Yuanfang Cai
ABSTRACT
We were motivated to undertake the research we describe here by a conversation with two practicing software engineers, who described a dilemma they faced at work. They worked for small company that earned revenues by delivering to a large customer a stream of enhancements to a software tool. The engineers' jobs were to estimate the time to make enhancements and to implement selected enhancements. They were good at estimating, but dissatisfied with the system design, believing that it significantly slowed new feature implementation. They had proposed to management to restructure the tool. However, the management, concerned about disrupting the flow of enhancements thus revenues, and having no clear model of likely benefits, declined. The engineers believed that refactoring would increase the velocity of feature delivery, but they had no sense or ability to analyze the situation quantitatively or to frame it in a way that was compelling to business decision-makers. As a result, the engineers were dissatisfied, and the company incurred a possibly significant opportunity cost.
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Index Terms
- A value-oriented theory of modularity in design
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