Goal sketching: towards agile requirements engineering

This paper describes a technique that can be used as part of a simple and practical agile method for requirements engineering. The technique can be used together with Agile Programming to develop software in internet time. We illustrate the technique and introduce lazy refinement, responsibility composition and context sketching. Goal sketching has been used in a number of real-world development projects, one of which is described here

Communication Patterns and Strategies in Software Development Communities of Practice

Some of the greatest challenges in the relatively new field of software development lie in the decidedly old technology of communication between humans. Software projects require sophisticated and varied communication skills because software developers work in a world of incomplete, imperfect information where teams evolve rapidly in response to evolving requirements and changing collaborators. While prescriptive models for software process such as Agile suggest ways of doing, in reality these codified practices must adapt to the complexities of a real workplace. Patterns, rather than rules of behavior within software process are more suitable to the varied and mutable nature of software development. Software development communities are also learning communities, attempting to sustain themselves through internal ambiguity and external changes. We study different types of software development communities to fulfill our goal of understanding how these communities implement and evolve different communication strategies to sustain themselves through change. We observe student software development projects, open source software development, and a professional, rigorously Agile software development community. We employ Wenger\u27s concept of Community of Practice to frame our understanding, especially focusing on the notions of identity, participation, reification, negotiation of meaning and trajectory of the participants of the software development communities. From these different sources, we identify the emergent themes of mentoring and knowledge management as critical for sustainable communities. Through our long running, immersive, participant observer, ethnographic study of the Agile software development community, we contribute both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the their communication practices and depict the evolving nature of their onboarding and mentoring strategies. We share our experience of implementing such an immersive industry ethnographic study. We employ a pattern language approach to capturing, analyzing and representing our results, thereby contributing and relating to the larger bodies of work in Scrum and Organizational Patterns. This work also informs our concurrent efforts to enhance our undergraduate computer science and software engineering curriculum, exposing students to the communication challenges of real software development and help them to develop skills to meet these challenges through practice in inquiry, critique and reflection

Pair programming and the re-appropriation of individual tools for collaborative software development

Although pair programming is becoming more prevalent in software development, and a number of reports have been written about it [10] [13], few have addressed the manner in which pairing actually takes place [12]. Even fewer consider the methods used to manage issues such as role change or the communication of complex issues. This paper highlights the way resources designed for individuals are re-appropriated and augmented by pair programmers to facilitate collaboration. It also illustrates that pair verbalisations can augment the benefits of the collocated team, providing examples from ethnographic studies of pair programmers 'in the wild'

Generification by Translation: Designing Generic Systems in Context of the Local

While the mechanisms of generification during implementation and use of large-scale systems are well known, this paper extends and analyzes the notion into the design phase of generic systems and provides insight into the associated socio-technical key mechanisms at play. The paper draws on the information infrastructure literature, and emphasizes how generic systems’ designs always face infrastructural challenges and opportunities in the development process. The paper illustrates how a vendor solved the infrastructural challenges by (to a large degree) lending on local practice, translating perspectives, and carefully adjusting their design strategy over time. We argue that our findings have implications for practice because they underscore the malleability of the collaboration process between vendor and users. First, we suggest that designing a generic system calls for a flexible vendor willing to change and adjust the development strategy along with the evolving project. Second, to strengthen the user-developer collaboration, we highly recommend giving the user-participants, at the very early stage of a development project, a basic understanding of software design, and raising their skills in making precise contextual narratives. Third, we emphasize the importance of the project management’s engagement in recruiting clinical personnel and in making it possible for the clinicians to participate in the project. Empirically, the paper presents the initial stages of a large electronic patient record (EPR) development project that has been running from 2012 in the North Norwegian health region and is due to finish in 2016

Instructional Designers\u27 Perceptions of the Practice of Instructional Design in a Post-Pandemic Workplace

This article explores instructional designers’ perceptions of changes to instructional design practice in a post-pandemic workplace. A thematic analysis of interviews conducted with 33 instructional designers revealed that instructional designers believe that the profession is profoundly altered post-pandemic. Findings around post-pandemic instructional design practice include adopting agile instructional design practices, increasing collaborations with others within a context of empathy, recognizing the importance of accessibility, and increasing reliance on technology to deliver both instruction and training within the context of an expanded portfolio of how instruction will be delivered in the future

A Phenomenological Examination of Virtual Game Developers\u27 Experiences Using Jacob\u27s Ladder Pre-Production Design Tactic

Edutainment refers to curriculum and instruction designed with a clear educational purpose, including multi-faceted virtual learning game design. Tools such as the Jacob\u27s Ladder pre-production design tactic have been developed to ensure that voices of both engineers and educators are heard. However, it is unclear how development team members experience and perceive their collaborative work while designing a virtual game using such tactics. This phenomenological study examined the experiences of agile software team members using Jacob\u27s Ladder pre-production design as an interdisciplinary collaboration tool while designing a virtual learning game. Seven design team members (3 educators and 4 engineers) participated in semi-structured interviews and transcripts were analyzed via an inductive coding process that led to the development of key themes. Findings indicated that using Jacob\u27s Ladder design tactic influenced the experience of the team by keeping the team focused on common goals and learner needs, organizing the team work, supporting interdisciplinary collaboration, and promoting shared understandings of the software platform limitations. Individuals played various roles, appreciated diverse views, recognized prior experience and idea sharing, and felt the design tactic supported flexibility for interdisciplinary collaboration. By linking integration strategies to interdisciplinary collaboration, findings from this study may be used by organizational leaders to consider best practices in team building for virtual learning game design, which will further support the development of effective games and growth of the edutainment industry

Libraries in transition: evolving the information ecology of the Learning Commons: a sabbatical report

This sabbatical report studied various models in order to determine best practices for design, implementation and service of Leaning Commons, a library service model which functionally and spatially integrates library services, information technology services, and media services to provide a continuum of services to the user

Teaching Theories Underlying Agile Systems Development

Presently Agile methods courses taught in universities focus primarily on providing hands-on experience of the process of development but ignore the evolution of, and theories behind, the Agile practices. “Without theory we are just groping in chaos” (Deming, 1986). Knowing the ‘why” in addition to the “how” of Agile methods will help develop reflective skills and give students an edge as they transition to the rapidly evolving real world of IS. In this article a set of relevant theories that can be included as a module in an Agile method course is outlined. An exposure to theories underlying Agile methods help students appreciate the relevance of the principles and practices of the Agile approach and develop authentic problem solving skills