Pasi Ojala | University of Oulu (original) (raw)

Papers by Pasi Ojala

Abstract:- The purposes to use quality gates in software development are many. Quite often compan... more Abstract:- The purposes to use quality gates in software development are many. Quite often companies see that the usage of quality gates improves their overall efficiency, effectiveness and output quality of software delivery chain. They also see that the usage of quality gates helps them to make things right at once by not skipping quality assurance actions. This paper defines quality gate model for a software company. As well it shows that even quality gates might be in place they are not always followed because of a business reason. Companies can forget their well structured quality gate systems when business reason justifies it. The results of neglecting quality gates might lead to a situation where software asset output is not trusted anymore and quality is not known. In a longer run quality gate system seems to be as good as human being who is keeping it. This paper discusses about the most typical software development quality gates in an industrial context. As well it gives r...

Seventh Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA 2008), 2008

During the last decades software architecture has become increasingly important for companies cre... more During the last decades software architecture has become increasingly important for companies creating competitive product structures. Recently more and more attention has also been focused on the costs, cost-effectiveness, productivity and value of software development and products. This study outlines concepts, principles and process of implementing a value assessment for SW architecture. The main purpose of this study is to collect experiences whether the value assessment for product architecture is useful for companies, works in practice, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of using it. This is done by implementing value assessment in a case company step by step to see which phases possibly work and which phases possibly do not work. The practical industrial case shows that proposed value assessment for product architecture is useful and supports companies trying to find value in product architecture.

19th Australian Conference on Software Engineering (aswec 2008), 2008

Understanding software requirements and customer needs is vital for all SW companies around the w... more Understanding software requirements and customer needs is vital for all SW companies around the world. Lately clearly more attention has been focused also on the costs, cost-effectiveness, productivity and value of software development and products. This study outlines concepts, principles and process of implementing a value assessment for SW requirements. The main purpose of this study is to collect experiences whether the value assessment for product requirements is useful for companies, works in practice, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of using it. This is done by implementing value assessment in a case company step by step to see which phases possibly work and which phases possibly do not work. The practical industrial case shows that proposed value assessment for product requirements is useful and supports companies trying to find value in their products.

Software Process: Improvement and Practice, 2008

During the last decades software has become an important part of our everyday life in the form of... more During the last decades software has become an important part of our everyday life in the form of various information processing intensive products and services. The competition between software companies has risen considerably and at the same time the importance of cost efficient and value creating software development has been recognized in many companies. Value Engineering has been a usable to method for developing high value products for several years. Earlier it has been applied successfully to software process as well as to software product development. Normally the development of high value products contains also several risks. Combination of efficient value management practices and risk management is one possibility to try to avoid the most dangerous risks to realize for planned value. This research combines Value Engineering and risk management practices into a usable new method in order to better respond to the challenges that risks might cause to the value of software pro...

Abstract. Process improvement is a challenging task for software engineering. As Kuvaja

Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

The number of companies producing software has grown constantly, and it seems that we need softwa... more The number of companies producing software has grown constantly, and it seems that we need software more and more everyday. Lately, several authors have discussed about the importance of cost efficiency and value creation in software development as well in software process and product improvement (SPI). It also seems that several companies have noticed that competition is increasing and cost-efficient companies have perhaps more competitive advantage in global markets than ever. This study discusses about the concepts, principles and practical methods of economic-driven software engineering and outlines us to understand better the content of value-based approach. This is done in part by presenting a conceptual analysis of the economic-driven view of software development including cost estimation and cost accounting and in part by discussing the cost-efficiency and value characteristics of software processes, products and their improvement. As a summary this study proposes to use val...

WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications archive, 2009

The amount of software has increased in several products. Software projects have become more comp... more The amount of software has increased in several products. Software projects have become more complex and their management requires significant amount of skills from every project manager. The amount of available resources, strict budgets, cost control and need for accurate reporting and documentation as well as good quality are part of every project managers' life. As business challenges project managers more and more it would be useful to know what areas of project management create biggest value to the projects. Value Engineering has been a usable method for developing high value products for several years. It has been applied successfully to software processes as well as to software product development. This research analyses the value of project management using Value Engineering based value assessment. This is done in part by defining the concepts of value, worth, cost and in part by outlining the Value Engineering process with project management practices. The practical in...

WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications archive, 2008

This study tries to advance and define the concepts, principles and practical methods of a value-... more This study tries to advance and define the concepts, principles and practical methods of a value-based approach, involving definition of the essential concepts of value, cost and worth in software development. These definitions originate from the Value Engineering (VE) method, originally applied and developed for the needs of the production industry. Therefore, for the purposes of this study these concepts are firstly justified and secondly defined. In order to study and evaluate the value-based approach, a method called value assessment is developed and used when assessing processes and products. The results of industrial case show that even though there is still much to do in making the economic-driven view complete in software engineering, the value-based approach outlines a way towards a more comprehensive understanding of it. For industrial users value assessment seems to give a practical help for handling cost and profitability related challenges.

A solid business plan is an important tool for managing any business. It forms up the foundation ... more A solid business plan is an important tool for managing any business. It forms up the foundation of the business as well as discusses how important challenges should be solved. Rather often also third parties like financing institutions are interested in of the business plans as they inform them about the future targets of the companies applying for funding. This paper defines a business plan model for the bio-energy companies. It discusses about the important issues and topics needed in preparing any business plan. It motivates us to see the importance of business planning activities and ties them together with the everyday management of the bio-energy company. After building a business plan model for the bio-energy companies this paper presents the results of an industrial bio-energy seminar where the developed model was discussed in practice and in an industrial context. The industrial discussion has been seen important because all business plans are practical tools for managing ...

WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications archive, 2008

During the last decades software architecture has become increasingly important for companies cre... more During the last decades software architecture has become increasingly important for companies creating competitive product structures. Recently more and more attention has also been focused on the costs, cost-effectiveness, productivity and value of software development and products. This study outlines concepts, principles and process of implementing a value assessment for SW architecture. It outlines also existing possibilities for implementing value assessments. The main purpose of this study is to collect experiences whether the value assessment for product architecture is useful for companies, works in practice, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of using it. This is done by implementing value assessment in a case company step by step to see which phases possibly work and which phases possibly do not work. The practical industrial case shows that proposed value assessment for product architecture is useful and supports companies trying to find value in product architecture.

WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications archive, 2010

The purposes to use quality gates in software development are many. Quite often companies see tha... more The purposes to use quality gates in software development are many. Quite often companies see that the usage of quality gates improves their overall efficiency, effectiveness and output quality of software delivery chain. They also see that the usage of quality gates helps them to make things right at once by not skipping quality assurance actions. This paper defines quality gate model for a software company. As well it shows that even quality gates might be in place they are not always followed because of a business reason. Companies can forget their well structured quality gate systems when business reason justifies it. The results of neglecting quality gates might lead to a situation where software asset output is not trusted anymore and quality is not known. In a longer run quality gate system seems to be as good as human being who is keeping it. This paper discusses about the most typical software development quality gates in an industrial context. As well it gives reasoning wh...

During the last decades software process improvement (SPI) has been recognized as a usable possib... more During the last decades software process improvement (SPI) has been recognized as a usable possibility to increase the quality of software development. Implemented SPI investments have often indicated increased process capabilities as well. Recently more attention has been focused on the costs of SPI as well as on the cost-effectiveness and productivity of software development, although the roots of economic-driven software engineering originate from the very early days of software engineering research. This research combines Value Engineering and capability assessment into usable new method in order to better respond to the challenges that cost-effectiveness and productivity has brought to software companies. This is done in part by defining the concepts of value, worth and cost and in part by defining the Value Engineering process and different enhancements it has seen to offer to software assessment. The practical industrial cases show that proposed twodimensional method works in...

Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Circuits Systems Communications Computers, Dec 10, 2011

There are several different plans which are needed for managing software business. One of the mos... more There are several different plans which are needed for managing software business. One of the most important ones is a software business plan. The importance of it bases on the underlying idea that it forms up the foundation of the software business as well as it discusses how important challenges should be solved. In addition it gives needed information for third parties like financing institutions about the future targets of the company. Firstly, this paper discusses of the nature of the software business. Secondly, it discusses of the important issues and topics needed in preparing any business plan and thirdly, using the discussion as a basis it formulates a business plan model for the software companies. As all business plans are practical tools for managing businesses the developed business plan is discussed also in industrial context. The industrial discussion shows that developed business plan is useful for the software companies. It also reveals rather well the practical order how industrial managers are running their businesses. Finally, discussion comments show that the proposed business plan serves software companies and financing institutions as action plan, road map and sales tool as well as informs customers about the software company's ways of working. The theoretical discussion in this paper is constructive in nature. Therefore the theoretical part of this paper constructs a new reality by using results which in part have been presented before and have proven to be usable. The industrial experience part of this paper is a case study in nature. The case study method has been chosen because it offers a natural and practical tool for presenting chronologically the results of the industrial experiences discussion.

Proceedings of the 2nd Wseas International Conference on Computer Engineering and Applications, Jan 25, 2008

The number of companies producing software has grown constantly, and it seems that we need softwa... more The number of companies producing software has grown constantly, and it seems that we need software more and more everyday. Lately, several authors have discussed about the importance of cost efficiency and value creation in software development as well in software process and product improvement (SPI). It also seems that several companies have noticed that competition is increasing and cost-efficient companies have perhaps more competitive advantage in global markets than ever. This study discusses about the concepts, principles and practical methods of economic-driven software engineering and outlines us to understand better the content of value-based approach. This is done in part by presenting a conceptual analysis of the economic-driven view of software development including cost estimation and cost accounting and in part by discussing the costefficiency and value characteristics of software processes, products and their improvement. As a summary this study proposes to use value-based approach to find solutions for cost efficiency related challenges. As well it encourages both technical and economical sciences to work together when creating meaningful and practical solutions for our everyday use.

Wseas Transactions on Information Science and Applications, May 1, 2010