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International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement

PROFES 2018: Product-Focused Software Process Improvement pp 288–296Cite as

Emperor’s New Clothes: Transparency Through Metrication in Customer-Supplier Relationships

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 11271))

Abstract

Space projects, and development of software embedded in these systems, are complex, sometimes costing hundreds of millions of Euros and involving several tiers of suppliers. An important means of improving mutual understanding is to increase transparency of the development status between customers and suppliers. We raise the problem of transparency in complex projects to the reader’s attention, and, relying on results of a small survey of practitioners, propose to use ECSS software metrics/KPIs as a mitigation. We present our metrication infrastructure, and describe issues to be considered when implementing an early metrication programme in a real-world, industry space project.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Statement by an Air Force decision maker as reported by [6].

  2. 2.

    The European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS) is a cooperative effort of ESA, national space agencies, and industry to develop and maintain a single, coherent set of standards for hardware, software, and other activities ([12], cf. [22]).

  3. 3.

    Stages are central to ECSS (cf. [11]). Yet, if conducted only half-heartedly, they cannot satisfy transparency needs and should then be considered a waste of time [8].

  4. 4.

    We transformed D-Role responses to a 1–5 score, e.g., engineers (1), system engineers (2), project and PA managers (3), team leaders (4) and C-level managers (5).

  5. 5.

    SPR: Software Problem Report; a mere bug report. NCR: Non-Conformance Report, a severe form with PA/QA and possibly customer involvement.

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Acknowledgments

The AENEAS project is contracted by the German Aerospace Center on behalf of the German Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi) under FKZ 50PS1602. We thank the project teams and participants of our survey.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Aerospace Center, Bonn, Germany

    Christian R. Prause

  2. OHB System AG, Weßling, Germany

    Alfred Hönle

Authors
  1. Christian R. Prause
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  2. Alfred Hönle
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian R. Prause .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität Clausthal, Goslar, Germany

    Marco Kuhrmann

  2. Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Kurt Schneider

  3. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Dietmar Pfahl

  4. Okayama Prefectural University, Okayama, Japan

    Sousuke Amasaki

  5. QAware GmbH, Munich, Germany

    Marcus Ciolkowski

  6. Chalmers | University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Regina Hebig

  7. IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Paolo Tell

  8. Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Jil Klünder

  9. Clausthal University of Technology, Goslar, Germany

    Steffen Küpper

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Prause, C.R., Hönle, A. (2018). Emperor’s New Clothes: Transparency Through Metrication in Customer-Supplier Relationships. In: Kuhrmann, M., et al. Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11271. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03673-7_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03673-7_21

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03672-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03673-7

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