The P-Modeling Technique: Results Of The CMMI-P-SPEM

Experiment

the experiment CMMI-P-SPEM was conducted on October 26, 2005, collocated with the First Software Engineering Conference in Russia

Vladimir L PavlovNikita Boyko

vlpavlov@ieee.orgmboyko@acm.org

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Agenda

Historical overview

October 15 and October 26

Results of the Experiment

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The Babel Experiment

A team of students gets an assignment to create a high-level design for a software system

They are required to use UML and are not allowed to use any other language (English, German, Russian, Ukrainian, etc), either spoken or written

Students are given 4-6 hours to complete the taskThis assignment was always presented as an

experiment – the students are to discover whether or not UML is “a real language” that can successfully serve as a communication tool within a team

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The Babel Experiment:A Training On OOA/OOD

Developed in 2001by Vladimir L Pavlov

Since 2001 it has been successfully delivered more than ten times to the software developing companies and universities

The results of the “experiment” were always positive – students were always able to “prove” that the UML is a “real” language

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The Babel ExperimentWas Discussed At

The First Open Conference “IT-Education in Russia”, Suzdal, May 2003

http://www.it-education.ru

36th ACM “Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education” (SIGCSE 2005), St. Louis, Missouri, USA, February 2005

http://www.ithaca.edu/sigcse2005/

18th IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training (CSEE&T 2005), Ottawa, Canada, April 2005

http://www.site.uottawa.ca/cseet2005/

These articles and presentations are available for download from http://www.vlpavlov.com

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Once in 2004…

Two teams were working independently on the same task

One team was limited to using only the UML language and pantomime in their communication

The other was allowed to use speech in addition to UML

The first team (which was not allowed to use speech) coped with a task more successfully than the other team

Their diagrams were more detailed, more elaborate and elegant

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Not Only Training?

So, we decided to find out whether the speechless modeling sessions can be used in real software development projects

Can they be used not only for training purposes, but also to produce real design?

Is a speechless approach more effective than “traditional” approach?

The CMMI-P-SPEM experiment was designed to answer these questions

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Agenda

Historical overview

October 15 and October 26

Results of the Experiment

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The Rehearsal And The Experiment

The rehearsal was organized to validate and correct (if needed) the experiment methodology

It was organized 10 days before the experimentsome of the rehearsal participants also attended the

experiment on October 26

After the rehearsal, no changes were made to the methodology

The name of the experiment was corrected from CMMI-P-SPEM to P-MODELING

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October 15, 2005Rehearsal

Was organized in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine

Co-sponsored by StarSoft Labs

http://www.starsoftlabs.com

2 teams, 10 participants

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October 26, 2005Experiment

Was organized in Moscow, Russia

Collocated with the First Software Engineering Conference in Russia

http://www.secr.ru

2 teams, 10 participants

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P-modelingMethodology

Is based on using:

1.Silent Modeling Sessionsa team is not allowed to use speech during the modeling session

2.Reverse Semantic Traceabilityone team creates a design (“translates” from human language to UML), another team validates it (translates it back from UML to human language, initial and restored texts are compared)

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Experiment Methodology

2 teams work independently on different tasksEach team is given a text descriptions of a domain, and they

have to create a UML model for itThey are not allowed to speakThey have 3 hours to complete the assignment

Then the teams exchange the results of their work (sets of UML diagrams)

Based on the received UML models, the teams have to restore the original text descriptions

They are allowed to speak at this phaseThey have 1 hour to complete this task

Then the teams have a joint workshop where they compare results and discuss possible ways to use the P-modeling techniques in their real-life work

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Consolidated Data From Both Rehearsal And Experiment

15 participants12 practitioners2 students 1 university instructor

Experience in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) from 1 to 10 years

Average 4.5 years

Experience in Object-Oriented Modeling from 1 to 5 years

Average 2.5 years

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Consolidated Data From Both The Rehearsal And Experiment

Participants formed 4 teams

4 text descriptions of different domains were used

Russian language was usedSize from 150 to 300 words (from half of page to

the whole page)

These text descriptions were “translated” to UML and then “restored” back to texts

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Diagrams

3-11 diagrams were created for each model

Almost all types of UML diagrams were used

none of the 4 teams created collaboration and state-chart diagrams

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Agenda

Historical overview

October 15 and October 26

Results of the Experiment

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Results

In all 4 cases restored texts were “very close” to the original texts

Almost no data was lost or misinterpretedSome new (implementation) data were added

Most experiment participants said, that the “silent” approach allowed them to create their models faster, than it would take using “traditional” approaches

All experiment participants said that Reverse Semantic Traceability is the most powerful design validation technique

90% of the experiment participants are going to use “Silent” Modeling Sessions in their real-life software development projects

All experiment participants are going to use Reverse Semantic Traceability in their real-life software development projects

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Feedback From Participants

The P-Modeling technique can be used in industrial software development for:

Conceptual design

Increasing effectiveness of current software development processes

Design validation

Detailed design

Quick diving into new domains

Building effective teams

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…The Day Before Yesterday

The experiment was conducted on October 26 - the day before yesterday

Today is October 28, 2005

So, we did not have much time to analyze all collected data

A detailed report will be published soon

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Summary

Today the P-modeling technique consists of:Silent Modeling Sessions Reverse Semantic Traceability

The P-modeling technique was successfully used before for educational purposes

The experiment has demonstrated that P-modeling can also be used in real-life software development projects, and can be more effective than “traditional” modeling approaches

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Thank You:

RUSSEEhttp://www.russee.com

StarSoft Labshttp://www.starsoftlabs.com

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Thank You:

Ilya Antipov http://www.russee.com Alexander Babich http://ppc-kpi.ukrbiz.net Dmitry Bednyak http://www.dr.dp.ua Dmitry Dakhnovsky http://www.russee.com Dmitry Malenko http://www.itgny.com Pavel Tsitovich http://www.susu.ac.ru Igor Kaftannikov http://www.susu.ac.ru Lubov Orlova http://www.russee.com Konstantin Philonenko

http://www.starsoftlabs.comIvan Poyda http://www.poyda.com

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This presentation was delivered in Moscow on October 28, 2005,

at the First Software Engineering Conference in

Russia

You can download it form http://www.secr.ru or

http://www.vlpavlov.com