Practical experiences and value of applying software analytics to manage quality

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the practical benefits of a software analytics platform in industry, highlighting improvements in product quality, process performance, and practitioner awareness through empirical case studies.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on the value and challenges of applying software analytics platforms for quality management in real-world industrial settings.

Findings

Practitioners see significant quality and process improvements.

Semi-automated quality requirement generation is highly valued.

Careful adoption enhances the benefits of analytics platforms.

Abstract

Background: Despite the growth in the use of software analytics platforms in industry, little empirical evidence is available about the challenges that practitioners face and the value that these platforms provide. Aim: The goal of this research is to explore the benefits of using a software analytics platform for practitioners managing quality. Method: In a technology transfer project, a software analytics platform was incrementally developed between academic and industrial partners to address their software quality problems. This paper focuses on exploring the value provided by this software analytics platform in two pilot projects. Results: Practitioners emphasized major benefits including the improvement of product quality and process performance and an increased awareness of product readiness. They especially perceived the semi-automated functionality of generating quality requirements by the software analytics platform as the benefit with the highest impact and most novel value for them. Conclusions: Practitioners can benefit from modern software analytics platforms, especially if they have time to adopt such a platform carefully and integrate it into their quality assurance activities.