hand-off
Form
1. Shift Start
Requirements Design
Feature
implemented
17

18. Experimental process
• Main objective:
– To compare the efficiency of a project that utilizes the proposed
process (FTSProc) to a project that does not utilizes (Ad hoc)
– Quantity of requirements correctly implemented
• Hypotheses
– Null Hypothesis (H0):
• H0: reqImplFTSProc = reqImplAdHoc
– Alternative Hypothesis (H1):
• H1: reqImplFTSProc > reqImplAdHoc
– Alternative Hypothesis (H2):
• H2: reqImplFTSProc < reqImplAdHoc
18

19. Experimental process
• To evaluate the FTSProc:
– Simple software development project
– Mathematical System
• Computer Science Master Students from PUCRS University
• Professionals from the PUCRS’ technological park (TECNOPUC)
• Sills requirements
– Java
– Test-driven Development (TDD)
– JUnit
– FTS
– GSD
19

20. Experimental process
• Participants distributions
• 8 participants
• 2 grupos
• FTSProc X Ad hoc
• 2 sites
• Simulated time zones
 One Day = 20 minutes
• Lab
 Keep control
20

21. Experimental process – Results
Number of requirements correctly
and partially implemented in each project:
Implemented requirements FTSProc Ad hoc
Correctly 12 4
Partially 0 8
Not implemented 0 0
Total 12 12
21

22. Experimental process – Results
Time for each Shift
FTSProc Ad hoc
Hora Hora Hora Hora
Atividade Tempo Total Atividade Tempo Total
Inicial Final Inicial Final
Análise dos Análise dos
18:05 18:10 5 Minutos 17:52 17:57 5 Minutos
requisitos requisitos
Shift 1 18:12 18:32 20 Minutos Shift 1 18:02 18:22 20 Minutos
Shift 2 18:40 19:00 20 Minutos Shift 2 18:22 18:42 20 Minutos
Shift 3 19:06 19:26 20 Minutos Shift 3 18:45 19:05 20 Minutos
Shift 4 19:27 19:34 7 Minutos Shift 4 19:06 19:26 20 Minutos
22

23. Experimental process – Results
The work handoff from one center to another occurred in an appropriate way?
FTSProc Ad hoc
Yes 4 3
No 0 1
Total 4 4
At the beginning of each shift, you could see directly how the work should be continued?
FTSProc Ad hoc
Yes 4 0
No 0 4
Total 4 4
Do you believe that the work handoff from a development center to another led to a significant work
overhead?
FTSProc Ad hoc
Yes 0 1
No 4 3
Total 4 4
23

24. Results Discussion
• After presenting the results and the evidence for the confirmation
of the H1 hypothesis, which shows that the efficiency of a project
that uses the FTSProc is greater than a project developed in an
adhoc way, this section presents other factors that corroborate to
this result.
• Analyzing the qualitative results, we found that the advantage of
the FTSProc lies in the fact that the FTSProc team realizes clearly
and quickly how the work should be continued. Thus, the time for
this identification is smaller than the adhoc team, resulting in a
greater time for requirements development during each working
day (shift). This advantage is due two main factors related to the
FTSProc: usage of TDD and the main three questions that the
process proposed.
24

25. Conclusions
• This research presents a handoff process proposal
to projects that use the FTS strategy.
• The objectives of the proposed process in this
work are focused on reducing the challenges
posed by FTS strategy.
• To evaluate the proposed process, an experiment
was conducted, which demonstrated that the
FTSProc actually achieves its goals,
– alleviates the challenges present in projects that use
the strategy FTS.
25

26. Contributions
• Theory
• The creation of a process for the work handoff during the
development phase.
• The process was proposed with data from the literature.
After running the experiment and analyzed its results, we
found that the process was indeed effective.
• Since while the literature does not present a specific
process for the development phase, this study
proposed, performed an experiment, and pointed
evidences of the effectiveness of the proposed process.26

27. Contributions
• Market
• Currently searching for competitive advantages such as
cost reduction and productivity gains, companies are
using offshore operations.
• This work can contribute to increasing the productivity
gain, since the created process facilitates the use of the
FTS strategy for the development phase, thus decreasing
the time spent during the this phase of SDLC.
27

28. Limitations
• In the experimental process, due some schedule
constraints, the number of participants able to join
the experiment was low (8 people). Therefore, it
was an impediment to use statistical methods to
verify the hypothesis, opting then by a qualitative
interpretation to analyze the results.
• This interpretation presented evidences of the
greater efficiency of the project that used the
FTSProc, but not allowed to obtain conclusions
with a significant confidence level, what could be
achieve through experiments with statistical
analysis of the results 28

29. Limitations
• Specific generalization of the experiment due the
fact that the scope of the project was fictitious and
created by the researcher.
• Application of an experimental research
method, as the subjective influence of the
researcher or the participants in the results.
29

30. Future Studies
• With the purpose of substantiating the evidence
presented by experimental method, as a future
study, it is suggested the experiment replication
with a larger number of participants to evaluate
the FTSProc, which allows a significant statistical
validation for obtaining conclusions on the
hypotheses.
30

31. Future Studies
• To carry out a study case to evaluate the use of the
process created in a real environment;
• Would be possible to verify the behavior of the
process in a real environment
• It would be possible to prove the results found in
this study, through a controlled experiment, are
equivalent in a real environment
31

32. Future Studies
• Studies aiming to expand this process to other
phases of the SDLC are relevant.
• Other phases might be contemplated with a
process to facilitate the FTS strategy usage.
• At the end might be possible to create a process
comprised by several sub-processes, which
contemplate all phases of SDLC.
• Thus, the entire software project could be
accomplished using the FTS strategy and
therefore, reducing the time of construction in all
phases of a project.
32