Systematic review on evaluating planning process in agile development methods

Agile development methods have been catering the need of faster delivery of theever-demanding domain of software engineering. These methods are able to deliver value to users and businesses via fast, reliable, and repeatable process.  Planning requirements and processes takes the driving seat in a dynamic environment because the value proposition rapidly changes. This paper exhibits asystematic literature review of planning processes implementedby various agile methods in order to find the best suited agile method in terms of robust planning. Keywords: It was found that Scrum is the best suited agile method for planning processes

Preliminary Guideline for Creating Boundary Artefacts in Software Engineering

Context: Software development benefits from having Boundary Artefacts (BAs), as a single artefact can supply stakeholders with different boundaries, facilitating collaboration among social worlds. When those artefacts display inconsistencies, such as incorrect information, the practitioners have decreased trust in the BA. As trust is an essential factor guiding the utilisation of BAs in software projects, it is necessary to understand which principles should be observed when creating them. Objective: This study aimed at develop and validate a preliminary guideline support the creation of trustworthy BAs. Method: We followed a multi-step approach. We developed our guideline through a literature review and previous results from our case study. Second, we submitted the guideline for an expert evaluation via two workshops and a survey. At last, we adjusted our guideline by incorporating the feedback obtained during the workshops. Results: We grouped the principles collected from a literature review into three categories. The first category (Scope) focuses on the scope, displaying principles referring to defining each boundary's target audience, needs, and terminology. The second category (Structure) relates to how the artefact's content is structured to meet stakeholders' needs. The third (Management) refers to principles that can guide the establishment of practices to manage the artefact throughout time. The expert validation revealed that the principles contribute to creating trustworthy BAs at different levels. Also, the relevance of the guideline and its usefulness. Conclusions: The guideline strengthen BA traits such as shared understanding, plasticity and ability to transfer. Practitioners can utilise the guideline to guide the creation or even evaluate current practices for existing BAs.Comment: 25 page

What Makes Agile Test Artifacts Useful? An Activity-Based Quality Model from a Practitioners' Perspective

Background: The artifacts used in Agile software testing and the reasons why these artifacts are used are fairly well-understood. However, empirical research on how Agile test artifacts are eventually designed in practice and which quality factors make them useful for software testing remains sparse. Aims: Our objective is two-fold. First, we identify current challenges in using test artifacts to understand why certain quality factors are considered good or bad. Second, we build an Activity-Based Artifact Quality Model that describes what Agile test artifacts should look like. Method: We conduct an industrial survey with 18 practitioners from 12 companies operating in seven different domains. Results: Our analysis reveals nine challenges and 16 factors describing the quality of six test artifacts from the perspective of Agile testers. Interestingly, we observed mostly challenges regarding language and traceability, which are well-known to occur in non-Agile projects. Conclusions: Although Agile software testing is becoming the norm, we still have little confidence about general do's and don'ts going beyond conventional wisdom. This study is the first to distill a list of quality factors deemed important to what can be considered as useful test artifacts

The Role of Social Agile Practices for Direct and Indirect Communication in Information Systems Development Teams

Methods for Agile information systems development (ISD) are widely accepted in industry. One key difference in comparison to traditional, plan-driven ISD approaches is that Agile ISD teams rely heavily on direct, informal face-to-face communication instead of indirect and formal documents, models, and plans. While the importance of communication in Agile ISD is generally acknowledged, empirical studies investigating this phenomenon are scarce. We empirically open up the “black box” of the Agile ISD process to enhance the knowledge about the communication mechanisms of Agile ISD teams. We conducted a case study at two medium-sized ISD companies. As our primary data collection technique, we carried out semi-structured interviews, which we complemented with observations and, in one case, a survey. Our study’s main contribution is a set of so-called social Agile practices that positively impact the direct communication of team members. Our data suggests including the Agile practices co-located office space, daily stand-up meeting, iteration planning meeting, pair programming, sprint retrospective, and sprint review in this set. Furthermore, we investigate the role of more formal, indirect communication in Agile ISD projects. We highlight areas in which formal documents remain important so that a trade-off between indirect and direct communication is necessary

Organic transformation of ERP documentation practices: Moving from archival records to dialogue-based, agile throwaway documents

Implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems remains challenging and requires organizational changes. Given the scale and complexity of ERP projects, documentation plays a crucial role in coordinating operational details. However, the emergence of the agile approach raises the question of how adequate lightweight documentation is in agile ERP implementation. Unfortunately, both academia and industry often overlook the natural evolution of documentation practices. This study examines current documentation practices through interviews with 23 field experts to address this oversight. The findings indicate a shift in documentation practices from retrospective approaches to dialogue-based, agile throwaway documents, including audiovisual recordings and informal emails. Project managers who extensively engage with throwaway documents demonstrate higher situational awareness and greater effectiveness in managing ERP projects than those who do not. The findings show an organic transformation of ERP documentation practices. We redefine documentation to include unstructured, relevant information across different media, emphasizing searchability. Additionally, the study offers two vignettes for diverse organizational contexts to illustrate the best practices of agile ERP projects.Organic transformation of ERP documentation practices: Moving from archival records to dialogue-based, agile throwaway documentspublishedVersionPaid open acces

Erfassung von Anforderungen an Software-Module

In modernen Programmiersprachen werden Übersetzungseinheiten in Module zusammengefasst. Um Module dabei besser dokumentieren zu können, wurde das Werkzeug J-PaD entwickelt, das erweiterte Möglichkeiten für die integrierte Dokumentation auf Modulebene bietet. Der Einarbeitungsaufwand in J-PaD bei bestehenden Softwareprojekten ist momentan allerdings hoch, weil viele Informationen in das Werkzeug nachgetragen werden müssen. Viele der benötigten Informationen befinden sich jedoch bereits an anderen Stellen im Projekt wieder, wie etwa im Versionsverwaltungssystem. In dieser Arbeit wird darum analysiert, wie sich die in einem Softwareprojekt anfallenden Daten verwenden lassen, um die in J-PaD verwaltete Modulbeschreibung automatisch ausfüllen zu können. Es wird untersucht, wo sich die benötigten Daten befinden und wie diese verarbeitet werden müssen. Anschließend wird beschrieben, wie J-PaD um eine Importfunktion erweitert wird, die das automatische Ausfüllen durchführt. Zuletzt wird die Importfunktion an einem Open-Source-Projekt demonstriert. Die hierbei gemachten Beobachtungen werden vorgestellt und die Resultate werden bewertet.In modern programming languages, compilation units are encapsulated in modules. To improve module documentation, the tool J-PaD has been developed, which gives enhanced capabilities for the integrated documentation one module-level. Unfortunately, the effort to use J-PaD in existing software projects is high at the moment, since a lot of information has to be added to the tool. However, a lot of information is already available in other places around the project, like in the version control system. Therefore, this thesis analyses how the data that is accumulated in software projects can be used to fill out the module description held in J-PaD automatically. It is examined where the required data can be found and how it has to be processed. Afterwards it is described how J-PaD is enhanced with an import function that does automatically fill out the module description. At the end, the import function is demonstrated on an open-source project. Observations made thereby are presented and the results are evaluated