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Software project management using machine learning technique—a review.

1. Introduction

2. preliminary study, 2.1. software effort estimation, 2.2. machine learning (ml), 2.3. software project management estimation based on ml, 3. methodology, 3.1. threats to validity, 3.2. research questions, 3.3. statistical information of collects articles, 3.4. review and survey articles, 3.4.1. studies conducted on machine learning and their use in spm, 3.4.2. other methods, 3.5. experimental studies, 3.5.1. studies conducted on machine learning methods, 3.5.2. studies conducted on other methods, 3.6. case study, studies conducted on other methods, 3.7. develop and design, 3.7.1. studies conducted on machine learning methods, 3.7.2. studies conducted on other methods, 4. discussion, 4.1. motivations, 4.1.1. benefits related to prediction cost evaluation model, 4.1.2. benefits related to the risk management, 4.1.3. benefits related to global software development (gsd), 4.1.4. benefits related to expert-based measures, 4.2. challenges, 4.2.1. concerns on estimation results using ml, 4.2.2. concerns on implementing the risk assessment, 4.2.3. concerns on recommend practitioners need, 4.3. recommendations, 4.3.1. recommendations for software effort estimation, 4.3.2. recommendations for expert based measures, 4.3.3. recommendations for management software process, 4.3.4. recommendations for risk prediction, 4.3.5. recommendations for software fault prediction models, 5. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Mahdi, M.N.; Mohamed Zabil, M.H.; Ahmad, A.R.; Ismail, R.; Yusoff, Y.; Cheng, L.K.; Azmi, M.S.B.M.; Natiq, H.; Happala Naidu, H. Software Project Management Using Machine Learning Technique—A Review. Appl. Sci. 2021 , 11 , 5183. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11115183

Mahdi MN, Mohamed Zabil MH, Ahmad AR, Ismail R, Yusoff Y, Cheng LK, Azmi MSBM, Natiq H, Happala Naidu H. Software Project Management Using Machine Learning Technique—A Review. Applied Sciences . 2021; 11(11):5183. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11115183

Mahdi, Mohammed Najah, Mohd Hazli Mohamed Zabil, Abdul Rahim Ahmad, Roslan Ismail, Yunus Yusoff, Lim Kok Cheng, Muhammad Sufyian Bin Mohd Azmi, Hayder Natiq, and Hushalini Happala Naidu. 2021. "Software Project Management Using Machine Learning Technique—A Review" Applied Sciences 11, no. 11: 5183. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11115183

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Impact of agile management on project performance: Evidence from I.T sector of Pakistan

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Management Science, COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Cantt, Pakistan

Roles Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Management Science, Riphah International University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision

Affiliation Department of Civil Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Cantt, Pakistan

Roles Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation

Roles Project administration, Resources, Validation, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Project administration, Validation

Roles Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Computer Science, COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Cantt, Pakistan

• Umer Muhammad, 
• Tahira Nazir, 
• Najam Muhammad, 
• Ahsen Maqsoom, 
• Samina Nawab, 
• Syeda Tamkeen Fatima, 
• Khuram Shafi, 
• Faisal Shafique Butt

• Published: April 5, 2021
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Over the past several years, global project management teams have been facing dynamic challenges that continue to grow exponentially with the increasing number of complexities associated with the undertaken tasks. The ever-evolving organizational challenges demand project managers to adapt novel management practices to accomplish organizational goals rather than following traditional management practices. Considering which, the current study aims to explain the effect of agile management practices upon project performance directly as well as while being mediated through project complexity. Furthermore, the aforementioned mediatory relationship is evaluated in terms of the moderating effect of leadership competencies. The current study utilized the survey approach to collect the data from registered I.T firms deployed in the potential metropolitans of each province of Pakistan including, Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Sukkur, and Karachi. A total of 176 responses were utilized for statistical evaluations. As result, it was observed that the negative influence anticipated by project complexity on project performance was compensated by the agile management practices. Further, the leadership competencies played a pivotal role in managing project complexity while implementing agile management practices and therefore enhancing project performance. The current study abridges the potential knowledge gap conceptually by evaluating the direct impact of agile management upon project performance while considering all of its aspects, exploring the mediatory role of project performance and evaluating the moderating role of leadership competencies in attaining optimum project performance. In contextual terms, the current study fills the knowledge gap by gauging the implications of agile management practices within the I.T sector of Pakistan. The results of the current study can be a potential guide for both the academicians and the industry professionals.

Citation: Muhammad U, Nazir T, Muhammad N, Maqsoom A, Nawab S, Fatima ST, et al. (2021) Impact of agile management on project performance: Evidence from I.T sector of Pakistan. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0249311. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311

Editor: Dejan Dragan, Univerza v Mariboru, SLOVENIA

Received: October 1, 2020; Accepted: March 16, 2021; Published: April 5, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Muhammad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting information files.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The agile management approach in terms of project development process remains rather a novel practice for most of the organizations of today to adapt and practice. Regardless, recent studies have indicated that organizations around the globe considering their long terms benefits are adapting the agile management practices more, in comparison to the traditionally followed waterfall management practices; especially in the IT sector. Research so far has highlighted the relevance of the agile management practices as well as has justified its constructive impact on the performance of an organization [ 1 , 2 ]. In specific to the management trends being followed, a recent global report of PMI comprising opinion of 727 executive members deployed on 3,234 projects across Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Latin American, Middle East, Africa, and Caribbean Regions, proposed the implementation of agile management practices as a potential reason to trigger organizational productivity. Therefore, signifying the impact of agile management practices upon the performance of the firms [ 3 ]. Moreover, another recent study conducted by Ambysoft indicated agile management practices to deliver a success rate of 55% in comparison to the waterfall management practices with a success rate of 29% only. The report further indicated that 36% of the projects completed under the agile management practices remained challenged and required limited fulfillment of constraints to accomplish the projects. In contrast, the waterfall management practices were credited 67% of the challenged projects. The study also revealed the agile management practices to be attributed with only a mere 3% of project failure rate [ 4 ]. Thus, justifying the constructive impact of agile management practices in terms of enhanced performance measures. Regardless, the precise study indicating the impact of implementing agile management practices upon the project performance while considering all of its related aspects is yet to be explored [ 5 , 6 ]. Considering the potential research gap, the current study took into account of all relevant aspects of project performance including ‘time’, ‘finances’, ‘magnitude of efforts’, ‘work environment moral’, ‘fulfillment of quality criterions’ as well as the ‘satisfaction of regarding stakeholders’ and further observed the variation, in terms of the implementation of the agile management practices.

Considering the organizational accomplishment related aspect of the current research, the performance associated with the projects is often challenged by the magnitude of the complexity faced by the firms. Complexity, if not addressed timely can rile up to potential risks and consequently result in declined performance to a limit where it can jeopardize the existence of an organization itself. Considering which, research so far has indicted that implementation of relevant management practices can enable the mitigation of complexity associated to a project [ 7 , 8 ]. As Sohi, Hertogh [ 9 ] in their recent study were able to justify the association of agile management practices with the abridged level of project complexity to some extent. It was further speculated by the researchers to enhance the project performance of any given firm. Therefore, to address the existing knowledge gap the current study took into account the mediating role of project complexity, to be able to analyze the direct impact of agility upon project complexity as well as the project performance. Moreover, justify the theorized impact of agility in terms of reduced project complexity and enhanced project performance.

Taking into account the managerial aspect of the current study, prior studies have indicated that the efficient and effective implementation of management practices for the most part has remained predominated by the human factor, and of which leadership competencies is of most vital consideration [ 10 ]. In various contexts, the effective implementation of leadership competencies has been found to have a significant impact on the overall organizational performance of any given firm [ 11 , 12 ]. In relevance, a consolidated view of the implementation of leadership competencies to mitigate the organizational complexities and enhance performance measures is yet to be evaluated [ 13 ]. It is very much expectant of the agile management practices to depict enhanced performance as a result of effective leadership competency mitigating the magnitude of dynamic organizational challenges. Considering which, the current study evaluated the moderating role of leadership competencies to observe the controlled impact of professional complexities and the delivered project performance. Therefore, filling in the existing conceptual knowledge gap indicated by prior researchers.

Furthermore, in specific to filling in the contextual research gap, the current study explored the implication of the targeted variables within the I.T sector of Pakistan, which itself has seen significant progression over the years.

The present study aims to accomplish the following research objectives:

• RO1 : Determine the effect of agile management practices on project performance .
• RO2 : Evaluate the mediating role of project complexity between agile management practices and project performance .
• RO3 : Gauge the moderating role of leadership competencies between agile management practices and project complexity .

The following sections of the study comprises of the detailed literature review of all the opted variables of the current study as well as their hypothetical development. Further, the methodological approach to collect the data from the targeted population is presented, which is then further statistically evaluated and explained in the results and analysis section. Followed to which, the deduction based upon the evaluated results are presented in the discussion. Lastly, the outcomes of the current research are deduced in the conclusion section.

Literature review

Agile management..

The concept of agile management got tossed in 1991 when the term agility was defined in a report by the Lacocca Institute, as “the ability to thrive in rapidly changing, fragmented markets”. As the concept evolved, agility was redefined as, “the state or quality of being able to move quickly in an easy fashion”. Therefore, for any firm labeled as agile is expectant to resolve unforeseeable challenges. Therefore, assuring the organizational sustainability in uncertain environments [ 14 , 15 ]. The concept of agile management is multifaceted in nature and the remnants of its implementation have been observed across various disciplines over last few decades. Most early implementation of agile management practices was embraced by the manufacturing sector. At time, agility was defined as, “the capability of an organization to meet changing market requirements, maximize customer service levels and resultantly minimize the cost of goods” [ 16 ]. The agile management practices for a decade and more remained implemented within the manufacturing industry only [ 17 ]. It wasn’t until the commercialization of the internet in 1995 when the agile management practices attained maturity in other industrial sectors as well, especially the software development [ 18 ]. To formalize the agility practices in terms of the software development process the OOPSA conference held in the same year played a momentous role when Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland defined the cardinal principles for the implementation of agility on an organizational scale. Later, the agility saw minuscule implementation in the years to come, till 2001. It happened when various professionals, practitioners, and theorists came up with “Agile Manifesto”, which was mutually signed and published on the internet. The manifesto challenged the implications of traditionally followed management practices onto the project-related outcomes with a higher level of uncertainties. Further, in addition to declaring the traditional management practices misaligned towards the dynamically natured projects, the report emphasized the induction of agile management practices in such environments. Thus, effectively managing organizational objectives, minimizing project complexity, and delivering efficiency in terms of organizational performance [ 16 , 19 ].

To understand what made the implementation of agile management practices a success in the software industry as well as its spread across the globe on the exponential rate in contrast to any other industry, one has to take into consideration the following factors on which the dynamics of agile management rely onto and further draw a comparison of them with the traditionally followed management practices [ 2 , 20 ] (See Table 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t001

The software industry has for most part evolved over the past 30 years. But the last decade has depicted a significant surge in the industry’s growth and its respective performance. The reason justifying the phenomena has been the broader application of agile management practices, that replaced the traditionally followed management practices over time. The earlier research has justified the execution of agility in terms of ensuring enhanced performance, and also have supported the fact that implementation of agility is most suitable for the business environs that are dynamic in nature. Since, it has very vividly been observed that the implementation of software project development requires the dynamic implementation of operational measures as the problems are evolving real-time, which justifies the complexity associated with the software industry. Considering which, the software development sector is a perfect fit to adapt agile management practices [ 5 ].

Apart from the software products and services, one of the major parts of the project development process is the interaction between the stakeholders which plays a pivotal in determining the performance of the project. Considering which, Uludag, Kleehaus [ 22 ] and Hobbs and Petit [ 23 ] in their respective studies indicated that agile management practices allow organizations for its internal stakeholders to communicate freely as well as maintain a consistent stream of feedback from the external stakeholders. Thus, assuring the regarding organization to achieve optimal performance levels.

Considering the ability of agile management practices to enable its utilizers to accomplish projects in a dynamic environment and be able to deliver optimized performance while considering its respective dimensions i.e., competency, flexibility, quickness, and responsiveness, the current study took into account the implementation of agile management practices in relation to all the aspects of performance.

• H1: Agile management practices will significantly impact the project performance, in a positive manner.

Project complexity.

Any given organization that functions onto various organizational factors either human or non-human operating in parallel to one another, is bound to face unexpected challenges to manage through and accomplish its goals. Considering which, the software industry has been the most critical one on the list [ 24 ]. It has been so because regardless of the business type, every operational entity is reliant on the software utilization either it is in form of communication, logistics, traveling, academia, and even fields as critical as healthcare. Therefore, justifying the software industry to be the one facing crucial levels of complexity [ 25 ].

Typically, for a large-scale operation with a higher magnitude of complexity, like software development, is often considered as a project rather than a routine-based operation/task, by most of the organizations. This demands a persistent application of relevant management practices under effective supervision to tackle the complexity.

For the successful accomplishment of a project, opting relevant management approach plays a pivotal role in tackling the complexities associated with the environment. Since only the right management approach can enable the managers to make correct calculations to allocate the right percentage of resources to the right places at the right time. Moreover, the application of a relevant management approach enables the mitigation of risk and the magnitude of projected losses [ 2 , 26 ].

Prior studies have indicated a directly proportionate relationship between the complexity and the respective performance of an organization and the projects associated with it. This suggests that if the complexities associated with any given project are not handled effectively on time, are probable to cause an escalation in the level of hindrances associated with the project and may even result in failure of the project itself [ 27 , 28 ].

Project complexity attributed to any given project is determined upon the variation in the number of tasks, their respective types, individuals deployed, and numerous other considerations. Considering which, effective prioritization of the entities involved, and the correct allocation of resources is necessary. All of which is only possible through the application of the relevant management approach [ 8 ].

Past decades have seen an evolution in terms of management practices and their respective application. Which have encouraged both academia as well as practitioners to extend the knowledge upon. As a matter of fact, among the two widely practiced project development management approaches i.e. waterfall and agile, it is the agile management approach that has proved itself to be more efficient to accomplish projects, across the world [ 29 ].

Considering which, Zhu and Mostafavi [ 8 ] in their study indicated the ability of agile management practices to manage through complex settings more effectively and efficiently. Thus, suggesting to lead the project towards better performance. Moreover, in another study Maylor and Turner [ 27 ] highlighted the aspect of stakeholder’s involvement in the development process, which justified the mitigation of project complexity to a greater extent. As agile management encourages the internal stakeholders of the project to seek continuous feedback from one another as well as from the clients throughout the process. Doing so reduces the amount of ambiguity from the development phase as much as possible and induce desired changes along the process. Thus, the finished project is much more of a reflection of the client’s expectations and assurance of enhanced performance. Moreover, in specific to the software industry the nature of projects is bound to change much more rapidly than any other industry, which classifies the software industry with the highest level of complexity attributed to it. For its resolution, the agile management approach suggests breaking down of complex scenarios into smaller tasks with reduced complexity. Thus, resulting in the effective and focused application of management practices, which would further result in mitigation of complexity associated with the project as well as elevated project performance [ 18 , 27 ].

Considering, the ability of agile management practices to mitigate the magnitude of complexity associated with the project and enhance the chances of the performance associated to the regarding project accomplish projects in a dynamic environment, the current study took into account the direct implementation of agile management practices in relation to the diminished project complexity. Moreover, the project complexity was evaluated in terms of a mediator.

• H2: Agile management practices will significantly impact the project complexity, in a negative manner.
• H3: Project complexity will significantly impact the project performance, in a negative manner.
• H4: Project complexity will significantly mediate the relationship between agile management practices and project performance.

Leadership competencies.

The opting of management practices is not enough for an organization to function properly. Rather it is the effective implementation of those defined policies that ensure the magnitude of performance delivered and subsequently the overall sustainability of an organization. For which, it is the human factor in terms of leadership, within an organization that contributes the most towards it. This is where leadership and its respective competencies come into play. Andriukaitienė, Voronkova [ 30 ] in their study defined project manager competence as a combination of knowledge (qualification), skills (ability to do a task), and core personality characteristics (motives, traits, self-concepts) that lead to superior results.

In the project management literature, few topics are too frequently discussed yet are very rarely agreed upon; such as the aspect of project performance [ 2 ]. The last two decades have extended the scope of project performance far beyond the measures of cost, time, and functionality. The project performance measures of today demand to fulfill the satisfaction criterion of the stakeholder associated with the given project, attainment of business/organizational goals, product success, and development of the team involved. All of which is very much reliant upon the effectiveness of the implied organizational practice under human supervision [ 31 ]. Refereed to which, Maqbool, Sudong [ 32 ] in their study identified the possible shortcoming that may hinder the performance associated to any given project. The findings identified the hindering effects as the ineffective management practice observed in the planning, organization, and controlling of the project. Furthermore, Alvarenga, Branco [ 33 ] identified various performance measures associated with well-executed projects. Overall, the findings reflected the leadership competency in terms of maintaining effective communication and problem solving resulted in enhanced project performance. While, the absence of leadership competency in terms of inadequate administration/supervision, human skills, and emotional influencing skills (IQ & EQ) resulted in declined performance or even failure in some cases. Ahmed and Anantatmula [ 34 ] in his study suggested that the manager’s perception of performance and belief in his/her ability can play a significant role in determining the performance delivered. Thus, deeming the leadership competency to play a pivotal role in the accomplishment of a project. Akin to which, Turner came up with the seven forces model to define the factors influencing the project’s performance. The model highlights the people as the cardinal force to drive the project towards accomplishment; which is only possible through leadership competencies, teamwork, and industrial relations. Hassan, Bashir [ 35 ] in their studies brought up the subject that despite the vast research on the project performance and its related measures the organizations still fail to satisfy its stakeholders. It was because most of the research done so far was considering time, cost, and quality as the only measure to determine the project performance delivered. Hassan, Bashir [ 35 ] and Maqbool, Sudong [ 32 ] indicated the criticality of including the human factor in terms of leadership competence/ability to determine the performance of the project. Zuo, Zhao [ 36 ] and Gunter [ 37 ] as well in their studies reviewed the impact of leadership’s competence and style to determine the project’s outcomes and concluded the fact that the existing literature has for most part overlooked the impact of leadership competence on the project’s performance. Therefore, to evaluate the controlling effect of leadership competency to observe change in the magnitude of the performance delivered, the current study proposed the following hypothesis (See Fig 1 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.g001

• H5: Leadership competencies will significantly impact the project performance, in a positive manner.
• H6: Leadership competencies will significantly moderate the relationship between project complexity and project performance.

Research methodology

The survey questionnaire was composed of 48 items in total. To determine the application of agile management practices on the organizational level a 20 relevant items were adapted from the scale developed by Zhang and Sharifi [ 42 ]. The scale itself was based upon four dimensions i.e. ability, flexibility, quickness, and responsiveness. To determine the leadership competencies of managers on various hierarchical levels of an organization, an 10 items were adapted from the scale developed by Chung-Herrera, Enz [ 43 ]. The scale was composed of 8 unique dimensions i.e. self-management, strategic positioning, implementation, critical thinking, communication, interpersonal, leadership, and industry knowledge. To determine the overall magnitude of complexity associated with the project under study, 12 items were adapted from the scale developed by Xia and Lee [ 44 ]. To determine the overall performance of the undertaken projects, a 6 items scale developed by Yusuf, Sarhadi [ 45 ] was utilized in the current study. The responses were recorded upon the 5-Point Likert scale, which had (1) to refer to “Strongly Disagree” up to (5) referring to “Strongly Agree” [ 46 ].

The current study included the opinion of the respondents recorded in terms of quantitative scale. During the data collection process, no confidential information (personal/organizational) was inquired about. Also, the presented research did not categorize the involved workers in terms of race/ethnicity, age, disease/disabilities, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, or other socially constructed groupings. Therefore, COMSATS University Islamabad’s Ethics Review Committee declared the current study exempted from the requirement of consent from the respondents. Considering which, a total of 250 questionnaires were disseminated to survey the professionals of the Pakistani IT industry. By the end of the survey process, a total of 190 responses got collected. Thus, the overall response rate of the study was 76%. Further, 7% of the responses were discarded as a result of being incomplete or erroneous. Since both incomplete or redundant data can affect the results adversely [ 47 ]. Followed to the collection of data the next phase demanded the application of appropriate statistical tools and respective data analysis techniques to make deductions regarding the objectives of the study. For which the current study utilized the SmartPLS GmbH’s SMART Partial Least Squares (SMART PLS 3.0) to analyze the dataset. Various studies in recent years have utilized a similar tool and respective techniques to analyze the data and make respective deductions [ 48 , 49 ].

Statistical results & analysis

To begin with, the information was gauged to assess the instrument’s reliability and validity. Further, the instrument’s fitness was evaluated in terms of factor loadings. The results identified few unfit components associated with the variables under study. Suggested to which, the identified unfit components of the hypothesized model were then removed. Followed by which, the information was evaluated to gauge the direct and indirect effects of variables, in alignment with the hypothesized model. Finally, the hypothesized model was concluded upon the evaluation of the total impact of the predictor variables upon the dependent variable [ 50 , 51 ].

Demographical classification

The respondents of the study had variating attributions associated with them in terms of demographics. The current study classified the respondents in terms of age, tenure of employment, sector of employment, the status of employment, and the geographical location of their organization.

As a response to which 63.6 percent of employees were aged between 20–29 years, 21.6 percent were aged between 30–39 years, 10.8 percent were aged between 40–49 years and 4.0 percent were aged 50 years or above.

In specific to the tenure of employment or the managerial experience, 27.8 percent of respondents had an experience of less than 1 year, 20.5 percent had experience ranged between 1–2 years, 19.3 percent had experience ranged between 2–5 years, 9.1 percent had experience ranged between 5–10 years and, 23.3 percent had an experience of 10 years or over.

In terms of the employment sector, 53.9 percent of the individuals were employed in the public sector. While 46.1 percent of the individuals were employed in the private sector.

In terms of the geographical placement of the surveyed organizations, 12.5 percent of the firm were deployed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan, 50 percent of the firm were deployed in Punjab, 25 percent of the firm were deployed in the Sindh and, 12.5 percent of the firm were deployed in the Balochistan. Thus, deeming the study to utilize the equivalently proportionate responses from each province, that were aligned with the proportion of firms in each province, nationwide.

Structural equation modeling

Structural equation modeling is a multivariate based statistical evaluation approach that is utilized to determine structural associations between the components of a hypothesized model [ 52 , 53 ]. The adapted approach is a combination of factor analysis and multiple- regression analysis. The current study took a two-stage approach to conduct SEM. The first stage involved the application of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which justified the consistency of the research instrument and its associated components/items. Followed by which, the research instrument was tested for its respective reliability and validity in the first stage of SEM, as commended by prior research [ 53 ]. The second stage of SEM involved the evaluation of measuring the magnitude of impact existent between the observed and latent variables under discussion. Which were further justifies in terms of their significance and their respective relevance in alignment to the hypothesized relationships [ 54 ].

SEM (stage 1).

To begin with, the first stage of the SEM tested the measurement model for its reliability, validity (convergent, discriminant), and consistency to the components towards the research instrument, utilizing the CFA approach. CFA is a commended approach to test adapted research instruments for their consistency [ 49 , 55 ].

Instrument’s reliability.

The reliability of a research instrument is its ability to give consistent results with negligible variation regardless of the environment it is utilized in. SEM utilizes Cronbach’s Alpha as the criterion of reliability associated with a research instrument. For a research instrument and its respective components to be reliable the value of Cronbach’s Alpha is commended to be higher than 0.70 [ 56 ]. Keeping that in view, the values of Cronbach’s Alpha associated with all the variables under study were above 0.70 (See Table 2 ). Thus, deeming the respective research instrument to be reliable.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t002

Instrument’s validity (convergent).

The validity of a research instrument is defined as its ability to measure the phenomena that it is supposed to measure. There are two types of validity i.e. convergent and discriminant [ 57 , 58 ]. The convergent validity associated with a research instrument is the measure to determine the relatability of research items to their respective variable. SEM utilizes Average Variance Extracted (AVE) as the criterion of validity associated with a research instrument. For a research instrument and its respective components to be convergently valid, the value of AVE is commended to be higher than 0.5 [ 49 , 59 ]. Keeping, that in view the values of AVE associated with all the variables under study were above 0.5 (See Table 3 ). Thus, deeming the respective research instrument to be convergently valid.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t003

Instrument’s validity (discriminant).

The discriminant validity associated with a research instrument is the measure to determine the magnitude of dissimilarity of research items associated with a variable towards the research items of the rest of the variables under study. SEM utilizes Fornell-Larcker Criterion as the criterion of discriminant validity associated with a research instrument. For a research instrument and its respective components to be discriminately valid, the correlative value of Fornell-Larcker Criterion of a variable with its components is commended to be higher than the correlative value of other variables in the study [ 48 , 49 ]. Keeping, that in view the values of the Fornell-Larcker Criterion associated with all the variables under study were comparatively higher than the correlative values of other variables in the study (See Table 4 ). Thus, deeming the respective research instrument to be discriminately valid.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t004

Another measure to determine, the discriminant validity associated to a research instrument is the Cross Loadings. For a research instrument and its respective components to be discriminately valid, the correlative values of Cross Loadings of the items of a variable are commended to be higher than the correlative values of similar items with other variables in the study [ 49 ]. Keeping, that in view the values of Cross Loadings associated to all the items of the variables under study were comparatively higher than the correlative values of similar items with rest of the variables in the study (See Table 5 ). Thus, deeming the respective research instrument to be discriminately valid.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t005

Lastly, in terms of evaluating the discriminant validity, the Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT) is considered as the most precise measurement. HTMT is based upon a higher level of specificity that is ranged between the measurement precision of 97%-99%. On the contrary, the measures of Cross Loadings followed by the Fornell-Larcker Criterion can only depict a measurement precision ranged between 0.00%-20.82% [ 49 , 60 ]. In terms of HTMT, for a research instrument to be valid, the correlational terms must be valued lower than the 0.90. Keeping that in view, the correlation values associated with all the variables were below 0.90 (See Table 6 ). Thus, deeming the respective research instrument to be discriminately valid.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t006

Multi-collinearity.

Multi-Collinearity is the state of higher correlation existent between the variables and the indicators associated with them. Which can further lead to unreliable statistical projections and inferences. To test a variable and its respective indicators for collinearity, the proposed criterion of VIF is followed. The referred criterion suggests for all the indicators of the regarding variable to have a VIF value lower than 5 to be fit in terms of collinearity measure [ 48 ]. Keeping that in view all the indicators associated with the variables under study were found to have VIF value under 5 (See Table 7 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t007

Factor loadings.

Followed to fulfilling the criterion of the research instrument’s reliability and validity the respective components must fulfill the criterion of factor analysis that is measured in terms of Factor Loadings. Factor Loadings are determinant of the variability and correlation associated with the items of the observed variables under study. For an item associated with a variable to fulfill the Factor Loading criterion, must be valued above 0.7 [ 61 , 62 ]. In comparison to which, selective items associated with agile management (AM13) and project complexity (PC2, PC4) were found below the commended threshold value (See Table 8 ). Thus, these items were removed from the measurement model, to enhance the overall fit.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t008

SEM (stage 2).

After the deletion of unfit components of the measurement model, the second stage involved the reassessment of the measurement model. The model was retested in terms of Factor Loadings, which depicted all of the values to be ranged above the minimum threshold of 0.70 [ 62 ] (See Table 9 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t009

Path coefficients.

After conforming to the component fitness criterion, the structural model was evaluated in terms of the magnitude of the effect the observed variables had on the latent variables. The said magnitude was evaluated utilizing the measure of Path Coefficients. The value associated to the measure of path coefficient varies between ±1, which suggests the positive and negative relationship between the variables under consideration [ 48 , 63 , 64 ]. The effect of agile management practices over the project performance was valued at 0.473. The effect of agile management practices over the project complexity was valued as 0.703. The effect of leadership competencies over the project performance was valued at 0.664. Lastly, the effect of project complexity over the project performance was valued at 0.149. The evaluated effects were further justified in terms of the level of significance attributed to them i.e. p-value ≤ 0.05. Since all the results fulfilled the significance criterion, for which the evaluated effects were considered as accepted (See Table 10 ). Thus, justifying the following hypothesized relationships between the variables under study:

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t010

Coefficient of determination ( r 2 ).

Coefficient of Determination ( r 2 ) is representative of the amount of variance the exogenous variable/s can cause in the associated endogenous variable/s. The value of the Coefficient of Determination (r2) varies between 0–1. The higher the value of r 2 the higher the magnitude of impact implied by the exogenous variables [ 65 ]. Keeping that in view, the exogenous variables of the study i.e. (Agile Management, Project Complexity, and Leadership Competencies) impacted the endogenous variable i.e. (Project Performance) with an r 2 valued at 0.582. Thus, justifying 58.20% of the variance explained (See Table 11 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t011

Effect size ( f 2 ).

Effect Size ( f 2 ) is representative of the magnitude of effect an exogenous variable can have on an endogenous variable. The respective magnitude of the effect is classified into three tiers. For a given relationship the values of Effect Size ( f 2 ) ranged between 0.02–0.14 are attributed as a small effect. Likewise, values ranged between 0.15–0.35 are attributed as a medium effect, and values ranged 0.36 and above are attributed as a large effect [ 48 , 51 ]. Keeping that in view, both the agile management and project complexity had a medium impact. While leadership competencies and project complexity had a large effect on their respective dependent variables. (See Table 12 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t012

Mediation analysis.

A mediatory variable of the study is known to add an explanation or justify the effect of an exogenous variable over an endogenous variable. The current study took project complexity as a mediator to explain the effect of agile management over the project performance. SmartPLS explains the mediation in terms of Indirect Effects and its respective significance [ 66 , 67 ]. Keeping, that in view the hypothesized mediation was approved (See Table 13 ). Thus, accepting the following hypothesis:

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t013

Moderation analysis.

A moderating variable of the study is known to control the magnitude of the effect of an exogenous variable over an endogenous variable. This effect can be tilted either positively or negatively in presence of a moderator. The current study took leadership competencies as a moderator to control the effect of project complexity over the project performance. SmartPLS explains the moderation in terms of inducing a product indicator term in the structural model and its respective significance [ 68 ]. Keeping, that in view the hypothesized moderation was approved (See Table 14 ). Thus, accepting the following hypothesis:

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t014

Results summary.

The proposed hypotheses for the current study were accepted while considering their significance. The respective summary is depicted in the following Table 15 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.t015

To begin with, the first research hypothesis stated, “Are the agile management practices a significant predictor of project performance?”. Keeping that in view, the current study depicted a significantly positive influence of implementing agile management practices onto the overall performance of the projects undertaken. This suggests, that resolving a project into smaller functional proportions and responding timely is a commendable approach to enhance the performance of the undertaken projects.

Furthermore, the statistical findings in accordance with the dimensions of the agile management the significance of the relationship emphasized that an organization must undertake only the projects that it is competent enough to accomplish. Moreover, for a project that is undertaken, must be resolved down to work units that can be matched with the competency level of the employed individual. This would enable them to achieve the targeted goals with fewer hurdles faced along the process. Similar results were concluded by Alvarenga, Branco [ 33 ] in their study conducted on 257 project managers; each having an extensive experience of over 10 years. As it was indicated that it is the competency associated to the employed individuals in an organization that assures the efficient and effective execution of organizational task and result in accomplishment of the undertaken projects. Followed to which, agile management commends the adaption of flexibility in the project development process that allows the project team to incorporate the changes more easily than the traditional implementation of the projects. Similarly, the loss incurred during the development process is relatively less. Since the failure is often observed in one or a few modules at a time, which doesn’t affect the rest of the development process in any way. Most importantly, agile management is most responsible for responding quickly to the areas of projects that demand prioritized completion or technical handling. The respective findings were found in alignment to the study conducted by Serrador and Pinto [ 5 ] on 1002 projects deployed across various nations, that depicted a similar notion of a positive impact of implementing agile management to attain enhanced organizational outcomes. In another mixed-mode study conducted by Drury-Grogan [ 69 ] on various teams utilizing agile tools in the I.T sector as well suggested that application of the referred tools resulted in enhancing the success associated with the regarding projects.

The second research hypothesis stated, “Are the agile management practices a significant predictor of project-related complexities?” Keeping that in view, the current study depicted a significantly negative influence of implementing agile management on the project complexity. This suggests that the implementation of agile management enabled the regarding project managers to be able to effectively foresee the undertaken projects to a greater extent by adapting agile management practices than they would otherwise have had by adapting traditional management practices. The respective findings were found in alignment with the study conducted by Sohi, Hertogh [ 9 ] on 67 projects of complex nature, depicted that in a hybrid system with agile management practices coupled with traditional management approach was able to mitigate the magnitude of complexity faced by the regarding firms. In another subjective study conducted by Maylor and Turner [ 7 ] projected deduction being based upon 43 workshops and the opinion of 1100 managers. The results suggested an agile management approach as possibly the most effective approach to diminish the project complexity to commendable levels. Akin to which, in an extensive literature review conducted by Bergmann and Karwowski [ 70 ] also concluded the similar findings that adaptation of agile management is very effective in terms of mitigating the project related complexities and a accomplishing project outcomes.

The third research hypothesis stated, “Is the project complexity a significant predictor of project performance?” Keeping that in view, the current study depicted a significantly negative influence of project complexity on the overall performance of the projects. This suggests that the uncertainties faced by the project manager may hinder the accomplishment of the project. This would further possibly result in causing unnecessary delays, financial losses, overused employee efforts, working environment with moral, quality compromises, and unsatisfied clients. The respective findings were found in alignment with the study conducted by Floricel, Michela [ 71 ] on 81 projects deployed 5 across continents, depicted the possible negative impact of complexities on the overall performance of the organizations; that may be faced at each step of the development process. In another hybrid study conducted by Zhu and Mostafavi [ 8 ] on various senior project managers employed in the construction sector as well opinionated that complexities associated with organizations can deter the performance observed across their respective projects. Likewise, Luo, He [ 72 ] compile the opinion of 245 project managers that expressed the fact that project complexity can jeopardize the accomplishment of desired organizational outcomes. Therefore, their mitigation is a necessity for an organization to thrive.

The fourth research hypothesis stated, “Are leadership competencies a significant predictor of project performance?” Keeping that in view, the current study depicted a significant relationship between leadership competencies and project performance. This suggests that effective leadership can play a pivotal role in enabling an organization to attain the desired performance targets associated to its respective project. The respective findings were found in alignment to the study conducted by Ahmed and Anantatmula [ 34 ] on 286 project managers serving various construction firms in Pakistan, suggested leadership competencies be an effective measure to enhance the performance of the projects it is utilized onto. In another hybrid study conducted by Berssaneti and Carvalho [ 73 ] on 336 project managers deployed across various Brazilian firms opinionated that effective supervision and managerial support can prove itself to be a potential factor in enabling a firm to deliver desired outcomes.

The fifth research hypothesis stated, “Does the project complexity mediate the relationship between agile management practices and project performance?” Keeping that in view, the current study depicted a significant relationship between agile management and project performance while considering leadership competencies as a moderator. This suggests that effective implementation of agile management practices in a project can prove themselves to be effective in elevating project performance. Though the magnitude of complexity associated with the project can explain the possible decline observed in project performance; regardless of the management practices being observed. Though the observed decline can be minimized to a laudable extent through the utilization of agile management practices. The respective findings were found in alignment with an in-depth correlational study conducted by Sohi, Hertogh [ 9 ] on 67 project managers supervising various projects. The results suggested that inducing agile management practices within any compatible system can enable an organization to manage through its professional challenges which can possibly lead an organization to perform better.

The sixth research hypothesis stated, “Do the leadership competencies moderate the relationship between agile management practices and project performance?” Keeping that in view, the current study depicted a significant relationship between project complexity and project performance while considering leadership competencies as a moderator. Which suggests that effective implication of human factor in terms of leadership competencies can play a vital role in mitigating the hindrances faced during the project development process and can further result in enhanced performance. On the contrary, the absence of required leadership competencies can result in augmentation of adversities that may lead to a decline in the project performance. The respective findings were found in alignment to a mixed-mode study conducted by Aurélio de Oliveira, Veriano Oliveira Dalla Valentina [ 74 ] on 32 highly skilled and influential project managers in the field of R&D; who have served various forms globally. The correlational study depicted a possibly potential impact of an appropriate leadership approach to resolve organizational situations and deliver targeted performance.

Considering the hypothetical contemplations of the current study, various deductions have been made. To begin with, the implementation of agile management practices in the Pakistani I.T industry proves itself to be effective in terms of enhancing the overall performance of the undertaken projects. Thus, ensuring the sustainability of organizations in the industry. Moreover, it was observed that agile management practices enabled its utilizers to cope up with the complexities, by breaking down tasks into smaller work units and implementing the supervision on a horizontal scale rather than top-down. This approach not only made managing tasks effectively and efficiently but also made the decision making swift. Though it was observed that the organizations that weren’t able to take on the implementation of agile management practices on a full scale, faced complexities in various organizational terms, that would lead to declined performance. In addition to the mitigation of complexities through the implementation of agile management practices, it was the effective consideration of human factors in terms of leadership competencies that extended the reduction of organizational complexities and upscaled the magnitude of performance delivered.

The current study offers a pathway to understanding the application of agile management practices in the IT sector. Though it faces various shortcomings in both contextual and conceptual manner, which can further serve as a pathway to future researchers and professionals to look into and extend the knowledge pool.

In conceptual terms, the current study only took into account one mediatory variable i.e., project complexity to explain the implications of agile management onto the project performance. Akin to which, only one moderating variable was considered to evaluate the variability in the magnitude of project performance. Both of these are not enough of a consideration to depict the full potential of application of agile management practices in determining the project performance. Referred to which, it is commended for the future researchers and professionals to look into considering other variables that can explain the phenomena of agile management to variate the magnitude of project performance delivered. In alignment to which, it will also be interesting to see the implementation of agile management to enhance the organizational accomplishments such as, attaining competitive advantage, innovation, industrial sustainability, and more.

In contextual terms, the current study has targeted the IT sector of Pakistan; a developing nation. Since other industries as well are realizing the necessity of agile management and embracing its practices, it will be interesting to see the application of similar study in other developing nations, as well as other industrial sectors.

Supporting information

S1 appendix..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.s001

S1 Dataset.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249311.s002

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The Research of Software Project Management Based on Software Engineering Practice

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This paper aimed at the feature of software engineering and software project management, applying the idea of project management to the teaching of software engineering practice. Theory contacts with practice, let students understand the principles and methods of these two courses through project-driven software development and cultivate the spirit of team work. Results showed that this approach increase the teaching effect of project management and software engineering at the same time.

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Li-ping, L., Shuai, W. (2011). The Research of Software Project Management Based on Software Engineering Practice. In: Zhu, M. (eds) Information and Management Engineering. ICCIC 2011. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 235. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24022-5_37

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Software Management Plans – Current Concepts, Tools, and Application

• Yves Vincent Grossmann
• Giacomo Lanza
• Katarzyna Biernacka
• Kerstin Helbig

The present article is a review of the state of the art about software management plans (SMPs). It provides a selection of questionnaires, tools and application cases for SMPs from a European (German) point of view, and discusses the possible connections of SMPs to other aspects of software sustainability, such as metadata, FAIR4RS principles or machine-actionable SMPs. The aim of our publication is to provide basic knowledge to start diving into the subject and a handout for infrastructure providers who are about to establish/develop a SMP service in one’s own institution.

• Software Management Plans
• Infrastructure

1 Introduction

1.1 current situation of research software.

Software creation, extension and reuse is an integral part of research activity. A customised software solution is often necessary to analyse, select and visualise research data, due to the unique nature of each research project. The resulting software can be shared in connection with the research data, or stand on its own as an independent result. Research software is mainly developed by scientists with basic programming skills. The correctness of the code is guaranteed as far as the software works, but the adoption of good practises concerning comments, indentation, documentation, naming, versioning and citation is often rudimentary. Other aspects that are not always considered are the use of resources, referencing and licence-conform reuse of existing software, long-term preservation and responsibilities. Thus, the aim of this text is to show the possibilities for software management plans (SMPs) and to enable infrastructure providers, e.g., libraries and data centers, to quickly get started in the topic.

There is a lot of community-driven work to foster good programming practises among scientists. This is not a contemporary phenomenon, but has instead been true since the use of code in a scientific context. However, this has been gaining increasing attention in recent years due to activities in research data management and the enhanced publication of dataset and code. This awareness building is supported by several initiatives and takes advantage of many instruments that are already commonly used among professional programmers. Among these instruments are the broad adoption of versioning platforms 1 ; the definition of software metadata schemas 2 or special citation formats for research software like .cff ( Druskat et al., 2021 ); the introduction of development environments (IDEs) allowing bug fixing, testing and bench-marking; the diffusion of software packages for the half-automatic generation of documentation and reproducible examples. 3 Information exchange via language-specific and generic fora 4 additionally helps with the development of software in research.

The structure of this article leads from the abstract to the concrete. The introduction presents the framework for the present work like motivation, definition and ongoing initiatives around SMPs. This is followed by section 2, which presents and compares five selected SMP templates which are the object of study. Part 3 shows some forms of support in the preparation of a SMP, including five Data Management Plan (DMP) tools. Next, chapter 4 gathers some consideration about SMPs, metadata, FAIR principles and machine-actionability. Section 5 discusses advantages and disadvantages of SMPs also in relation to possible use cases. The article closes with a conclusion as wrap-up to indicate the need for future work.

1.2 Environment for SMPs

Together with the aforementioned applications, tools and procedures for research software, amateur programmers need an instrument to collect ideas and information necessary for their programming activity, which helps them gain awareness and provide for the necessary resources. Such an instrument can be an SMP, which aims to collect all information relevant for the software development in a scientific context to support a structured approach or help distributed teams to adhere to (self-) defined standards.

Albeit no funding organization explicitly requires a software management plan at the moment, there are developments in this direction, as the German Volkswagen Foundation addresses in such a way research software in its Open Science Policy ( Volkwagen-Stiftung, 2022 ). It can be expected that other funding agencies, such as the European Union, will follow. In these cases, it is helpful for service providers such as university libraries, data centers or scientific computing centers to be prepared.

In this article, we aim to collect all relevant information and helpful material to enable end-users to create a SMP that is tailored to the needs of their community and institution. The following text will analyse and highlight some of the advantages of SMPs from various perspectives.

1.3 SMP definition

A software management plan is a living document which supports software development, addressing most relevant aspects. There are different SMP definitions with different focuses and they all have their strengths (see, for example, Martinez-Ortiz et al., 2023 or Alves et al., 2021 ). The following text is based on a definition that, in addition to a general formulation, attempts to understand an SMP and its possible uses via a descriptive listing. It was developed by a joint working group 5 of German Initiative for Network Information (DINI) and German competence network for digital long-term storage (nestor) the authors belong to, and is available in German and English at the German national information website on research data management 6 :

A Software Management Plan (SMP) contains general and technical information about the software project, information on quality assurance, release and public availability as well as legal and ethical aspects that affect the software. The SMP summarises information that adequately describes and documents the creation, documentation, storage, versioning, licensing, archiving and/or publication of the software created or used in a project. Associated hardware and other necessary resources, as well as other associated software and software libraries, text and data publications must also be described and are a special feature of the SMP. The purpose of an SMP is initially to support the traceability and, if necessary, the long-term usability of the software (for direct application as well as for further processing) and to facilitate user support in the event of queries. The SMP therefore also serves the purpose of quality assurance (see FAIR for Research Software.) The SMP can be linked to one or more DMPs if the software is used for data generation or processing. SMP and DMP can be summarised as output plans.

This definition is one of the existing proposals for labelling the subject area and will be applied in the following sections. Ultimately, these ideas need to be filled with life. This requires researchers and support personnel who implement these developments in practise and at the same time deal with SMPs on a theoretical level. The following chapters also deal with this transition from theoretical considerations to practise.

1.4 Current initiatives dealing with SMPs

At the international, European and German levels, there are various institutions, working groups and initiatives that are already working on SMPs. The most important players are briefly named and presented below, without any claim for completeness.

The Software Sustainability Institute (SSI)

The SSI is an Edinburgh-based scientific consortium promoting good practise in software development. It was founded in 2010 to support individuals and institutions in understanding the central role of software in research. The aim is to use better research software to make science more sustainable and better overall. With the ‘Checklist for a Software Management Plan’, the first draft for an SMP was created and published there in 2016 ( The Software Sustainability Institute, 2018 ). This SMP template is therefore the first template to be implemented in DMPonline today (see section 2.2). Many of the current discussions, applications and solutions were addressed by SSI at an early stage.

DINI/nestor sub-working group SMP

DINI, the German initiative for network information, and nestor, the German competence network for digital long-term storage, have jointly hosted a working group about research data (AG Forschungsdaten) since 2014. The working group is organised on a voluntary basis as an association and is divided into sub-working groups, among which one is the sub-working group data management plans (UAG DMP). Inspired by a support request in July 2022, the sub-working group started to discuss software development as a special task within scientific work, which eventually led to the creation of an autonomous sub-working group focused on providing guidance on SMPs and SMP tools for the German scientific community. So far, the working group has provided a thorough SMP definition, collected relevant literature, 7 is collecting templates and use cases, and writing guidance documents like the present one.

Research Data Alliance (RDA)

The RDA is an international initiative that was founded in 2013 with the aim of overcoming social and technical hurdles to increase data exchange and sharing ( RDA 2024 ). Among the activities of the RDA, research software is gaining increasingly importance. DMPs and SMPs were the object of a session at the 20 th RDA Plenary Meeting in 2023 in Sweden. 8 Within RDA, SMPs are currently being discussed in working and interest groups. 9 In addition, research software was declared an innovation aim within the RDA strategic plan 2024–2028 ( Research Data Alliance, 2024 ). What is relevant in all this work is the international readiness with which the topic of SMPs is discussed and, thus, also brought into the respective national scientific systems.

RSE and DE-RSE

The development of good practises for sustainable scientific software is the core activity of several sister institutions with national and international coverage, called Research Software Engineering Associations . They are federated in the International Council of RSE Associations. National/Multinational RSE associations exist in Germany (DE-RSE), Belgium (BE-RSE), the Netherlands (NL-RSE), Denmark (Danish RSE), United Kingdom (Soc-RSE), United States (US-RSE), Australia and New Zealand (RSE-AUNZ), North European countries (NORDIC-RSE), and Asian countries (RSE Asia).

These institutions are centrally involved in all matters relating to research software, and publish recommendations, such as the DE-RSE position paper on the current situation of research software in Germany ( Anzt et al., 2021 ), and the US-RSE Career Guidebook ( van Tuyl et al., 2023 ). 10

In this context of career and institutional anchoring, SMPs are seen as a tool for the sustainability of research software. Currently, DE-RSE is working on a position paper for summer 2024 on establishing RSE departments in German research institutions. There, SMPs will also be included as part of the requirements placed on RSEs by, e.g., funding bodies. As a quasi-professional organisation in Germany, DE-RSE is therefore attempting to position itself in this regard and also to identify—pragmatic—options for action. This includes SMPs.

NFDI Workgroup Software Metadata

The National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) is a German initiative aiming to define standards, infrastructures and good practises to encourage and improve sharing of research data. The so-called ‘Sections’ deal with cross-cutting topics bundling forces and competencies orthogonal to the discipline-specific ‘Consortia’. Research software has also been recognised as a cross-sectional issue and has found its place within the Section ‘Metadata, Terminology and Provenance’ in the working group ‘Software metadata’. This group aims to enhance transparency, reproducibility, and re-usability of software in research, overcoming the limitations of existing metadata schemas for research software. 11 To address these issues, this working group aims to provide a comprehensive metadata vocabulary for research software, compatible with existing frameworks such as Schema.org and CodeMeta . The working group will also support all NFDI consortia in applying the vocabulary as well as develop domain-specific extensions if needed.

2 SMP Content

At present several SMP templates exist, which can be freely used standalone or as a basis for consultations. This section presents the use of SMPs and gives an overview of the different SMP templates.

2.1 Facilitation of SMP creation through templates

Different approaches can be adopted for writing SMPs, similarly to DMPs. A plan can be prepared from scratch as a result of a brainstorming, or by answering a prepared collection of questions, which is usually provided as a simple text document. Some selected templates are presented and discussed in this chapter, see Figure 1 . Meanwhile, templates for management plans that are prepared in special software environments are more common. Such tools enable the provision of different question complexes in a standardised way, along with support in the form of help texts and automated exporting possibilities, e.g., as PDF or via API calls among others. Some selected DMP/SMP tools are presented in the following chapter.

Screenshots of the SMP catalogues in the services. From left above clockwise: DMPOpidor, ELIXIR, MDPL and ZIB.

Sources: DMPOpidor & PRESOFT: T. Gomez-Diaz, G. Romier, Research Software Management Plan template v3.2, PRESOFT project, April 2018, https://dmp.opidor.fr , CC-BY 4.0.ELIXIR: European Life Science Research Infrastructures, https://smw.ds-wizard.org , CC BY 4.0.

MPDL: Max Planck Digital Library, https://rdmo.mpdl.mpg.de , CC-BY-ND 4.0.ZIB: Zuse Institute Berlin: AG Digital Preservation, https://www.zib.de/index.php/digital-preservation , CC-BY-4.0.

2.2 Overview of the considered SMP templates

For this study, we collected five templates which are available online (see also Figure 1 ). These are briefly described below in order to show their context of origin, their strengths and possible areas of application.

Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) – SMP for Researchers

It was created in 2022 by the team of the Max Planck Digital library. It focuses mainly on software development by scientists, trying to diffuse good developing practises and to improve information exchange and resource management within an institution. It is organised in the following sections: General; Technical Information; Quality Assurance; Release and Publish; Legal; and Ethics. The template is implemented for the software RDMO in XML, 12 but it is also available as a .docx file ( Grossmann and Franke, 2022 ).

PRESOFT: Research Software Management Plan template

It was developed by Teresa Gomez-Diaz and Genevieve Romier within the project PREservation for REsearch SOFTware (PRESOFT, 2017–2019) funded by the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). The results of the PRESOFT project are published online ( Gomez-Diaz and Romier, 2018 as well as Romier, 2019 ). The template is implemented in DMPOpidor and consists of seven main sections: Metadata; Software context; Software features; Team organisation; Development organisation; Distribution organisation; and SMP management. The whole template is also available as the Research Software Management Plan template (PRESOFT project) ( Gomez-Díaz and Romier, 2023 ). There are 98 questions in total. Most answers are organised as free text. There are no check-boxes, ready-made answers or suggested texts. Some questions are accompanied by help texts or further information to support writing the SMP. Vocabularies are proposed for the scientific classification of the research software.

The SMP template in Data Stewardship Wizard (DSW) is developed by a team in ELIXIR, a distributed infrastructure for life-science information. With the SMP, they have set themselves the task of providing support for research software in the life sciences. The first draft of their SMP was prepared in 2021 ( Alves et al., 2021 . See also Giraldo et al., 2022 ). The ELIXIR SMP is characterised by the ready use of controlled vocabulary. It therefore offers many possibilities for machine evaluation, like machine-actionable (maSMP) (see chapter 4.3). This goes hand in hand with fewer free text fields, so that it is usually only possible to select from the predefined answers. Depending on the context and location, this can be an advantage or disadvantage. It was recently updated in a hackathon in Barcelona in fall 2023.

SSI Checklist

This SMP template in form of a checklist was one of the first drafts formulated in this field ( The Software Sustainability Institute, 2018 ). Published in 2018 on Zenodo, it anticipated some of the current discussions. It was developed by the Software Sustainability Institute . The listed questions in the checklist were implemented in DMPonline . Therefore, the checklist can now also be used interactively for writing SMPs.

ZIB – Ubiquity Generator

This SMP template was developed by an ad-hoc working group at the Zuse Institute Berlin in the project ‘HPO-navi’. The project was funded by the German Research Foundation via the call ‘Sustainability for research software’ in the eResearch Technologies framework. The aim of the call was twofold: On the one hand it was targeted at giving the necessary resources to make a particular research software more mature and shift it from ‘demonstrator’ to at least ‘prototype’, or even better, to a 1.0 version. On the other hand, it had the goal of making research software more sustainable by means of documentation and archiving. The SMP for the software UG was aligned along the Software Sustainability Institute recommendations for Software Management Plans and was published in 2023 ( Hasler et al., 2023 ; The Software Sustainability Institute, 2018 ). The SMP template is implemented in GitLab/Wiki for the internal development of research software.

2.3 Comparison of SMP templates

The five chosen SMP templates are compared in the two following Tables 1 and 2 . They differ significantly in coverage, focus, and granularity. All have in common that they act as standalone documents, i.e., they are not dependent from or referencing a DMP. 13

Comparison of the SMP templates reporting the fraction of questions assigned to each topic clusters.

The longest SMP template is the one from PRESOFT, with just under a hundred questions; the SSI checklist is the shortest with ‘only’ 38 questions. It is striking that each of the templates has a different focus and orientation. Table 1 demonstrates this impressively. Some of the templates come more from project management, others are more closely aligned with DMPs.

The SMPs from ZIB and ELIXIR are closely oriented to software development. Both, therefore, have comparatively many questions in the area of documentation and preservation. The SSI checklist, on the other hand, is aimed primarily at future re-use and less at the phase during software development. One special feature of ELIXIR is the high degree of machine-actionablilty. It is noticeable here that many question sets do not appear that are included in the other SMP templates in different ways. This is certainly also due to the fact that the SSI-SMP template is the oldest and is therefore regarded by many as a benchmark. When using PRESOFT, a particularly significant level of information is collected in the administrative area and in the software description. The MPDL template is again aimed primarily at scientists as self-taught software developers. The width of questions and subject areas is more striking here than the depth to which different aspects are queried. The detailed overview in Table 2 also shows which sub-items are addressed in the SMP template and to what extent.

The two tables help to get a first impression and comparison of the existing SMP templates. The questions of all considered templates have been firstly annotated with the most relevant keyword contained and subsequently clustered heuristically into major categories. Finally, the relative importance of each topic cluster in each catalogue was reported as relative fraction of the number of questions. The obtained structure helps comparing, qualitatively, the question collections. The two tables help to get an initial visual impression of which topics are covered by the various SMP templates and to what extend. 14

The FAIR4RS principles are a significant point of reference. Depending on the internal logic of the SMP templates, they are directly invoked. This is naturally less the case with SMP templates that were created before 2021, although the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) Data principles already appear here indirectly as well. However, it is clear that these SMP templates will also be adapted, expanded, readjusted or phased out over time as the needs, assumptions and expectations regarding the use of research software change. This is also reflected in the SMP templates.

3 Support for SMP creation

SMPs are still a relatively new phenomenon. Similarly to DMPs in the mid-2010s, it may be that this method for the sustainable management of research software develops as a valued approach. In addition to the templates presented in chapter 2.2, there are also services that provide support for SMP creation. This chapter gives an overview in the first part and presents the existing services in more detail in the second part.

3.1 Consulting and training on SMPs

The use of SMPs is still under discussion. Therefore, a comparatively small amount of experience can be drawn on for training and consulting. As a consequence, it should not be surprising if only a few scientists and stakeholders have started to recognise the validity of their use for project and quality management in the development of research software within the own institution.

The increasing attention around research software at scientific institutions will most likely be accompanied by funders paying more attention to the topic. At the same time, more consulting and training offers will also be necessary for users. This can, for example, come from the implementation of the FAIR4RS Principles ( Chue Hong et al., 2022 ) by scientific committees or funding bodies such as the European Commission and the upcoming 10 th EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. In the German context, the Helmholtz Association has made significant progress: From 2025 on, all Helmholtz Centres will be able to present research software management procedures in publicly available policies. 15 In addition, an incentive for the publication of research software is being developed ( Helmholtz Association, 2022, p. 5 ). Such institutional incentives can again lead to greater demand for research software management. SMPs can provide support here.

Such SMPs as a service can be offered, for example, by research data managers, information specialists or software experts. For such a service, it is necessary that these professionals are prepared in using SMPs. The sub-working group Training/Further education 16 of the already mentioned DINI/nestor-Working Group Research Data has prepared generic training materials for teaching SMPs that can be used in workshops for this target group ( Biernacka and Helbig, 2023 . This is a module of Biernacka et al., 2023 ).

Biernacka and Schulz, 2022 , on the other hand, demonstrate how SMPs can be incorporated in Computer Science Higher Education training, providing working materials and use cases for students and researchers ( Biernacka and Schulz, 2022 ). In the long term, it is therefore also recommended that consulting and training on SMPs will be included in the standard study curricula in the area of research software, and also in research data management Biernacka and Helbig, 2023 ).

Still, most of the existing training materials and documents so far are strongly related to the platform used. This will become visible in 3.3.

3.2 Manuals and guides for SMPs

There are already some handouts about the preparation and use of SMPs. These can be particularly helpful for the use of SMPs as a service. The first generic reference was published by Neil Chue Hong ( 2014 ). 17 Since 2018, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) guidelines have also included concrete recommendations for the general use of research software. The guidelines introduces 4 application classes (ac) for scientific software, ranging from small scripts intended for personal use (ac0) to production type software which is intended for use in mission critical systems (ac3). This categorisation of the own software according to scope and area of use can be a substantial help during the development process. The four classes are helpful as an initial orientation for an assessment of the code. Is it a small script or an entire infrastructure? Depending on the selection, fewer or more measures are necessary ( Schlauch et al., 2018 ). For life sciences, recommendations for a low-threshold SMP have also already been developed and discussed in the context of ELIXIR in 2021 ( Alves et al., 2021 ). 18 The most recent contribution is the practical guide by the Netherlands eScience Center and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) from 2022 ( Martinez-Ortiz et al., 2023 ). However, the ongoing discussions around SMPs have put SMPs in the mainstream in 2023, so that further handouts, open training material and more can be expected soon (see chapter 1.4 for current initiatives).

3.3 Implementation in DMP tools

Currently, there is no service that offers SMPs alone. In all cases, SMPs are offered as part of a platform that was actually designed for DMPs. Not surprisingly, these are always community-driven platforms from a scientific context that are committed to the open source idea. The platforms and their content have evolved. At the same time, it should be positively emphasised that for new services – such as an SMP offer – it is not always necessary to set up new infrastructure. Rather, it can make sense to expand existing solutions in order to make them usable for new demands.

DMPonline is a service by the British Digital Curation Centre (DCC). It is using the open source software DMPRoadmap, available on GitHub. 19 A large community has long been formed around this software, contributing to maintain and expand the code. The Digital Curation Centre offers DMPonline as a service for many research centres in Britain and abroad. The software is also used independently by many other research infrastructure providers, including DMPTool ( University of California Curation Center (UC3) ) and national DMP services such as DMPTuuli (Finland) and DMP OPIDoR (France), the latter being presented below.

DMP OPIDoR , based also on DMPRoadMap, is operated by the Institut de l’information scientifique et technique (Inist) , based in Nancy, a research support unit of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) . The main function of DMP OPIDoR is to facilitate access to scientific information, its analysis and evaluation with the special focus on research publications and data.

The DMP OPIDoR service is designed for French scientists and their cooperation partners. 20 Different templates for DMPs are available. Besides, there is also a template for an SMP. Moreover, DMP OPIDoR offers the possibility to make written SMPs publicly available. There are already a few written SMPs available for re-use and orientation. 21

Software Management Wizard (DSW)

The ELIXIR SMP platform is made available at DSW as a subsection of the Data Stewardship Wizard and is therefore part of the knowledge collection there on research data and research software in the life sciences. DSW is a place to gather knowledge on data stewardship that has been run by its own community for many years. 22 The links to ELIXIR are extensive, which means that infrastructures and knowledge accumulation are particularly well combined here. The SMP as a service from DSW is of particular interest to scientists from the life sciences. 23 Of course, it can also be interesting for other specialist areas.

Research Data Management Organiser (RDMO)

The Research Data Management Organiser (RDMO) is a tool for the documentation of a scientific project which, in addition to the creation of DMPs, supports the structured planning, implementation and administration of research data management throughout the entire data life cycle and enables the notation and initiation of tasks (hence the name ‘Organiser’). It has been developed for operation as a local instance and is completely adaptable to the needs of the operating institution and its community.

RDMO has reached the status of operational software and is available as open-source software on GitHub. 24 In 2024, RDMO is in operational use at 45 institutions in Germany, Austria, France and Kenya. 25

Argos is a DMP tool offered and developed by the Horizon 2020 project OpenAIRE . It is primarily used by funded projects of the European Commission. Argos is not only a tool for writing DMPs, but also a platform for publishing its content via many extensions. Starting in October 2022, the Argos developers planned to implement a specific template for software management planning. 26 In April 2023, Argos stated 27 that a template for software management plans based on the SSI questionnaire 28 will be published with one of the next releases. In February 2024, a template for SMPs was implemented. 29

4 Specifications for SMP

4.1 fair4rs principles, validity, and limitations.

The FAIR Data principles, which constitute a set of guidelines facilitating sharing and re-use of data, were officially published in Scientific Data in 2016 by FORCE11 ( Wilkinson et al., 2016 ), a consortium consisting of researchers, librarians, archivists, publishers and research funding bodies. The primary objective underpinning these principles revolves around ensuring data to be FAIR effectively by both humans and machines. Despite their non-standard status, these principles have garnered growing significance due to their compelling advocacy for data reusability. Attaining this objective demands incorporating the principles throughout the entire spectrum of Research Data Management (RDM) ( Engelhardt et al., 2022 ).

It soon became clear that the FAIR principles needed to be adapted and modified to include research software. This is also because software, despite being closely related to research data, has special characteristics. Among other things, it is characterised by the fact that it is executable, that its versions are frequently updated and that it is rarely created from scratch. Recognising this need, Lamprecht et al. reformulated the FAIR principles in a publication on the progress of the joint working group, tailoring them to be more aptly applied to software ( Lamprecht et al., 2020 ). Subsequently, in 2022, these revised FAIR4RS principles were officially published by Chue Hong at al. as a direct outcome of the collaborative efforts of the FAIR for Research Software Working Group (FAIR4RS WG) within the RDA ( Chue Hong et al., 2022 ).

There are many obvious benefits of FAIR4RS, such as improving the discoverability of research software, enabling its identification and reuse by other researchers and communities, and facilitating compatibility and integration with different tools and platforms. However, certain barriers hinder their successful implementation. Among the significant limitations is the inherent complexity of research software, which makes it challenging to apply FAIR4RS principles uniformly across all software types. Furthermore, implementing FAIR principles for research software may require significant resources, including time, expertise and infrastructure. Another challenge is to convey the benefits of FAIR4RS to developers, funded projects and the wider research community ( Castro et al., 2021 ). While the FAIR principles have become broadly adopted and are viewed as a benchmark for research data management, the FAIR4RS principles remain relatively unrecognised or not widely embraced, particularly as RSEs ‘typically’ do not pursue conventional academic career pathways and may not place significant emphasis on traditional metrics like citations or recognition. Similar to the implementation of the FAIR principles, it lends itself to integrate the FAIR4RS principles into the SMP.

4.2 Metadata and research software

As for any other publicly available digital object, research software needs to be described with structured and machine-interpretable metadata in order to achieve interoperability of SMPs within the software development process and to make it easier for researchers to discover, understand and reuse it, and to conform to the FAIR4RS principles. In the realm of research software, several initiatives have been developed to address the need for machine-interoperable metadata, simplifying the process of describing and sharing software resources effectively. Notable among these are Bioschemas and CodeMeta . Bioschemas is a toolbox to add structured metadata to research outputs, including software, with a particular focus on life sciences. It defines a set of metadata schemas and vocabularies, built on top of existing technologies and standards, that can be used to represent such tools in Web pages and applications, and provides tools such as the ComputationalTool and the Markup Generator ( bioschemas.org, 2022 ). CodeMeta is a minimal metadata schema for scientific software and code, arising from a cross-disciplinary community-driven effort ( Jones et al., 2017 ). Both schemas are based on the Schema.org classes SoftwareApplication and SoftwareSourceCode , linking the data to facilitate semantic web discovery. To facilitate this, the FAIR-IMPACT 30 project published the Research Software MetaData (RSMD) guidelines focusing on an effective collection and curation of metadata ( Gruenpeter et al., 2023 ). 31 These guidelines help archiving, referencing, describing and citing software and making its metadata FAIR, benefiting researchers, developers, institutions, publishers, and infrastructure managers by offering tailored best practises.

4.3 Machine-actionable SMPs (maSMPs)

Adopting standardised metadata for SMP has an additional advantage—it allows the automation of initiating processes and tasks in the software development workflows. The RDA DMP Common Standards working group 32 defined a machine-actionable (maDMP) to overcome limitations of text-based documents ( Miksa et al., 2020 ). These efforts are now being transferred to SMPs as well. Such an SMP is called a maSMP. Building on the structured metadata ( Giraldo et al., 2023 ), a team from ELIXIR presents a machine-actionable version of their ELIXIR SMP ( Alves et al., 2021 ). This development reuses and harmonises elements from the maDMP, Schema.org , Bioschemas and CodeMeta specifications, while also adding new types and properties (see Figure 2 ).

Metadata model for maSMP. Boxes with coloured backgrounds correspond to the elements added for the maSMP case.

Source: Giraldo et al., 2023, p. 4 .

Although most of the elements are focused on life sciences, the recommendations are domain-independent. To achieve an alignment between the different parties involved in the existing SMP models and to identify gaps within ELIXIR SMPs, RDMO SMPs and RDA maDMPs, a workshop in the summer of 2023 on maSMPs was conducted in Cologne ( Giraldo et al., 2023 ). As a result, a full metadata model was published, including entities involved in software management planning; such as an SMP itself, software source code, software release, documentation, authors and their relations ( Giraldo et al., 2023 ). 33 This was followed by an NFDI4DataScience hackathon at ZB Med in December 2023. 34

5 Discussion

It is still open whether SMPs, similar to DMPs, will become an established method in research. After the overview on existing solutions and the presentation of existing materials in the previous chapter, the following chapter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of SMPs.

5.1 Advantages and disadvantages of SMPs

There are a lot of advantages using SMPs. First of all, information about research software is transferred from tacit to explicit knowledge. Such a superimposition of knowledge offers many advantages. It also becomes clear which aspects of working with research software have not yet been taken into account or have only been discussed incompletely. The direct specification of questions activates such ‘hidden’ knowledge. Writing down the findings then leads to an explicit form of knowledge that can be used in the software project for all participants ( Grossmann and Franke, 2023, p. 459–461 ). Furthermore, more detailed description makes the emerging software perceived as an entity in its own right. It has a name, a management plan with responsibilities, and the like. The software thus becomes an object that can be named directly; unlike implicit parts. At the same time, software thereby also receives more institutional attention and, above all, appreciation. An SMP can significantly accelerate this development. In addition, an SMP can be used in a similar way to a DMP. For example, it is quite possible to use an SMP to convince decision-makers of the excellence of one’s own research idea in the case of a third-party-funded project. In the same way, an SMP could also become a kind of ‘deliverable’ for larger software-using research projects in the future.

There are also disadvantages in using SMPs. First, in general, formalising knowledge is a decision that should be made consciously. An SMP creates explicit knowledge. Especially in the field of software and development, this can be seen as a disadvantage. Agile methods benefit from the ability to iterate and having fewer start-up management methods. An SMP can be a disadvantage here due to the loss of flexibility. Although an SMP costs time at the beginning, the effort actually pays off in the later phases. However, the scientist must already be willing to invest this resource of time unit. And finally, on a fundamental level, it should also be discussed and debated on a fundamental level whether an SMP is necessary at all. Not every small script needs its own SMP. Categorisations of software, such as those proposed by the German Aerospace Center in 2018, can help in deciding how far the effort and return of an SMP are in a reasonable ratio ( Schlauch et al., 2018, pp. 7–8 ).

But, there are also quite different directions in which one could think. Instead of DMP and SMP being separate entities, one could also think about an Reproducibility Management Plan (RMP) or a Data and Digital Object Management Plan (D(DO)MP) for everything ( Seibold, 2023 ; Specht et al., 2023 ). Such a plan could include everything—text, data and code. Such a plan could include everything—text, data and code. This can be an advantage, as the whole management information concerning all outputs produced within a project remains collected in one document. However, research is often complex. As the size of a scientific project increases, so does the complexity, so that having a central place to manage all the results also leads to a large, voluminous document. In reality, there is then simply a danger that it will hardly ever be read, let alone applied.

6 Conclusion

The objective of this article was to provide an overview of the potential and possibilities of SMPs. This is intended to enable service providers to make quick and informed decisions about where and to what extent SMPs are relevant for their institution. In particular, the analysis of the environment of the current discussion is, as chapter 4 shows, necessary for the understanding and classification of the SMPs. Based on this, the various SMP templates already available are presented in chapter 2. They differ in many respects, so that this presentation summarises the essential points for getting started with the SMP application.

The main findings of this article are as follows:

• SMPs are currently under discussion. There are good reasons and advantages for the use and application of SMPs.
• SMPs can go a considerable way in supporting the sustainability and reproducibility of research software.
• There are already some freely available solutions for SMPs and offering them as a service. The existing templates have different focuses and intentions.
• With most SMP-able tools, there is no need to set up your own infrastructure. Rather, they make use of existing systems.
• Initial handouts and guidance on SMPs are already available. However, there is still no comprehensive experience with the use of SMPs.

The overall aim of the article is to give an overview of SMPs for research software. This is only an interim state. However, it should give all interested parties the opportunity to quickly familiarise themselves with the concept and applications of SMPs.

Data Availability Statement

The table contents are openly available via Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10047950 .

Such as CodeBerg , SourceHut , Gitea , and Apache GitLab Community Edition .  

Such as Bioschemas , CodeMeta .  

Such as RMarkdown and ROxygen .  

Represented by StackExchange or StackOverflow .  

https://dini.de/ag/dininestor-ag-forschungsdaten/ .  

https://forschungsdaten.info/praxis-kompakt/english-pages/software-management-plans/ .  

Available on Zotero: https://www.zotero.org/groups/4684302/software_management_plan_smp/library .  

Session name: ‘Data Management Planning: where are we and where do we want to be?’. Recording: https://youtu.be/XssT1gz7D2A . Slides: https://www.rd-alliance.org/app/uploads/2024/05/2023-RDA-DMP-P20-INTEGRATED.pdf .  

Groups within RDA that discuss research software and SMPs are for example “Active Data Management Plans IG” and “RDA & ReSA: Policies in Research Organisations for Research Software (PRO4RS)” .  

For a German perspective on this topic, see also Goth et al., 2024 .  

More information in the working group ‘charter’: Castro et al., 2023 . See also Hammitzsch et al., 2022 .  

https://github.com/rdmorganiser/rdmo-catalog/blob/master/rdmorganiser/questions/SMP-Questions.xml .  

For the advantages and disadvantages see especially the chapter 5.1.  

The data on which the following table is based are freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10047950 .  

See https://os.helmholtz.de/open-science-in-helmholtz/open-science-policy/ .  

https://www.forschungsdaten.org/index.php/UAG_Schulungen/Fortbildungen .  

See also the later checklist The Software Sustainability Institute, 2018 .  

See also Giraldo et al., 2022 .  

https://github.com/DMPRoadmap/roadmap .  

The DMP OPIDoR support can be reached via [email protected] .  

https://dmp.opidor.fr/public_plans?page=1&search=software .  

See https://ds-wizard.org/about/ .  

The DSW support can be reached out via [email protected] .  

https://github.com/rdmorganiser/ .  

Nine further institutions have RDMO in test operation.  

See Argos Community Call from 26 th October 2022: https://youtu.be/mghaK_xzN_g .  

See Argos Community Call from 26 th April 2023: https://youtu.be/8It-izXSdqY .  

See section 2.2.  

See Argos release notes for v1.9.8 https://code-repo.d4science.org/MaDgiK-CITE/argos/releases .  

https://fair-impact.eu .  

A practical approach to this could be del Pico et al., 2022 .  

https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/dmp-common-standards-wg .  

See also https://github.com/zbmed-semtec/maSMPs .  

See the hackathon report ( Castro et al., 2023 ).  

Abbreviations

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Alexander Struck (HU Berlin) for the useful revision of the manuscript.

Competing Interests

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Author Contributions

All authors worked on the text in similar proportions.

Grossmann was affiliated with the Max Planck Digital Library at the time of writing the manuscript.

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