Title
Actual vs. perceived effect of software engineering practices in the Italian industry
Abstract
A commonly cited limitation of software engineering research consists in its detachment from the industrial practice. Several studies have analyzed a number of practices and identified their benefits and drawbacks but little is known about their dissemination in the industry. For a set of 18 practices commonly studied in the literature, this paper investigated diffusion, effect on the success, and perceived usefulness in 62 actual industrial projects from 28 Italian IT companies. In particular we proposed a classification of these perceptions and we were able to classify 14 practices. We found statistical evidence that 7 factors have an actual effect (positive for 6 of them, negative for one). Moreover 77% (10 out of 13) of the known good practices (e.g., importance of good project schedule or complete requirements' list) are perceived consistently by the industry. For a few other practices (having a champion's support, using metrics, reducing quality) we noticed a lack of awareness in the industry. Starting from these observations we propose guidelines for industrial practice and suggestions for academic research.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1016/j.jss.2010.05.077
Journal of Systems and Software
Keywords
Field
DocType
survey,project factors,good practice,complete requirement,actual industrial project,software engineering research,industrial practice,good project schedule,italian it company,statistical evidence,case–control study,software process,developers’ perception,italian industry,academic research,software engineering practice,actual effect,project scheduling,software engineering,case control study
Schedule (project management),Systems engineering,Software engineering,Computer science,Extreme programming practices,Knowledge management,Champion,Software development process,Perception
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
83
10
The Journal of Systems & Software
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
11
0.60
20
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Evgenia Egorova1242.10
Marco Torchiano2116281.04
Morisio, Maurizio31342119.37