The investigation on the best pracices of extreme programming (XP) quality implementation at UUMIT

Software engineering (SE) plays an important role for improving society‘s wellbeing through the use of high quality software. There is noted that most of the software projects are failed, due to missing or poor software development practices in software organizations. Due to this reason, having a good and sound software development methodology is crucial for software organization to satisfy stakeholder‘s requirements. One of the prevalent software development methodologies in SE is Extreme programming (XP) methodology. This methodology is an emerging SE approach, which is able to increase software quality and hence reducing software development time and cost. However, the level of application of this methodology among software developers in UUM IT centre is still unclear. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the application of XP practices in this centre. UUM IT was chosen as a case study because the role of this organization has changed to meet high demand among campus communities. Thus, research that focuses on the 12 XP practices of UUM IT is highly needed. This study was conducted using a semi–structured interview with five (5) experts from the UUM IT, to identify the successful implementation of the XP practices. The findings have shown that, most of the practices are used by UUM IT developers but need to improve. In contrast, some of the practices such as pair programming and test first programming are not used by the UUM IT developers. This is due to the nature and type of software projects involved, also because of the personality, experiences and the education level differences among developers. This study provides qualitative evident that can assist software project managers to guide them in improving software development practices for producing high quality software

Transition from traditional to agile software processes

Tässä työssä tutkitaan siirtymistä perinteisistä vaihejakoisista ohjelmistotuotantomenetelmistä ketteriin menetelmiin. Tutkimuksella pyritään selvittämään, millaisia muutoksia havaitaan menetelmää vaihdettaessa ja oliko menetelmän vaihtaminen lopulta kannattavaa. Tutkimus toteutettiin etsimällä tietokannoista aiheeseen liittyviä tutkimuksia ja analysoimalla niistä saatuja tuloksia. Tutkimuksista havaitut muutokset olivat pääosin hyviä ja keskittyivät tuotantotiimin sisäiseen ja asiakkaan väliseen kommunikointiin, ohjelmiston laatuun ja projektin näkyvyyteen. Työssä mukana olleiden tutkimusten tulosten perusteella voitiin päätellä, että siirtyminen käyttämään ketterää menetelmää on kannattavaa

Impediments in Transitioning to Agile Time-boxing Testing Efforts

In agile framework, the system is developed in sprints. Some value-based products for the customers are created with completion of work in a sprint. There are firm dates of commencement and end in sprints, and duration of each sprint is normally equal. During a sprint, any change in scope or resources cannot be made. But sometimes it becomes difficult to follow this rule on account of the business needs. This time-boxing approach is seen responsible to cause more hindrance than propel organizations towards time-efficient development of products. This type of project demands a much more flexible time-line as compared to standard agile project management practices of ‘Sprint’ used for creating cost-effective products within time. Similar problems are faced by the organizations transitioning from traditional method to agile practices. From different sources of research it is found the transition could not be smooth in all cases and sometimes was unable to achieve the expected business growth due to various factors. A number of options and approaches are discussed for helping an organization transitioning from traditional to agile methodology but any unique and full-proof approach cannot be arrived at. Ultimately it becomes a question: can we overcome difficulty in time-boxing approach with discrepancies in testing efforts and get a systematic and tabulated solution of the problem in transitioning to agile? Through this research having limitations the answer in all respect cannot be reached. The question is left with ample scope for further research by future researchers as well

Implement, measure, and improve agile : a framework for agile adoption

As the world becomes increasingly connected and societies become more globalised, organisations seek to keep up with this pace through constant transformation. In order to maintain their level of competitiveness, companies need to be at the forefront of innovation, digital transformation, and continuous improvement. The evolution of the Agile methodology allows companies to adapt to new realities and be able to keep up with the complexity and demands of the markets and their stakeholders. Agile now sets a pace that transcends applicability to software development and organisations are increasingly transferring Agile values and principles to their teams so that they deliver more value, with less risk and more quickly. The literature is extensive regarding the benefits of Agile but restricts the methodology to projects and mainly to the software development context. In the context of this thesis, and together with companies of different sizes and industries, we try to understand what drove them to adopt Agile, what are the benefits and challenges of its implementation, what is the present and future of the methodology, and what is the impact on the management of the organisation as a whole. We sought to answer the research question "How can a company adopt Agile?" and, as a result, we developed a framework comprising seven phases that all companies should go through, for a more complete Agile adoption and immersion.Com o mundo cada vez mais conectado e as sociedades cada vez mais globalizadas, as organizações procuram acompanhar este ritmo através da sua transformação constante. Por forma a manter o seu nível de competitividade, as empresas necessitam de estar na linha da frente da inovação, da transformação digital, e da melhoria contínua. A evolução da metodologia Agile vem permitir que empresas se adaptem a novas realidades e sejam capazes de acompanhar a complexidade e exigência dos mercados e dos seus stakeholders. O Agile traça agora um ritmo que transcende a aplicabilidade ao desenvolvimento de software e as organizações começam cada vez mais a transferir os valores e os princípios Agile às suas equipas, para que estas entreguem mais valor, com menos risco e de forma mais célere. A literatura revela-se extensa relativamente aos benefícios do Agile, mas restringe a metodologia aos projetos e principalmente ao contexto de desenvolvimento de software. No contexto desta tese, e em conjunto com empresas de diferentes dimensões e indústrias, tentamos perceber o que as impulsionou a adotar Agile, quais os benefícios e desafios da sua implementação, qual o presente e futuro da metodologia, e qual o impacto na gestão da organização como um todo. Procuramos responder à questão de investigação “Como é que uma empresa pode adotar Agile?” e, como resultado, desenvolvemos um framework que compreende sete fases que todas as empresas devem percorrer para uma adoção e imersão ao contexto Agile

Requirements reuse and requirement patterns: a state of the practice survey

Context. Requirements engineering is a discipline with numerous challenges to overcome. One of these challenges is the implementation of requirements reuse approaches. Although several theoretical proposals exist, little is known about the practices that are currently adopted in industry. Objective. Our goal is to contribute to the investigation of the state of the practice in the reuse of requirements, eliciting current practices from practitioners, and their opinions whenever appropriate. Besides reuse in general, we focus on requirement patterns as a particular strategy to reuse. Method. We conducted an exploratory survey based on an online questionnaire. We received 71 responses from requirements engineers with industrial experience in the field, which were analyzed in order to derive observations. Results. Although we found that a high majority of respondents declared some level of reuse in their projects (in particular, non-functional requirements were identified as the most similar and recurrent among projects), it is true that only a minority of them declared such reuse as a regular practice. Larger IT organizations and IT organizations with well-established software processes and methods present higher levels of reuse. Ignorance of reuse techniques and processes is the main reason preventing wider adoption. From the different existing reuse techniques, the simplest ones based on textual copy and subsequent tailoring of former requirements are the most adopted techniques. However, participants who apply reuse more often tend to use more elaborate techniques. Opinions of respondents about the use of requirement patterns show that they can be expected to mitigate problems related to the quality of the resulting requirements, such as lack of uniformity, inconsistency, or ambiguity. The main reasons behind the lack of adoption of requirement patterns by practitioners (in spite of the increasing research approaches proposed in the community) are related to the lack of a well-defined reuse method and involvement of requirement engineers.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A qualitative study on best practices and process of eliciting unambiguous quality attributes in scrum-based projects

Software quality is very crucial for users’ satisfaction and software success in the market. Recent studies found some ambiguous software quality attributes that may lead to low-quality software, and lack of elicitation practices in projects that apply Agile Software Development (ASD) methodology especially Scrum. However, current ASD methodologies, systematic literature reviews and surveys did not provide explanation of the necessary elicitation practices. Therefore, this qualitative study was essential to achieve two objectives: exploring the best practices and identifying process of eliciting unambiguous quality attributes in Scrum-based projects. The study used qualitative approach in which data was collected via interviewing eight experienced software practitioners from India and documents analysis that explains documentation of quality attributes in Scrum. For data analysis, the thematic analysis method was used for analysing interviews scripts and documents. The findings resulted in three initial themes that represent three steps in the elicitation process and six sub-themes that represent the elicitation practices. The first step is proactive exposure to quality attributes which consists of two practices: understanding software scope and envisaging potential quality attributes. The second step is mutual learning discussion which consists of two practices: ameliorating technical knowledge of customers and users and compiling details of quality attributes. The third step is verifying common understanding which consists of two practices: utilization of visual artefacts and documentation of quality attributes. The contribution of the study provides an extension to ASD body of knowledge regarding the effectiveness of disambiguation of terminologies in software domain, simplifying technical terms, representing reusable software artefacts, showing similar software, drawing mock-up and developing proof of concept in eliciting unambiguous quality attributes. Furthermore, the findings accentuate practical contributions to the software developers such as reducing effort, time and cost of designing and construction of software

Ketterät menetelmät integraatiokehitystiimeissä: Tapaustutkimus integraatiotiimien ketterien menetelmien käytöstä

Toimittajayritys, joka myy integraatiotuotantoa asiakkailleen, haluaa pitää asiakastyytyväisyyden hyvänä, henkilöstön vaihtuvuuden pienenä ja käyttöasteen korkeana. Voidaan olettaa, että tätä ongelmaa voidaan osaltaan ratkaista tiimien toimintatapoja kehittämällä. Ketterät menetelmät on todettu hyväksi keinoksi ohjelmistokehitystiimien toiminnan kehittämiseksi, mutta integraatiotuotanto kuitenkin eroaa perinteisestä ohjelmistokehityksestä niin paljon, että näiden menetelmien käyttö sellaisenaan voi olla vaikeaa tai mahdotonta. Tutkimuksen päämotivaationa olikin selvittää tarkemmin, millä tavoin ketterät menetelmät voisivat auttaa näiden tavoitteiden saavut-tamiseksi ja kehittää integraatiotiimien toimintamalleja. Tämä diplomityö on tapaustutkimus, jonka tarkoituksena on selvittää, millä tavoin kohdeorganisaation integraatiotiimeissä hyödynnetään ketteriä menetelmiä, millaisia haasteita niihin liittyen on havaittu sekä miten ketterien menetelmien avulla voitaisiin vastata näihin haasteisiin. Toiveena on, että tutkimuksen tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää jatkossa integraatiotiimien toimintatapojen kehittämisessä ja ihmisten työn mielekkyyden ja viihtyvyyden parantamisessa. Tutkimus koostuu kahdesta osasta. Ensimmäinen osa on teoreettinen kirjallisuuskatsaus, jossa tutustutaan yleisimpiin ketteriin menetelmiin, integraatiotuotantoon ja sen erityispiirteisiin sekä haasteisiin. Tutkimuksen empiirinen aineisto kerättiin kahdella menetelmällä. Aluksi kerättiin tietoa case-organisaatiosta havainnoimalla, jonka avulla saatiin tietoa organisaation tilasta ja haasteista sekä tavoitetilasta. Näiden tulosten avulla pystyttiin muotoilemaan tarkempi haastattelurunko, jonka avulla haastateltiin asiantuntijoita monipuolisista taustoista. Haastatteluilla selvitettiin case-organisaation työntekijöiden kokemuksia ja näkemyksiä ketterien menetelmien haas-teista, käytöstä sekä mielipiteitä niiden soveltuvuudesta integraatiotuotantoon. Kun lopuksi vastauksia analysoitiin ja yhdistettiin teoriaan, saatiin lopputuloksena joukko suosituksia, jotka perustuvat sekä haastateltavien näkemyksiin että kirjallisuussuosituksiin. Tutkimuksen tulokset antavat ymmärtää, että yksikään tutkituista ketteristä menetelmistä ei sellaisenaan toimi integraatiotiimien toiminnassa kovinkaan hyvin. Sen sijaan jokaisesta menetelmästä voidaan poimia tekniikoita, joita on mahdollista hyödyntää integraatiotiimien arjessa. Voidaan todeta, että näiden tulosten avulla on mahdollista saavuttaa ketterien menetelmien etuja, jotka voivat parantaa integraatiotiimien toimintaa ja tuoda hyötyjä kaikille osapuolille

Management Strategies for Adopting Agile Methods of Software Development in Distributed Teams

Between 2003 and 2015, more than 61% of U.S. software development teams failed to satisfy project requirements, budgets, or timelines. Failed projects cost the software industry an estimated 60 billion dollars. Lost opportunities and misused resources are often the result of software development leaders failing to implement appropriate methods for managing software projects. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies software development managers use in adopting Agile methodology in the context of distributed teams. The tenets of Agile approach are individual interaction over tools, working software over documentation, and collaboration over a contract. The conceptual framework for the study was adapting Agile development methodologies. The targeted population was software development managers of U.S.-based companies located in Northern California who had successfully adopted Agile methods for distributed teams. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with 5 managers and a review of project-tracking documentation and tools. Data analysis included inductive coding of transcribed interviews and evaluation of secondary data to identify themes through methodological triangulation. Findings indicated that coaching and training of teams, incremental implementation of Agile processes, and proactive management of communication effectiveness are effective strategies for adopting Agile methodology in the context of distributed teams. Improving the efficacy of Agile adoption may translate to increased financial stability for software engineers across the world as well as accelerate the successful development of information systems, thereby enriching human lives

The Impact of Leadership Style on the Adoption of Agile Software Development: A Correlational Study

Public and private organizations continue to rely prohibitively on classic software development methodologies such as the waterfall. Private industry more so than the public sector has shown evidence for a higher rate of success when using agile software development methods. Consequently, the purpose of this quantitative correlation study was to examine variables that best predict the adoption of agile methodologies in software development. The study made use of the UTAUT and MLQ–5X surveys. The primary variable under study was leadership style. Secondary variables included: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating factors. A pilot study (N = 30) was conducted in order to evaluate the validity of the study. This was closely followed by a formal study of 384 panelist. Multiple regression was performed against each of the variables along with a hierarchical regression at the end of the study. The regression equation that resulted accounted for 56.4% of the variance in the behavioral intent to adopt agile methods. Leadership style, specifically transformational (Inspirational motivation) was found to have a positive impact on the adoption of agile methods. Facilitating, social influence, effort expectancy, and performance expectancy also had a positive impact on the adoption of agile methods while individual consideration (transformational leadership) had a negative impact on the adoption of agile methods. Implications and recommendations for future research are subsequently presented

Prioritizing agile benefits and limitations in relation to practice usage

In recent years, there has been significant shift from rigid development (RD) toward agile. However, it has also been spotted that agile methodologies are hardly ever followed in their pure form. Hybrid processes as combinations of RD and agile practices emerge. In addition, agile adoption has been reported to result in both benefits and limitations. This exploratory study (a) identifies development models based on RD and agile practice usage by practitioners; (b) identifies agile practice adoption scenarios based on eliciting practice usage over time; (c) prioritizes agile benefits and limitations in relation to (a) and (b). Practitioners provided answers through a questionnaire. The development models are determined using hierarchical cluster analysis. The use of practices over time is captured through an interactive board with practices and time indication sliders. This study uses the extended hierarchical voting analysis framework to investigate benefit and limitation prioritization. Four types of development models and six adoption scenarios have been identified. Overall, 45 practitioners participated in the prioritization study. A common benefit among all models and adoption patterns is knowledge and learning, while high requirements on professional skills were perceived as the main limitation. Furthermore, significant variances in terms of benefits and limitations have been observed between models and adoption patterns. The most significant internal benefit categories from adopting agile are knowledge and learning, employee satisfaction, social skill development, and feedback and confidence. Professional skill-specific demands, scalability, and lack of suitability for specific product domains are the main limitations of agile practice usage. Having a balanced agile process allows to achieve a high number of benefits. With respect to adoption, a big bang transition from RD to agile leads to poor quality in comparison with the alternatives