Evaluating the Utility of the Usability Model for Software Development Process and Practice

Abstract

Processes and practices are tools that organizations use to improve their capabilities. Agile transformations are very popular, as are process and practice improvement and adoption initiatives, but they face many challenges, including low adoption rates. Improving process and practice usability might increase adoption rates and effective use. This idea led us to define a Usability Model for Software development Process and Practice (UMP), consisting of characteristics and metrics, in the quest to improve the work experience of software development practitioners and the effectiveness of process and practice adoption initiatives. The goal of this paper is two-fold: (1) to present the refined version of the UMP and (2) to describe a study on the application of the UMP to the Visual Milestone Planning (VMP) method in order to evaluate UMP’s utility, specifically its ability to produce useful feedback in a real-life scenario. The study produced preliminary confirmation that the UMP is applicable to the VMP, along with specific feedback on improvement opportunities for the VMP. An interview with the VMP creator confirmed that the UMP model and the evaluation feedback were valuable for enhancing VMP adoption. In summary, we can conclude that the empirical results obtained show that UMP can be useful. Nonetheless, more studies are needed to provide further confirmation in different scenarios.