Measuring Software Development Waste in Open-Source Software Projects
Dhiraj SM Varanasi, Divij D, Sai Anirudh Karre, Y Raghu Reddy
TL;DR
Software development waste (SDW) drains resources and degrades delivery performance. The paper addresses the lack of quantitative SDW measures by proposing five OSS-focused metrics—Stale Forks (SFs), Project Diversification Index (PDI), PR Rejection Rate (PRR), Backlog Inversion Index (BI Index), and Feature Fulfillment Rate (FFR)—and applying them to ten open-source projects using GitHub data. Each measure targets a specific waste category, such as unused artifacts, mismanaged backlog, and building the wrong feature, with concrete definitions and calculation methods. The results reveal varying patterns of waste across repositories, highlighting the practical utility of these measures to identify areas for backlog refinement and feature alignment in OSS. The authors also offer adoption strategies and discuss limitations, paving the way for broader deployment and further expansion of SDW measurement in practice.
Abstract
Software Development Waste (SDW) is defined as any resource-consuming activity that does not add value to the client or the organization developing the software. SDW impacts the overall efficiency and productivity of a software project as the scale and size of the project grows. Although engineering leaders usually put in effort to minimize waste, the lack of definitive measures to track and manage SDW is a cause of concern. To address this gap, we propose five measures, namely Stale Forks, Project Diversification Index, PR Rejection Rate, Backlog Inversion Index, and Feature Fulfillment Rate to potentially identify unused artifacts, building the wrong feature/product, mismanagement of backlog types of SDW. We apply these measures on ten open-source projects and share our observations to apply them in practice for managing SDW.