Evaluation of a Conceptual Model-Based Method for Discovery of Dependency Links

In practice dependency management often suffers from labor intensity and complexity in creating and maintaining the dependency relations. Our method targets projects, where developers are geographically distributed and a wide range of tools is used. A conceptual domain model is used to inter-relate the development objects and to automate dependency link discovery. The proposed method is based on association of development objects with concepts from domain model. These associations are used to compute dependency among development objects, and are stepwise refined to direct dependency links. A preliminary empirical evaluation of the method is conducted. The method is evaluated both on performance and psychological variables. The evaluation has been performed in laboratory settings using two real cases. The results, although preliminary, provide positive evidence about the ability of our method to automate discovery of dependency relations, the analysis indicates that the method is perceived to be easy to use and useful by its potential users.