Scrum Framework Implementation for Software Development Projects in IT Companies

The project success needs to be measured to find out whether the implementation method is fit. The assessment criteria used to measure project success vary and depend on several factors, such as scope and complexity. In IT projects, two well-known methods are Traditional and Agile. This study assesses whether the Scrum applied to several ongoing projects in a company is appropriate by finding the criteria used in project measurement and evaluating the project’s success. This study examines an IT company that focuses on providing network and application development for its parent company to choose a suitable method for its projects. Currently, the Agile method (Scrum) is used in several projects as a pilot. We utilize the AHP method to determine the project success measurement and whether the Agile (Scrum) method can be applied throughout all IT projects in the company. The study takes the management point of view; thus, it does not focus on the conformity of the framework implementation. Keywords: Project Management, Project Success, Scrum, Software Development, Success Criteri

An Agile Process Model for Product Derivation in Software Product Line Engineering

Software Product Lines (SPL) and Agile practices have emerged as new paradigms for developing software. Both approaches share common goals; such as improving productivity, reducing time to market, decreasing development costs and increasing customer satisfaction. These common goals provide the motivation for this research. We believe that integrating Agile practices into SPL can bring a balance between agility and formalism. However, there has been little research on such integration. We have been researching the potential of integrating Agile approaches in one of the key SPL process areas, product derivation. In this paper we present an outline of our Agile process model for product derivation that was developed through industry based case study research

Strategies for doing Agile in a non-Agile Environment

Background: Most companies practicing Agile are not fully Agile but instead they combine both Agile and traditional practices in their operations. It is not clear how these practices can be successfully used together in an organisation.Aims: We investigate practitioners' mitigation strategies related to the challenge of doing Agile in a non-Agile environment.Method: Strategies were collected during two studies, an online survey and an interactive workshop run at an Agile meetup and analysed thematically.Results: Strategies related to the wider organisation and not just software development. Two perspectives emerged from the data: an organisational and a change perspective. Five organisational themes were identified with Management and decision-making and Culture the two biggest themes. Nine change themes were identified, with Being open, Using specific approaches and Educating the biggest themes.Conclusions: Better understanding is needed of how Agile practitioners can accomplish bottom-up change in their organisation

The investigation on the best pracices of extreme programming (XP) quality implementation at UUMIT

Software engineering (SE) plays an important role for improving society‘s wellbeing through the use of high quality software. There is noted that most of the software projects are failed, due to missing or poor software development practices in software organizations. Due to this reason, having a good and sound software development methodology is crucial for software organization to satisfy stakeholder‘s requirements. One of the prevalent software development methodologies in SE is Extreme programming (XP) methodology. This methodology is an emerging SE approach, which is able to increase software quality and hence reducing software development time and cost. However, the level of application of this methodology among software developers in UUM IT centre is still unclear. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the application of XP practices in this centre. UUM IT was chosen as a case study because the role of this organization has changed to meet high demand among campus communities. Thus, research that focuses on the 12 XP practices of UUM IT is highly needed. This study was conducted using a semi–structured interview with five (5) experts from the UUM IT, to identify the successful implementation of the XP practices. The findings have shown that, most of the practices are used by UUM IT developers but need to improve. In contrast, some of the practices such as pair programming and test first programming are not used by the UUM IT developers. This is due to the nature and type of software projects involved, also because of the personality, experiences and the education level differences among developers. This study provides qualitative evident that can assist software project managers to guide them in improving software development practices for producing high quality software

Designing a Tool for Measuring IT Process Maturity in an Agile Development Context

This paper presents the design of a tool for recurring quantitative self-assessment of IT Service Management (ITSM) process maturity in an agile environment. Continual improvement of ITSM processes can be measured by performing a process maturity assessment, comparing the organization’s process performance against a best-practice reference set of processes. In this paper we report a project that has developed a quantitative measuring survey-based tool. The specific context for the research is a financial institution that has adopted agile development. This change brought on an increased need to monitor ITSM process performance, and a Design Science Research (DSR) project was launched to create an ITSM maturity assessment tool. The results show that a company-wide ITSM process maturity assessment can be established as a survey-based self-assessment, and that the aggregate scores from this self-assessment present a good indicator of the organization’s process performance, especially when complemented by a reference score. A key learning from the study is that the iterative DSR methodology made it possible to create a system that in good way measure ITSM process maturity

Influences on agile practice tailoring in enterprise software development.

Agile development projects have become a reality in large enterprises using offshore development models. A case study involving seven international companies with offices in Bangalore, India, and London, UK was conducted, including interviews with 19 practitioners. The contribution of this paper is to illustrate the reasons for tailoring Agile practices within the context of large enterprises. The findings show that scrum roles and practices did not conflict with enterprise policies or processes and were thought to improve product quality and productivity. However, agile practices from the XP tradition were not so widely adopted. Test driven development did not integrate well within enterprises where independent quality assurance teams were constituted as separate departments. Continuous integration was found to be challenging where enterprise software products required time consuming regression testing and elaborate code release processes. While adoption of coding standards and collective code ownership are necessary to facilitate interaction between disparate stakeholder groups