Academic Journal
Improved Management of Issue Dependencies in Issue Trackers of Large Collaborative Projects
| Title: | Improved Management of Issue Dependencies in Issue Trackers of Large Collaborative Projects |
|---|---|
| Authors: | Mikko Raatikainen, Quim Motger, Clara Marie Lüders, Xavier Franch, Lalli Myllyaho, Elina Kettunen, Jordi Marco, Juha Tiihonen, Mikko Halonen, Tomi Männistö |
| Contributors: | Empirical Software Engineering research group, Department of Computer Science, Finnish Museum of Natural History, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Doctorat en Computació, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament d'Enginyeria de Serveis i Sistemes d'Informació, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament de Ciències de la Computació, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. inSSIDE - integrated Software, Services, Information and Data Engineering |
| Source: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Publication Status: | Preprint |
| Publisher Information: | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2023. |
| Publication Year: | 2023 |
| Subject Terms: | FOS: Computer and information sciences, Computer software -- Development, Software development management, Dependency, 02 engineering and technology, Programari -- Fiabilitat, Bug, Interviews, Computer Science - Software Engineering, Stakeholders, Issue tracker, 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering, Design science, D.2.1, Computer and information sciences, Jira, Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Enginyeria del software, Computer software -- Reliability, Collaboration, Software Engineering (cs.SE), Requirement, Computer bugs, Release, Task analysis, Issue management, Programari -- Desenvolupament, Issue, Software |
| Description: | Issue trackers, such as Jira, have become the prevalent collaborative tools in software engineering for managing issues, such as requirements, development tasks, and software bugs. However, issue trackers inherently focus on the lifecycle of single issues, although issues have and express dependencies on other issues that constitute issue dependency networks in large complex collaborative projects. The objective of this study is to develop supportive solutions for the improved management of dependent issues in an issue tracker. This study follows the Design Science methodology, consisting of eliciting drawbacks and constructing and evaluating a solution and system. The study was carried out in the context of The Qt Company's Jira, which exemplifies an actively used, almost two-decade-old issue tracker with over 100,000 issues. The drawbacks capture how users operate with issue trackers to handle issue information in large, collaborative, and long-lived projects. The basis of the solution is to keep issues and dependencies as separate objects and automatically construct an issue graph. Dependency detections complement the issue graph by proposing missing dependencies, while consistency checks and diagnoses identify conflicting issue priorities and release assignments. Jira's plugin and service-based system architecture realize the functional and quality concerns of the system implementation. We show how to adopt the intelligent supporting techniques of an issue tracker in a complex use context and a large data-set. The solution considers an integrated and holistic system view, practical applicability and utility, and the practical characteristics of issue data, such as inherent incompleteness. Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. Published online 05 October 2022. 21 pages, 3 figures, 8 tables |
| Document Type: | Article |
| File Description: | application/pdf |
| ISSN: | 2326-3881 0098-5589 |
| DOI: | 10.1109/tse.2022.3212166 |
| DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.2102.08485 |
| DOI: | 10.13039/501100011033planestataldeinvestigacióncientíficaytécnicaydeinnovación2017-2020pid2020-117191rb-i00desarrollo,operativaygobernanzadedatosparasistemassoftwarebasadosenaprendizajeautomatico |
| Access URL: | http://arxiv.org/abs/2102.08485 http://hdl.handle.net/10138/358464 |
| Rights: | CC BY arXiv Non-Exclusive Distribution |
| Accession Number: | edsair.doi.dedup.....cc7f06cc3564728aebe4cf58eec43c54 |
| Database: | OpenAIRE |
| ISSN: | 23263881 00985589 |
|---|---|
| DOI: | 10.1109/tse.2022.3212166 |