Describing Agile Requirements Development and Communication using Complex Adaptive Systems Theory

Agile software development methods help software development teams respond to changing requirements. Fundamental to this ability to respond to change is the manner in which requirements are communicated and developed. The question of agile requirements development is considered through the lens of Complex Adaptive Systems theory, a theory used to explain agility in software development teams. A case study of the communication and development of requirements in a software development team is reported, where the three dimensions of CAS Theory described by Vidgen and Colleagues (Vidgen and Wang 2009) are adapted to describe requirements communication and development practices in greater detail. We find that this focus on requirements practices can further explain increases in a software team’s agility

Relationship between mature software engineering practices and agility practices

This paper reports on research work on Argentinean software development organizations. The analysis pro-vides insights on the profile of the companies regarding the usage of agile methods and software engineering practices trends, their motivations, and drivers. The conclusions can be used to understand what drivers facilitate the understanding of bonds between both in order to increase their competitiveness in domestic and off-shore markets.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Agile and software engineering, an invisible bond

The bond between agile practices and Software Engineering practices is clear and apparent for sea-soned practitioners with experience on the operation of high maturity development environments, yet it’s often ig-nored on the domain bibliography where most hybrid approaches are adopted. This article reviews a sensible sam-ple of the bibliography to confirm that trend and develop a map between what long established Software Engineer-ing practices and concepts stated as agile foundation principles. Previous research efforts are integrated into rein-forcing which aspects of an agile-based project need to be addressed with priority to protect the additional value yield by the usage of these methodologies.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Agile and software engineering, an invisible bond

La relación entre metodologías ágiles y las mejores practices recomen-dadas por la Ingeniería de Software es clara y evidente para los profesionales experimentados en la operación de ambientes para desarrollo de alta madurez. Es sin embargo a menudo ignorada en la bibliografía del dominio donde se tartan como si fueran enfoques separados. Este artículo revisa una muestra significativa de la bibliografía y confirma esta tendencia desarrollando un mapa de cuales son las practicas establecidas de Ingeniería de Software y los conceptos subyacentes que operan en las metodologías ágiles. Se integran esfuerzos previos de investi-gación para reforzar que aspectos de la gestión de proyectos basados en metodo-logías ágiles necesitan ser abordados con prioridad de manera que el valor adi-cional que las mismas generan resulte protegido.The bond between agile practices and Software Engineering practices is clear and apparent for seasoned practitioners with experience in the operation of high maturity development environments, yet it is often ignored on the domain bibliography where mostly hybrid approaches are adopted. This article reviews a sensible sample of the bibliography to confirm that trend and develop a map be-tween long-established Software Engineering practices on the one hand, and con-cepts stated as agile foundation principles on the other. Previous research efforts are integrated into reinforcing those aspects of an agile-based project which need to be addressed with priority in order to protect the additional value yield by the usage of these methodologies.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Improving Requirements Generation Thoroughness in User-Centered Workshops: The Role of Prompting and Shared User Stories

The rise of stakeholder centered software development has led to organizations engaging users early in the development process to help define system requirements. To facilitate user involvement in the requirements elicitation process, companies can use Group Support Systems (GSS) to conduct requirements elicitation workshops. The effectiveness of these workshops for generating a valuable set of requirements for system developers has been previously demonstrated. However, a more representative measure of progress towards a system that will meet users’ needs-- the completeness of the requirements generated by such groups has not been explored. We explore two process design considerations for increasing the completeness of requirements generated by these users: increased sharing of user stories (individual electronic brainstorming groups vs. shared user stories electronic brainstorming groups), and the use of reflective inducement prompts (unprompted vs. prompted groups). Using the Search for Ideas in Active Memory model, we predict that prompted electronic brainstorming groups will outperform any other group, including prompted, shared user stories groups at generating a more thorough set of requirements. To test the hypotheses an experiment with 56 groups consisting of 197 users was conducted. The users were asked to generate requirements for a fictitious online textbook exchange website. All hypotheses received support. The study has implications for GSS-Supported workshop design and for future research on collaborative performance in requirements elicitation

The Vortex of Continuous Development of Embedded Systems: An Inquiry into Agility Orchestration

Agile methodologies have become a popular and widely accepted method for managing software development. Since the inception of the Agile Manifesto over ten years ago, agile development techniques have superseded waterfall methods in many, if not most, software development organizations. Despite its apparent success, many companies have struggled with the adoption and implementation of agile, and exactly what level of adoption provides optimum agility. Agility is commonly held in the literature to be constructed of elements external to a company or project but may in fact be composed of both external and internal elements. The exact relationship of the adoption of agile development techniques and their relationship to the actual agility of a business remain unclear. A primary contributor to this uncertainty is the somewhat amorphous definition of agile itself. In academic literature, the concept is still relatively young and loosely defined. In practice, organizations have largely opted for a hybrid approach to agile, mixing its concepts and methods with existing Stage Gate or waterfall methodologies. This has made the management of agile even more complex. Crucially, there is no definition or criterion available to determine the appropriate mix of agile and waterfall processes in an embedded software development context nor is there a method to determine the impact of one against the other. These issues beg the question: how do organizations manage agility? This interpretive case study provides an empirical account of how stakeholders manage both market and process agility in an embedded systems context via a hybrid agility implementation and product genesis. As a result, we provide the notion of agile vorticity, as the point at which market and process agility collide to produce business momentum at a specific point of innovation within the agile business vortex

Situation-oriented requirements engineering

The establishment of smart environments, Internet of Things (IoT) and socio-technical systems has introduced many challenges to the software development process. One such main challenge is software requirements gathering which needs to address issues in a broader spectrum than traditional standalone software development. Consideration of bigger picture that includes software, its domain, the components of the domains and especially the interactions between the software and the surrounding domain components, including both human and other systems entities, is essential to gathering reliable requirements. However, most of the traditional Requirements Engineering approaches lack such comprehensive overlook of the overall view. The main objective of this work is to introduce a human-centered approach to Requirements Engineering in order to push the boundaries of traditional concepts to be more suitable for use in the development of modern socio-technical systems in smart environments. A major challenge of introducing a human-centered approach is to effectively identify the related human factors; especially, since each individual has unique desires, goals, behaviors. Our proposed solution is to use the observational data sets generated by smart environments as a resource to extract individual\u27s unique personalities and behaviors related to the software design. The concept of situations defined in our earlier study is used to represent the human and domain related aspects including human desires, goals, beliefs, interactions with the system and the constrained environment. In the first stage of this work, a computational model called situation-transition structure is developed to understand the discrete factors and behavior patterns of individuals through the observational data. During the second stage, the information mined from the situation transition structure is applied to propose new human-centered approaches to support main Requirements Engineering concepts: requirements elicitation, risk management, and prioritization. The pertinence of the proposed work is illustrated through some case studies. The conclusion asserts some of the future research direction

The Relationship Between External Turbulence and New Product Development Practices

This dissertation considered whether new product development practices employed resolved the uncertainty and equivocality in information processing created by external turbulence. With external turbulence coming from more sources and arriving with greater frequency, this wave of change must be addressed to achieve desired project outcomes. Healthcare was the target industry for this research and respondents were selected from members of HIMSS, the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society. Five hundred sixty-three survey responses were collected about completed new product development projects. The aspects of the projects reported included the external turbulence experienced, flexible new product development practices employed, the effectiveness of information processing and the project’s outcomes. The results using all respondents did not show support for the crucial hypothesis that reduction of uncertainty and equivocality in the information processing environment leads to desired new product development outcomes. While the full respondent set did not support the main hypothesis, the subset of projects that were completed during the ramp-up of the Affordable Care Act showed the hypothesized relationship. With the Affordable Care Act ramp-up, there was a wave of change and a high volume of new information generated by external turbulence. Those organizations that were successful used their information processing capabilities to reduce uncertainty and equivocality and address the changes. Their information processing capability combined with flexible product development practices was directly related to positive new product development outcomes. The extreme example of external turbulence that occurred during the Affordable Care Act ramp-up supported the crucial hypothesis about information processing. The research also found that external turbulence is related to the positive use of flexible new product development practices and that use of those practices is directly related to desired new product development outcomes. In the presence of external turbulence, product development teams use flexible new product development practices to achieve desired project outcomes. The major implication from this study is the need by product development teams to consider external turbulence as a factor in all product plans. It was the strongest relationship reported

Self-organizing, social and adaptive nature of agile information systems development teams : essays on leadership and learning

Information Systems Development (ISD) keeps changing and evolving rapidly in a huge variety of aspects, including the technologies that are developed, the methods that are applied, and the structures in which it is organized (Avison & Fitzgerald, 2006). Noticing the need for further understanding of adaptive outcomes such as learning and leadership in agile ISD teams, this research is divided into different phases. The first phase was the review of the literature on learning in the Information Systems literature within IS development teams. Findings from the systematic literature review are reported in Paper 1, entitled “Team Learning in Information Systems Development: A Literature Review”. The last phase includes a comprehensive case study through which Paper 2, entitled “Self-Organization and Leadership in Agile Teams: A Complexity Leadership Approach”, and Paper 3, entitled “Social Capital and Adaptive Outcomes in Agile Information Systems Development Teams”, are derived