How can quality awareness support rapid software development?: a research preview

Abstract

Context and Motivation: Rapid software development (RSD) refers to the organizational capability to develop, release, and learn from software in rapid cycles without compromising its quality. To achieve RSD, it is essential to understand and manage software quality along the software lifecycle. Question/Problem: Despite the numerous information sources related to product quality, there is a lack of mechanisms for supporting continuous quality management throughout the whole RSD process. Principal ideas/Results: We propose Q-Rapids, a data-driven, quality-aware RSD framework in which quality and functional requirements are managed together. Quality requirements are incrementally elicited and refined based on data gathered at both development time and runtime. Project, development, and runtime data is aggregated into quality-related indicators to support decision makers in steering future development cycles. Contributions: Q-Rapids aims to increase software quality through continuous data gathering and analysis, as well as continuous management of quality requirements.