Balboa: A Framework for Event-Based Process Data Analysis

摘要

Software process research has suffered from a lack of focussed data analysis techniques and tools. Part of the problem is the ad hoc and heterogeneous nature of the data, as well as the methods of collecting those data. While collection methods must be specific to their data source, analysis tools should be shielded from specific data formats and idiosyncrasies. We have built Balboa as a bridge between the data collection and the analysis tools, facilitating the gathering and management of event data, and simplifying the construction of tools to analyze the data. Balboa is a framework that provides to collection methods a flexible data registration mechanism, and provides to tools a consistent set of data manipulation, management, and access services. It unites the variety of collection mechanisms with the variety of tools, thus paving the way for more extensive application of process improvement techniques based on data analysis.