System Dynamics in software development

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Lebogang.Makoloko@za.didata.com
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Posts: 1
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System Dynamics in software development

Post by Lebogang.Makoloko@za.didata.com »

Hi there,

I am a software developer new to System Dynamics. I would like to know if
there is some resource somewhere in the Internet where I can find
information about applying System Dynamics to software development, i.e
modelling software systems using System Dynamics or somebody who is using a
SD methodology to develop software instead of methodologies like UML, BON,
etc. I am currently using UML exclusively.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Lebo Makoloko
From: Lebogang.Makoloko@za.didata.com
"Michael Bean"
Member
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

System Dynamics in software development

Post by "Michael Bean" »

Hi Lebo,

There are (at least) two groups that have applied system dynamics successfully to software
development. Much of this material is available on the Internet.

Prof. Manny Lehman used system dynamics to explain how software evolves and is developed. Lehmans
investigation of software evolution using empirical research combined with simulation became the
foundation for Brooks Law: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." I believe
Lehmans objective is to make software development less of an art and more of an engineering
science. You can find links to some recent articles about him on our website at:

A Unified Theory of Software Evolution:
http://www.forio.com/cgi-bin/links/dcli ... rogramming

Separately, Dr. Abdel Hamid and Prof. Barry Boehms group have developed sophisticated and valuable
models on software development. Tarek Abdel Hamid wrote a book several years ago titled "Software
Project Management Dynamics" that you should be able to find on Amazon. You can also read a paper
online at:

Software Process Modeling with System Dynamics:
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~madachy/sd/sd.html

Best regards,
Michael

Michael Bean
Forio Business Simulations
www.forio.com

mbean@forio.com
paulnewton@attglobal.net
Junior Member
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

System Dynamics in software development

Post by paulnewton@attglobal.net »

Lebo,

In SD, information about system states are fed back to the rate
equations. The rate equations represent business policies from which
proceed actions which change the states of the system. Much of system
dynamics is focused on identifying the best policies.

If system dynamics is used to identify robust policies for a particular
business problem, would it not be true then that the information cues
used in the rate equations should be fed to the proper
people/organizations (actors) responsible for implementing the
policies?

If so, it seems to me that the role system dynamics can play in software
development rests primarily in the analysis phases of a software design
project to determine which information needs to be fed to which actors
in the system.

Id love to see a discussion of this on the list. Probably there has
been much research in this area with which I am not familiar.

Paul Newton

Master Phil.Student
University of Bergen (temporarily visiting Cornell University)
paulnewton@StewardshipModeling.com
"Jim Hines"
Senior Member
Posts: 88
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

System Dynamics in software development

Post by "Jim Hines" »

Take a look at Software Project Dynamics: An Integrated Approach
by Tarek Abdel-Hemid, Stuart E. Madnick. 1991. Prentice Hall.
(Available at Amazon).

The book develops a project model of a software project. The model is
adequate. But, the insights that the authors get from the model are
first rate. Some of these insights were published by Terek in journal
articles, rather than in the book. You might take a look at some or all
of the following (particularly the lessons learned paper published in
1989).

Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid: Adapting, Correcting, and Perfecting Software
Estimates: A Maintenance Metaphor. IEEE Computer 26(3): 20-29 (1993)

Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid, Kishore Sengupta, Daniel Ronan: Software Project
Control: An Experimental Investigation of Judgment with Fallible
Information. TSE 19(6): 603-612 (1993)

Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid: Investigating the Cost/Schedule Trade-Off in
Software Development. IEEE Software 7(1): 97-105 (1990)

Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid, Stuart E. Madnick: Lessons Learned from Modeling
the Dynamics of Software Development. CACM 32(12): 1426-1438, 1455
(1989)

Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid: The Dynamics of Software Project Staffing: A
System Dynamics Based Simulation Approach. TSE 15(2): 109-119 (1989)

Tarek K. Abdel-Hamid, Stuart E. Madnick: The Dynamics of Software
Project Scheduling. CACM 26(5): 340-346 (1983)

Jim Hines
jhines@mit.edu
Gary Bell
Junior Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

System Dynamics in software development

Post by Gary Bell »

hi
you may be interested in this conference.
regards
gary
From: Gary Bell <g.bell@sbu.ac.uk>



****************************************************
Call for Papers
International Workshop on Software Process Simulation
and Modeling
and the
International Software Process Workshop
(ProSim/ISPW 2002)


Silver Creek Canyon (near Portland, Oregon)
July 8 - 10,
2002
http://www.prosim.org
*****************************************************

You are invited to participate in the International Workshop on Software
Process
Simulation and Modeling (ProSim 2002) and the International Software
Process
Workshop (ISPW 11). This year, we are pleased to announce that these
two
international workshops we will be combined into one event. The result,
will be
one workshop with a focus on Software Process Modeling and Software
Process Simulation.

This years workshop will be held at the Silver Falls Conference Center
in Silver
Falls, Oregon, July 8-10, 2002. The conference center is located 75
minutes outside
of Portland and is situated inside one of Oregons picturesque state
parks. We
anticipate a true workshop atmosphere where participants will be able to
discuss
topics and ideas in depth in this lovely and secluded natural setting.

As in previous years, papers from ProSim/ISPW 2002 will be considered
for
inclusion in a special issue of the international journal of Software
Process:
Improvement and Practice.

The rest of the call for papers presents the motivation and goals for
ProSim/ISPW 2002 as well as provides instructions for authors interested
in
submitting papers to the workshop. We invite you to see the web site
for
additional details and research presented at previous workshops.


Motivation and Goals for ProSim/ ISPW 2002

Today, the software industry faces greater challenges than ever before.
Customers are demanding more complex, fully functioned software that is
easier to use. At the same time, customers want this software to be
delivered
more quickly and with higher levels of quality. These demands are set
in a
dynamic project environment of frequently changing technologies, short
staffed
projects and globally distributed development teams. At the same time,
competition at home and abroad is forcing companies that develop
software to
cut cost significantly in order to compete.

Amid these pressures, new software development lifecycle process
alternatives
have emerged -from rough and ready extreme programming to well-planned
product line development. Open source software development is ramping
up.
At the same time, many projects are being contracted out, either in
whole or in
part, and the software may be developed in multiple locations around the
world
resulting in a greater need for good communication and co-ordination.
Security
also is an issue that is getting increased attention.

What process structures are most appropriate to address the dynamic
environment
and significant challenges faced by industry? These issues pose
important questions
relating to how to organize and improve these processes. Where does
software
process modeling and simulation have a role? How can they make a useful
impact?

Software process simulation is increasingly being used to address a
variety of issues
from the strategic management of software development, to supporting
process
improvements, to software project management training. The scope of
software
process simulation applications ranges from narrow focused portions of
the life cycle
to longer-term product evolutionary models with broad organizational
impacts.

The goal of the workshop is to bring together academics and
practitioners interested in
the area of software process modeling and simulation as well as
important industrial issues
related to cost estimation and business process design. ProSim/ISPW 2002
will continue
the tradition set in previous workshops as being an international forum
for presenting
current research themes and applications and discussing various
approaches to
discover underlying similarities at both the applied and theoretical
levels.

This years workshop will be held at the Silver Falls Conference Center
in Silver
Falls, Oregon, July 8-10, 2002. The conference center is located 75
minutes
outside of Portland and is located inside one of Oregons picturesque
state parks.
We anticipate a true workshop atmosphere where participants will be able
to
discuss topics and ideas in depth in this lovely and secluded natural
setting.

Papers from past workshops have been published in special issues of the
Journal of
Systems and Software (see Vol. 47, No. 9, 2000 and Vol 59, No 3, 2001)
as well
as the international journal of Software Process: Improvement and
Practice
(see 5:2/3, June/September, 2000). Papers from this years workshop
will be
considered for a special issue of the international journal of Software
Process:
Improvement and Practice.


Workshop Theme and Topics of Interest

The focus of this workshop is on both the application of software
process simulation
research in addressing real-world problems, as well as advances being
made
which will provide the foundation for Software Process and Software
Process
Simulation Modeling in the future.

We invite research and position papers, experience reports, tutorials,
and
panel presentations in all areas related to software process modeling
and
simulation, and using all applicable techniques and representations
(including
discrete event, System Dynamics, knowledge-based systems, State-based
modeling, petri-nets, and other approaches. Preference will be given to
efforts
that facilitate, or results that demonstrate, both modeling and
simulation. An initial
set of topics have been identified and include (but are not limited to)
the following:

- Processes or models dealing with globally distributed development of
internal as well as contracted development teams

- Processes or models dealing with emerging problem areas like open
source
development, security process issues, software project simulation, or
Web services

- Advances in software process simulation modeling representations and
methods

- Applications of software process modeling and simulation approaches in
industry,
for example to improve business processes and/or to support financial
and business
case analyses

- Use of software process modeling and simulation in promoting
understanding
and knowledge of software and business processes

- Practical benefits of modeling and simulation

- Generalized and adaptable process simulation models.

- Feasibility of validating standard plug and play process model
components,
patterns or archetypes.

- Approaches/environments for supporting the integration of process
representation,
guidance, simulation, and execution capabilities for models of software
processes

Information for Authors

Authors are requested to submit a 2-3 page extended abstract, tutorial,
or
panel proposal to the workshop. Abstracts will be reviewed and authors
of
accepted work will have a choice to provide either a full paper (8-10
pages,
approximately 5,000 words) or a position paper (4-5 pages, approximately
2,500
words) to the workshop. After the conference, papers will be then
reviewed by a
panel of researchers and practitioners to select papers for inclusion in
a special issue
of the international journal of Software Process: Improvement and
Practice (SPIP).

Deadlines:
March 1, 2002 2-3 page (1,000 to 1,500 words) extended abstracts are due

April 16, 2002 notification of acceptance for the workshop
June 2, 2002 Final version of full papers and position papers due
August 31, 2002 Best Papers selected for inclusion in special issue of
SPIP
October 1, 2002 Revised versions of papers due for inclusion in special
issue of SPIP

Please send extended abstracts via email (in PDF or MS Word readable
attachment)
by March 1, 2002 to:

Dr. David M. Raffo
School of Business Administration
Portland State University
P.O. Box 751
Portland, OR 97207-0751
e-mail: : davidr@sba.pdx.edu


Organizing Committee

James Collofello, Arizona State University
Volker Gruhn, University of Dortmund, Germany
Marc Kellner, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon
University, USA
Leon Osterweil, University of Massachusetts, USA
Dewayne Perry, University of Texas, Austin, USA
David Raffo, Portland State University, USA
Guenther Ruhe, University of Calgary, Canada
Walt Scacchi, University of California, Irvine, USA
Wilhelm Schaffer, Paderborn University, Germany
Paul Wernick, University of Hertsfordshire, UK

Sponsored by
The International Software Process Association and
Portland State University
rohita.singh@accenture.com
Junior Member
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

System Dynamics in software development

Post by rohita.singh@accenture.com »

An area where we have used SD in Australia, which is related to part of the
software development cyle is in performance testing. We built an SD model
of a network of Seibel adapters as well as legacy systems and used this to
determine how the overall architecture would handle volumes of business
transactions trigerred by concurrent business processes.

Each adapter/ legacy system had a rate of processesing (Flows) and Queues
of transactions build up (Stocks). SD leant itself well to this project due
to the dynamic nature of transactions and various feedback loops (objects
calling each other). This helped the clients design their 1) strategic
technical architecture (ie which systems to tune to improve overall system
performance) 2) go - live strategy for Seibel (timing of switching parts of
the network on and off 3) migration strategy of legacy systems. Let me know
if anyone would like more information: Rohita.Singh@accenture.com

Thanks
Rohita (not an expert in anything, but sometime SD-er and sometime Java /
OO developer
From: rohita.singh@accenture.com
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