Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming: 18th International Conference, XP 2017, Cologne, Germany, May 22-26, 2017, Proceedings

agile software development; lean development; scrum; project management; software developmen

Agile Game Development : A Systematic Literature Review

A systematic literature review was conducted to examine the usage of agile methods in game development. A total of 23 articles were found which were analysed with the help of concept matrices. The results indicate that agile methods are used to varying degrees in game development. Agile methods lead to improved quality of games through a prototyping, playtesting, and feedback loop. Communication and ability of the team to take responsibility are also enhanced. Challenges arise from multidisciplinary teams, management issues, lack of training in agile methods, and quality of code

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2022, which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in June 2022. XP is the premier agile software development conference combining research and practice. It is a unique forum where agile researchers, practitioners, thought leaders, coaches, and trainers get together to present and discuss their most recent innovations, research results, experiences, concerns, challenges, and trends.  XP conferences provide an informal environment to learn and trigger discussions and welcome both people new to agile and seasoned agile practitioners. This year’s conference was held with the theme “Agile in the Era of Hybrid Work”. The 13 full papers and 1 short paper presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: agile practices; agile processes; and agile in the large

Medical devices with embedded electronics: design and development methodology for start-ups

358 p.El sector de la biotecnología demanda innovación constante para hacer frente a los retos del sector sanitario. Hechos como la reciente pandemia COVID-19, el envejecimiento de la población, el aumento de las tasas de dependencia o la necesidad de promover la asistencia sanitaria personalizada tanto en entorno hospitalario como domiciliario, ponen de manifiesto la necesidad de desarrollar dispositivos médicos de monitorización y diagnostico cada vez más sofisticados, fiables y conectados de forma rápida y eficaz. En este escenario, los sistemas embebidos se han convertido en tecnología clave para el diseño de soluciones innovadoras de bajo coste y de forma rápida. Conscientes de la oportunidad que existe en el sector, cada vez son más las denominadas "biotech start-ups" las que se embarcan en el negocio de los dispositivos médicos. Pese a tener grandes ideas y soluciones técnicas, muchas terminan fracasando por desconocimiento del sector sanitario y de los requisitos regulatorios que se deben cumplir. La gran cantidad de requisitos técnicos y regulatorios hace que sea necesario disponer de una metodología procedimental para ejecutar dichos desarrollos. Por ello, esta tesis define y valida una metodología para el diseño y desarrollo de dispositivos médicos embebidos

Teaching agile hardware development with an open‐source engineering simulator: An evaluation with industry participants

Educational games are increasingly used to teach Agile development approaches to practitioners. Most of these training modules simplify the development environment, for example, by using LEGO bricks or playing cards. This oversimplification has been shown to result in limited transferability of learning to industrial practice. Furthermore, there is a lack of teaching modules that specifically address the challenges of applying Agile to physical products. In this paper, we present an open-source educational game that realistically simulates a hardware development project to teach Agile principles. Over 2 days, participants design, manufacture, and test modifications for a physical wire bending machine within an authentic engineering and production setting. The training mimics the typical roles, processes, and tools of industrial engineering teams to reflect the challenges of Agile hardware development. The module was evaluated with 44 industry professionals regarding perceived learning and user reaction. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used for the experimental evaluation. The results showed a positive learning effect as the participants\u27 average agreement with Agile principles increased through the training. Concerning user reaction, respondents reported a high degree of relevance, interaction, and confidence, indicating that the realistic simulation of the hardware development appropriately balanced the degree of realism with simplicity. The study showcases the opportunities of properly aligning game components to provoke learning situations targeted by the instructors. It contributes to the extant literature by providing a design framework (product, process, setting, and instruction) and open-source access to the tools used for implementation

Mikropalveluiden testauskäytännöt julkisen sektorin projekteissa

Online services are constantly evolving, which makes service maintainability challenging. This has led to micro service architecture, where big applications are split into smaller services in order to improve applications' maintainability, scalability, and flexibility. However, splitting a single process application into multiple services causes the testing process to be more challenging. This Master's thesis is exploring these testing problems in a micro service context and finding practical guidance for the test implementation. Moreover, this Master's thesis focuses on public sector software projects. Public sector software projects are clearly predefined and the provider has open information about the project's needs. Thus, the project has a clear goal and known boundaries right from the beginning. The research approach for this study is an exploratory multiple case study consisting of three case projects. The data of the case projects were collected through semi-structural interviews and version history commit analysis. The results of this study present a set of successful practices and recommendations for taking testing into account during a micro service oriented agile development process. Successful testing requires monitoring of the project's maturity level to focus testing resources at the right time. Additionally, the case projects brought up practical testing guidance, such as understanding of the common testing responsibility, the importance of peer review, and the value of assigning a specific tester after the project has reached its end-to-end testing phase.Web-palvelut kehittyvät jatkuvasti, mikä vaikeuttaa palveluiden ylläpitoa. Yhtenä ratkaisuna on palvelun pilkkominen osiin mikropalveluiksi. Palvelun pilkkominen edistää palvelun ylläpitoa, skaalattavuutta ja joustavuutta. Toisaalta palvelun pilkkominen mikropalveluiksi vaikeuttaa testausprosessia. Tämä diplomityö tutkii mikropalveluiden testausprosessiin liittyviä ongelmia ja etsii käytännönläheistä ohjeistuista testien toteuttamiseen mikropalveluympäristössä. Diplomityö keskittyy julkisen sektorin mikropalveluprojekteihin, koska kaikki tässä diplomityössä käytetyt tutkimusprojektit ovat julkisen sektorin hallinnoimia. Julkisen sektorin ohjelmistoprojektit ovat selkeästi esimääriteltyjä ja projektien aineisto on avoimesti saatavilla. Tämän takia projekteilla on selkeä päämäärä ja tunnetut rajat heti projektin alussa. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytettiin tutkivaa case study -menetelmää. Tutkimus sisälsi kolme tutkimuskohdetta. Tutkimusdata kerättiin osittain jäsennetyillä kontekstuaalisilla haastatteluilla ja ohjelmistokoodin versiohallinnan historian analyysillä. Tuloksena syntyi kokoelma hyväksi todettuja käytäntöjä ja suosituksia, jotka auttavat ottamaan testauksen huomioon mikropalvelun iteratiivisessa ohjelmistokehitysprosessissa. Suositeltaviksi testauskäytännöiksi havaittiin projektin maturiteetin tarkkaileminen, että testauksen resursointi voidaan tehdä oikeaan aikaan. Lisäksi, projekteista nousi esiin muita suosituksia, kuten kehitystiimin yhteisen testaamisvastuun ymmärtäminen, koodikatselmoinnin merkitys ja erillisen testaajan tärkeys, kun projektin maturiteetti on kasvanut riittävästi

Ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen muodonmuutos - Tapaustutkimus

Agile methods have been widely adopted in the software engineering industry. In addition, agile software development has been studied extensively during the past decade. In general, studies tend to recommend having experts working in small, self-organizing and cross-functional teams. However, the environment in an enterprise can comprise of multiple, interlinked pro- grams and dozens of teams working on them, which poses many challenges to adopting agile methods. In this case study, we studied scaled agile methods at Rally Software, a soft- ware enterprise with over 500 employees. We conducted two rounds of interviews in the case organization. The first round of interviews assessed the initial state of the organization. The second round was performed after ma- jor changes in the organization and processes. In addition, we performed a literature review on case studies of other organizations utilizing large scale agile. The results of the interviews present Rally’s steps in striving for improving its agile scaled process. The first round results revealed a mature agile organization with multiple accumulated issues and willingness to turn itself around. After the transformation process, the second round of interviews showed positive trends in several areas. By enforcing more disciplined agile processes, Rally Software was able to increase its feature delivery rate and improve trust in the engineering department. The literature review results present common challenges and success factors related to adopting and maintaining scaled agile in large organizations. The most frequently mentioned challenges were inter-team communication and coordination, requirements management and integrating other functions of the company into the scaled agile process. The most common success factors were coaching and training, piloting agile in smaller projects, change leader- ship and having a structured approach to facilitate inter-team communication.Ketterät kehitysmenetelmät ovat saavuttaneet vankan suosion ohjelmistoalalla ja niitä tutkittu laajasti viimeisen vuosikymmenen aikana. Tutkimukset usein suosittelevat asiantuntijoiden muodostamia pieniä, autonomisia ja monitaitoisia ohjelmistokehittäjäryhmiä. Suurissa ohjelmistoyrityksissä tuotekehitys voi kuitenkin koostua monista toisistaan riippuvista ohjelmista ja kymmenistä erillisistä ryhmistä, mikä tekee ketterien menetelmien käytöstä haasteellista. Tässä tapaustutkimuksessa olemme tutkineet Rally Softwaren ketterää ohjelmistokehitysprosessia. Rally Software on suuri ohjelmistoyritys, jonka palveluksessa on yli 500 työntekijää. Suoritimme yrityksessä kaksi haastattelukierrosta, joista ensimmäinen kartoitti lähtötilanteen ja jälkimmäinen tilanteen merkittävien organisaatio- ja prosessimuutosten jälkeen. Tämän lisäksi teimme kirjallisuuskatsauksen, joka keskittyi tapaustutkimuksiin ketterien kehitysmenetelmien soveltamiseen suurissa organisaatioissa. Haastattelutulokset esittelevät Rally Softwaren vaiheita sen pyrkiessä parantamaan ketterien menetelmien käyttöään. Ensimmäisen haastattelukierroksen tulokset esittelevät pitkään ketteriä kehitysmenetelmiä käyttäneen organisaation, jossa oli paljon kasaantuneita ongelmia ja tahto muutokseen. Muutosprosessin jälkeen tehty toinen haastattelukierros kertoo positiivisista suuntauksista useilla osa-alueilla. Kurinalaisella ketterien menetelmien käytöllä Rally Software sai parannettua tuottavuuttaan ja luottamusta ohjelmistokehitysorganisaatioon. Kirjallisuuskatsaus esittelee tyypillisiä haasteita ja onnistumisen edellytyksiä liittyen ketterien kehitysmenetelmien käyttöönottoon suurissa ohjelmistokehitysyrityksissä. Yleisimmät haasteet olivat ryhmien välinen kommunikaatio ja koordinointi, vaatimustenhallinta ja muiden yrityksen toimintojen sisällyttäminen ketterään kehitysmalliin. Useimmin mainitut onnistumisen edellytykset olivat valmennus ja koulutus, ketterien kehitysmenetelmien kokeilu pienemmissä projekteissa, muutosjohtajuus ja järjestelmällinen lähestymistapa ryhmien välisen kommunikaatioon

Finnish Enterprise Agile Transformations : A Survey Study

Peer reviewe

Understanding coordination in global software engineering: A mixed-methods study on the use of meetings and Slack

Given the relevance of coordination in the field of global software engineering, this work was carried out to further understand coordination mechanisms. Specifically, we investigated meetings and the collaboration tool Slack. We conducted a longitudinal case study using a mixed-methods approach with surveys, observations, interviews, and chat logs. Our quantitative results show that employees in global projects spend 7 h 45 min per week on average in scheduled meetings and 8 h 54 min in unscheduled meetings. Furthermore, distributed teams were significantly larger than co-located teams, and people working in distributed teams spent somewhat more time in meetings per day. We found that low availability of key people, absence of organizational support for unscheduled meetings and unbalanced activity from team members in meetings and on Slack were barriers for effective coordination across sites. The positive aspects of using collaboration tools in distributed teams were increased team awareness and informal communication and reduced the need for e-mail. Our study emphasizes the importance of reflecting on how global software engineering teams use meetings and collaboration tools to coordinate. We provide practical advice for conducting better meetings and give suggestions for more efficient use of collaboration tools in global projects.publishedVersio