Using scrum together with UML models: a collaborative university-industry R&D software project

Conducting research and development (R&D) software projects, in an environment where both industry and university collaborate, is challenging due to many factors. In fact, industrial companies and universities have generally different interests and objectives whenever they collaborate. For this reason, it is not easy to manage and negotiate the industrial companies’ interests, namely schedules and their expectations. Conducting such projects in an agile framework is expected to decrease these risks, since partners have the opportunity to frequently interact with the development team in short iterations and are constantly aware of the characteristics of the system under development. However, in this type of collaborative R&D projects, it is often advantageous to include some waterfall practices, like upfront requirements modeling using UML models, which are not commonly used in agile processes like Scrum, in order to better prepare the implementation phase of the project. This paper presents some lessons learned that result from experience of the authors in adopting some Scrum practices in a R&D project, like short iterations, backlogs, and product increments, and simultaneously using UML models, namely use cases and components.This research is sponsored by the Portugal Incentive System for Research and Technological Development PEst-UID/CEC/00319/2013 and by project in co–promotion nº 36265/2013 (Project HMIExcel - 2013-2015)

Best Practices for Implementing Agile Methods: A Guide for Department of Defense Software Developers

Traditional plan-driven software development has been widely used in the government because it\u27s considered to be less risky, more consistent, and structured. But there has been a shift from this approach to Agile methods which are more flexible, resulting in fast releases by working in an incremental fashion to adapt to the reality of the changing or unclear requirements. This report describes the Agile software development philosophy, methods, and best practices in launching software design projects using the Agile approach. It is targeted to Defense Department software developers because they face broad challenges in creating enterprise-wide information systems, where Agile methods could be used most effectively. Though not a panacea, agile methods offer a solution to an important class of problems faced by organizations today. Technology and E-Government

Rapid Software Development Life Cycle in Small Projects

Small software projects are becoming more usual nowadays. Whether a small project is conducted privately or professionally, the management of the project and its phases is much easier with proper tools and frameworks. The research target of this thesis is to find out a proper life cycle model for small software projects. This thesis is conducted for Softwarehouse, a professional division of IT services in the University of Turku. The official guide for Scrum framework is adhered in software development but when it comes to formally managing various phases of a software project (planning, design, implementation, testing, reviewing etc.) there is room for improvement. Managing software projects with a proper set of tools and procedures would be beneficial as Softwarehouse works on many projects concurrently. The intended life cycle model has to be formal and heavy enough so that the benefits of agile project management can be received. However too rigid a model can be too arduous and exhausting to use, which could result in the decrease of Softwarehouse’s production volume. Therefore the model has to be light enough to maintain rapid software development and creative atmosphere within the Softwarehouse. This thesis begins by giving outline of existing software development life cycle models and followed by relevant literary exploration. After this the research case is explained in greater detail. These give the foundation and rationale to propose a suitable model. The model is experimented empirically and reviewed by partaking personnel. The results are reviewed and discussed. Finally topics for future research are suggested

Fraud and Performance Monitoring of Credit Card Tokenization Using Business Intelligence

This project major objective is to gather all the necessary data to analyze and deliver a best analytical reporting platform. This product developed for the analysts is expected to extensively use for insights on the token provisioning and its varied utilization with the banks and merchants. Also to monitor fraudulent occurring patterns and initiate necessary steps to avoid facing any adversities in the future. The reports are generated using the principles supporting descriptive analytics. Using many different KPIs, metrics and scorecards, etc., to support the analysis has given an advantage for better yield. These analytical dashboard has given a deep dive insight for the analysts. This project has been used by many analysts to come to an agreement on different patterns noticed by each individual. Also for the Senior Executives to get a profound understanding of how the widely different tokenization are used and its different attribute wise segregation

ABCDE -- Agile Block Chain Dapp Engineering

Cryptocurrencies and their foundation technology, the Blockchain, are reshaping finance and economics, allowing a decentralized approach enabling trusted applications with no trusted counterpart. More recently, the Blockchain and the programs running on it, called Smart Contracts, are also finding more and more applications in all fields requiring trust and sound certifications. Some people have come to the point of saying that the "Blockchain revolution" can be compared to that of the Internet and the Web in their early days. As a result, all software development revolving around the Blockchain technology is growing at a staggering rate. The feeling of many software engineers about such huge interest in Blockchain technologies is that of unruled and hurried software development, a sort of competition on a first-come-first-served basis which does not assure neither software quality, nor that the basic concepts of software engineering are taken into account. This paper tries to cope with this issue, proposing a software development process to gather the requirement, analyze, design, develop, test and deploy Blockchain applications. The process is based on several Agile practices, such as User Stories and iterative and incremental development based on them. However, it makes also use of more formal notations, such as some UML diagrams describing the design of the system, with additions to represent specific concepts found in Blockchain development. The method is described in good detail, and an example is given to show how it works.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, 8 table