Tommi kramer 2013-06-21-caise-re2-kramer

Department of General Management and Information Systems

Prof. Dr. Armin Heinzl

Software Outsourcing Decision Aid (SODA): A Requirements based Decision Support Method and Tool

Authors: Tommi Kramer & Michael Eschweiler

CAISE - June 21, 2013

Outline

• Problem Domain & Motivation

• Research Design

• SODA – A Decision Support Method

– Model Creation Phase

– Model Clustering Phase

– Structural Analysis Phase

• Evaluation

• Summary

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Problem Domain

• SMEs are inexperienced in software development outsourcing

Where / what / how to outsource?(Klimpke et al. 2011)

• Behavior patterns: – Decisions on a gut level

– Decisions are subjective in nature and people centric

• But, SMEs want to be successful in SDO

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Objective

Research objective:

Definition of a decision making approach for selective software development outsourcing based on software requirementsdelivering:

• Good clustering quality• Good scalability (low setup costs)• outsourcing success

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Research Domain

• Applying systems theory and graph theory to existing approaches

• Facing multi-dimensional decision problem with including decision rationales from SE principles (Dibbern et al. 2004, Kramer et al. 2011)

• Focus on selective sourcing of application systems by supporting decision making on component level

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Research Methodology

• Design Science Research (Hevner et al. 2004, Peffers et al. 2007)

– Graph theory and systems theory deliver requirements for artifact design

– Definition and implementation of a new decision making approach in IS outsourcing as artifact development

– Software development projects with students used for artifact evaluation

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SODA (1)

• SODA: Software Outsourcing Decision Aid - A decision making method and tool supporting IT project teams in selecting components suitable for outsourcing

• Phase 1: Graph Model Creation– Representing requirements

in a graph

– Nodes: Requirements

– Edge: „similar_to“ or „requires“ relationships

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SODA (2)

• Phase 2: Graph Model Clustering

– Finding cohesive groups of requirements

– Neither the number of clusters nor the clusters‘ size is known a priori

– Newman algorithm for “community structure detection”(Newman 2006)

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SODA (3)

• Phase 3: Structural Analysis of requirements

– Modularity

– Coupling and Cohesion

– Requirements Centrality

– Rule-based recommendations

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SODA

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PHASE 2

PHASE 1PHASE 3

ResultingDecision Determinants:• Modularity• Cluster Coupling

and Cohesion• Requirements

Centrality

Evaluation• Simulation by using data from four master team projects

developing a software application

• Clustering quality: More interdependencies lead to more coarse-grained partitioning of graph. But cluster quality remains stable!

• Scalability: Higher effort in interdependency definition is not delivering better modularity or clustering quality!

• SDO success: ?

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Project Require

ments

Interdepen-

dencies

Achievable

Modularity

No. of Clusters in

Optimal Partition

Rand Index

A 45 61 0.71 10 0.80

B 45 43 0.67 8 0.84

C 45 181 0.54 6 0.77

D 46 49 0.65 8 0.82

Conclusion/Contribution

• We apply modularity, clustering & cohesion as well as centrality techniques for requirements analysis to support outsourcing decision making

• Design and development of an appropriate method and tool (scalable and good clustering)

• Contribution to practice– Facilitate decision making for managers in SMEs when

it comes to the question what to outsource and what to realize in-house

– Provide a repeatable and precise method for SDO in order to store decision information

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Thank you for your attention!

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Tommi Kramer

* [email protected]

References• Dibbern, J., Goles, T., Hirschheim, R., & Jayatilaka, B. (2004). Information Systems Outsourcing: A

Survey and Analysis of the Literature. Communications of the ACM, 35(4), 6-102.

• Hevner, A. R., March, S. T., Park, J., & Sudha, R. (2004). Design Science in Information Systems Research. Management Information Systems Quarterly 28 (1), 75 – 105.

• Klimpke, L., Kramer, T., Betz, S., & Nordheimer, K. Globally Distributed Software Development in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Germany: Reasons, Locations, and Obstacles. In Proceedings of the 19th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS2011), Helsinki, Finland, 2011

• Kramer, T., Heinzl, A., & Spohrer, K. (2011). Should this Software Component be Developed Inside or Outside our Firm? - A Design Science Perspective on the Sourcing of Application Systems. In J. Kotlarsky, L. P. Willcocks, & O. Ilan (Eds.), New Studies in Global IT and Business Service Outsourcing: 5th Global Scourcing Workshop 2011, Courchevel, France, March 14-17, 2011, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 115-132). Heidelberg, Dordrecht, London, New York: Springer.

• Newman, M. E. J. Modularity and Community Structure in Networks. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006 (pp. 8577-8582)

• Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., Rothenberger, M. A., & Chatterjee, S. (2007). A Design Science Research Methodology for Information Systems Research. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(3), 45 - 78.

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