Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparing distributed and face-to-face meetings for software architecture evaluation: A controlled experiment
AU - Babar, Muhammad Ali
AU - Kitchenham, Barbara A.
AU - Jeffery, D. Ross
PY - 2008/2
Y1 - 2008/2
N2 - Scenario-based methods for evaluating software architecture require a large number of stakeholders to be collocated for evaluation meetings. Collocating stakeholders is often an expensive exercise. To reduce expense, we have proposed a framework for supporting software architecture evaluation process using groupware systems. This paper presents a controlled experiment that we conducted to assess the effectiveness of one of the key activities, developing scenario profiles, of the proposed groupware-supported process of evaluating software architecture. We used a cross-over experiment involving 32 teams of three 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students. We found that the quality of scenario profiles developed by distributed teams using a groupware tool were significantly better than the quality of scenario profiles developed by face-to-face teams (p < 0.001). However, questionnaires indicated that most participants preferred the face-to-face arrangement (82%) and 60% thought the distributed meetings were less efficient. We conclude that distributed meetings for developing scenario profiles are extremely effective but that tool support must be of a high standard or participants will not find distributed meetings acceptable.
AB - Scenario-based methods for evaluating software architecture require a large number of stakeholders to be collocated for evaluation meetings. Collocating stakeholders is often an expensive exercise. To reduce expense, we have proposed a framework for supporting software architecture evaluation process using groupware systems. This paper presents a controlled experiment that we conducted to assess the effectiveness of one of the key activities, developing scenario profiles, of the proposed groupware-supported process of evaluating software architecture. We used a cross-over experiment involving 32 teams of three 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students. We found that the quality of scenario profiles developed by distributed teams using a groupware tool were significantly better than the quality of scenario profiles developed by face-to-face teams (p < 0.001). However, questionnaires indicated that most participants preferred the face-to-face arrangement (82%) and 60% thought the distributed meetings were less efficient. We conclude that distributed meetings for developing scenario profiles are extremely effective but that tool support must be of a high standard or participants will not find distributed meetings acceptable.
KW - Architecture evaluation
KW - Process improvement
KW - Controlled experiments
KW - Groupware support
KW - Scenario development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=37649012568&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10664-007-9052-6
DO - 10.1007/s10664-007-9052-6
M3 - Journal article
VL - 13
SP - 39
EP - 62
JO - Empirical Software Engineering
JF - Empirical Software Engineering
SN - 1382-3256
IS - 1
ER -