Agile, Web Engineering and Capability Maturity ModelI ntegration : A systematic literature review

Context Agile approaches are an alternative for organizations developing software, particularly for those who develop Web applications. Besides, CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) models are well-established approaches focused on assessing the maturity of an organization that develops software. Web Engineering is the field of Software Engineering responsible for analyzing and studying the specific characteristics of the Web. The suitability of an Agile approach to help organizations reach a certain CMMI maturity level in Web environments will be very interesting, as they will be able to keep the ability to quickly react and adapt to changes as long as their development processes get mature. Objective This paper responds to whether it is feasible or not, for an organization developing Web systems, to achieve a certain maturity level of the CMMI-DEV model using Agile methods. Method The proposal is analyzed by means of a systematic literature review of the relevant approaches in the field, defining a characterization schema in order to compare them to introduce the current state-of-the-art. Results The results achieved after the systematic literature review are presented, analyzed and compared against the defined schema, extracting relevant conclusions for the different dimensions of the problem: compatibility, compliance, experience, maturity and Web. Conclusion It is concluded that although the definition of an Agile approach to meet the different CMMI maturity levels goals could be possible for an organization developing Web systems, there is still a lack of detailed studies and analysis on the field

A Scrum-based approach to CMMI maturity level 2 in Web Development environments

Scrum has become one of the most popular agile methodologies, either alone or combined with other agile practices. Besides, CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is accepted as a suitable model to measure the maturity of the organizations when developing or acquiring software. Although these two approaches are often considered antagonist, the use of an agile approach to reach certain CMMI maturity levels may result beneficial to organizations that develop Web systems, since they would take the advantages of both approaches. In Web community, this union may be very interesting, because agile approaches fits with the special needs of Web development, and they could be a useful tool for companies getting a certain grade of maturity. This work analyzes the goals of CMMI maturity level 2 and the feasibility of achieving them using the practices proposed by Scrum, trying to assess whether the use of this methodology is suitable for meeting the CMMI generic and specific goals or not. Finally, and based on this analysis, this paper raises a possible extension of Scrum, based on agile techniques, to accommodate the CMMI maturity level 2.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia TIN2010-20057-C03-02Junta de Andalucía TIC-578

The role of the IT-Project Manager in Organizations that Balance Agile and Traditional Software Development

Systems development practice is undergoing major transformation, as many companies try to improve their practice to become more flexible, adaptable and agile. However, research provides convincing evidence that it may be difficult to become agile or even just to integrate agile processes in existing companies that are dominated by traditional practice. A recent literature study concludes that most literature and practice advice to reconcile the traditional approaches with agility. The complexity added by having and combining two “worlds” thwarts the job of IT project managers and change their role. Understanding these changes and the new role is the focal point of this work. Through a focused literature review, types of balancing are found, and motives, opportunities and challenges of balancing are mapped. Based on this work a framework of IT project managers’ role in organizations that balance agile and traditional approaches is suggested

Reconciling agility and discipline in COTS selection processes

Currently, information systems are mainly built by integrating or customizing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components acquired or licensed from the marketplace. The processes necessary to steer a suitable acquisition are different from traditional software development processes. Among them, we are interested in the process of selection of COTS components. COTS selection requires discipline to coordinate the selection team and the set of new activities that are necessary to support a successful selection. The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) contains important guidelines for process improvement, and specifiesPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Scrum in Practice: an Overview of Scrum Adaptations

Agile software development practices have gained widespread acceptance and application across all industries. Scrum, as one of the most widely used agile methods, has been adopted in countless organizations. However, while there is an understanding that practitioners rarely apply Scrum by the book , only little research addresses the actual adaptations and modifications that are made to fit Scrum to real world requirements: whether it is to solve methodological drawbacks, to fit the method to specific contextual constraint, or to add additional value to the method by augmentation or combination with other tools and methods. To get an overview of the proposed adaptations and their implications, this study presents a systematic review of literature reporting on challenges and motivations that lead to modifications of the Scrum method. Based on 31 relevant studies we extract seven distinct motivations for modifying Scrum, as well as six generic solution strategies to adapt the method

Mapping Agile Practices to CMMI-DEV Level 3 in Web Development Environments

Agile approaches formally appeared ten years ago and nowadays they are a valid alternative for organizations developing software. Agile methodologies are especially interesting to those developing Web environments applications, as they can fit properly the special characteristics of this type of developments. In addition, maturity models like CMMI-DEV (Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development) focus on assessing the maturity level of organizations developing or acquiring software. These models are well established and can increment quality of development process to enhance costumers’ satisfaction. CMMI-DEV level 3 provides a good compromise on maturity gained and effort needed. The feasibility of reaching it through a combination of Agile methods can be very useful to organizations developing systems in Web environments, as they can keep the adaptability of Agile together with a more mature development process. This paper proposes a set of Agile methods so as to reach all CMMI-DEV maturity level 3 generic and specific goals. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes further research lines

An Agile approach to CMMI-DEV levels 4 and 5 in Web development

CMMI (Capability Maturity Model-Integration) model proposes a set of process areas, including suggested practices, with the aim of helping organizations to improve the quality of their products and processes. It is commonly accepted that as an organization progresses through the different levels of CMMI, the quality of its development might improve as well as the overhead of the development process, impeding it to quickly adapt to customers or partners changing needs. Besides, Agile practices allow quick adaptation and early delivery of business value. The specificity of Web environments makes them suitable for Agile approaches. However, as quality requirements for Web systems increase, a combination of Agile practices allowing organizations to achieve higher levels of CMMI-DEV with a limited process overhead can be very interesting to organizations that aim to keep adaptability. This way, they might strengthen their development processes in order to produce high quality results. This paper presents a gap analysis between the most used Agile practices (Scrum and XP) as well as a mapping proposal, including ad-hoc modifications and other Agile practices, to achieve all CMMI-DEV level 4 and 5 specific goals. To conclude, it drafts relevant conclusions and proposes future lines of researc

NDT-Agile: An Agile, CMMI-Compatible Framework for Web Engineering

Agile and Web Engineering show important synergies, making Agile a common approach for Web development. Besides, several initiatives emerged to support CMMI-DEV within Agile, where CMMI-DEV aims to improve organizations’ software development process. An approach integrating Agile, Web and CMMI-DEV might be of great value, since they might allow Web development teams to use Agile, as well as progress through CMMI-DEV maturity levels. For this purpose, we developed NDT-Agile, an NDT-based Agile framework to achieve the goals of CMMI-DEV in the context of Web Engineering. It was developed by mapping Agile practices to the goals of CMMI-DEV so as to identify existing gaps. Next, we searched for suitable Agile practices to cover the gaps and integrated them into a framework called NDTAgile, which was validated using an expert-judgment technique: the Delphi method. This paper describes how we integrated Agile and CMMI-DEV into a Web Engineering framework. Besides, it also analyzes its initial evaluation, together with a first tool developed to support it.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Mapping CMMI process areas to agile best practices

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementTo maintain competitiveness, software development companies are pressured to deliver products in less time, without compromising on quality and budget. To meet this demand, companies often adopt Agile software development techniques that enable shorter delivery times through constant smaller deliveries and shorter interactive cycles in software development processes. Although the innovation and the decrease of development time provided by these techniques, companies have perceived that quality is a differentiated factor and feel the urge to maintain the quality of their software to stand out from the competitors. At this point CMMI is presented as a reference model that contains a set of practices which lead to the maturity of organizations with focus on the improvement of organization processes and reduction of processes risk of failure increasing quality. In contrast with Agile, that puts individuals and their interactions in higher importance than processes and tools and where being adaptable to changes is more important than following strictly what was planned, CMMI it is a strict traditional approach that implies extensive formalism and focus on the processes. Derived of those apparent opposite beliefs, Agile development methods and CMMI best practices are frequently perceived to be at odds with each other. There is a great discussion about CMMI ability to be Agile and Agile methods to adapt to CMMI requirements without losing agility. This study aims to map CMMI for development process areas to Agile best practices to help in the understanding of the compatibilities and incompatibilities regarding the integration of CMMI and Agile. That will guide companies into the successful integration of Agile and maturity models together taking full advantage of their capabilities leading to enhanced software development. With the integration of those two approaches it is expected that Agile practices can help mature organizations to become more flexible, and CMMI could help Agile organizations to increase processes quality, fulfilling their goals and having their competitiveness sustained