What more can Software Development learn from Agile Manufacturing? Some pointers on the 20th anniversary of the Agile Manifesto

The concept of agility originated in manufacturing and was later adopted by the software development discipline. In this article we argue that in the process some important aspects of the agility theory have been either ignored or misinterpreted. A historical review of the evolving paradigms and practices in software development and manufacturing on the 20th anniversary of the Agile Manifesto (2001) suggests that if the ideas and principles underlying agility are faithfully implemented it would lead to significant improvement in the software development process

What more can software development learn from Agile manufacturing? A roadmap on the 20th anniversary of the Agile manifesto

The concept of agility originated in manufacturing and was later adopted by the software development discipline. In this article we argue that in the process some important aspects of the agility theory have been either ignored or misinterpreted. A historical review of the evolving paradigms and practices in software development and manufacturing on the 20th anniversary of the Agile Manifesto (2001) suggests that if the ideas and principles underlying agility are faithfully implemented it would lead to significant improvement in the software development process

Improving Practices in a Small Software Firm: An Ambidextrous Perspective

Despite documented best practices and specialized tools, software organizations struggle to deliver quality software that is on time, within budget, and meets customer requirements. Managers seeking improved software project outcomes face two dominant software paradigms which differ in their emphasis on upfront planning, customer collaboration, and product documentation: plan-driven and agile. Rather than promoting one approach over the other, this research advocates improving software management practices by developing the organization’s ambidextrous capability. Ambidextrous organizations have the ability to simultaneously succeed at two seemingly contradictory capabilities (e.g. discipline and agility) which leads to enhanced organizational performance. Overall, this study asks the question: How can an ambidextrous perspective facilitate improvement in software practices? Driven by this question, and based on a two year action research study at a small software firm, TelSoft, the objectives of this research are to: 1. Identify dualities involved in improving software practices 2. Design interventions based on these dualities to improve software practices 3. Explore the process of becoming an ambidextrous software organization The resulting dissertation consists of a summary and four papers that each identify and address particular dualities encountered during software process improvement. The first paper asserts that both process-driven and perception-driven inquiry should be used during assessment of software practices, presents a model that shows how this combination can occur, and demonstrates the use of this model at TelSoft. The second paper explicates two theories for understanding and resolving issues in requirements engineering practice – repeat-ability and response-ability – and argues for the need to negotiate between the two. The third paper identifies a tension between managing legacy and current processes and proposes a model for software process reengineering, a systematic process for leveraging legacy processes created during prior SPI efforts. Finally, the fourth paper applies the theoretical lens of ambidexterity to understand the overall change initiative in terms of the tension between alignment and adaptability. The study used a variety of data sources to diagnose software practices, including semi-structured interviews, software process documents, meeting interactions, and workshop discussions. Subsequently, we established, facilitated, and tracked focused improvement teams in the areas of customer relations, requirements management, quality assurance, project portfolio management, and process management. Furthermore, we created and trained two management teams with responsibility for ongoing management of SPI and project portfolio management respectively. We argue that these activities improved software practices at TelSoft and provided a stronger foundation for continuous improvement. Keywords: Ambidexterity, software process improvement (SPI), action research, requirements engineering assessment, action planning, software process reengineering, software management

A Design Science Research Methodology for Microservice Architecture and System Research

As enterprise continue their Digital journey, Monolithic architecture approach of building Digital platforms has now proven to be inefficient and obsolete. Architectural paradigms in software development are changing with the spinning of time. The paradigms of architecture, formerly considered sufficiently well architecture and even dominant over the years, are now referred to as monolithic. The demands for fresh technology approaches are continuously evolving to cope the new set of business challenges. [25] The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the approach with an experiment in designing a microservice system. The thesis motivates, presents, demonstrates in use, and evaluates a methodology in microservice system for conducting Design Science (DS) research. Moreover, the thesis will go through in detail description of Microservice architecture and enables us to differentiate and find the right Software Development Methodology (SDM) for the Digital platform. SDM enables the proper management of the software development processes, the project team, products and services in terms of cost effectiveness, time, and quality. [23] The objective of this thesis is to investigate the differences in between architectural paradigms such as monolithic, cloud native and microservice and find the appropriate paradigm that satisfy the enterprises for continuing their digital business. The research of using different platforms and environment for possible improvement on the software development process that enables easy to develop, run and ship distributed application easily and anywhere will be carried out. Similarly, research also focuses on maintaining the development environment consistent, testable and maintainable and hosting the application to the cloud irrespective to underling infrastructure and operation system. The research artifacts will help the enterprises and stakeholders to take an important decision in the selection of the architectural paradigm for their digital platform in advance. The paper concludes that, Microservice architecture is one of the well-known SDM suitable for large enterprise software business application

Towards supporting agile practice within the Libre software paradigm

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The uses of qualitative data in multimethodology:Developing causal loop diagrams during the coding process

In this research note we describe a method for exploring the creation of causal loop diagrams (CLDs) from the coding trees developed through a grounded theory approach and using computer aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS). The theoretical background to the approach is multimethodology, in line with Minger’s description of paradigm crossing and is appropriately situated within the Appreciate and Analyse phases of PSM intervention. The practical use of this method has been explored and three case studies are presented from the domains of organisational change and entrepreneurial studies. The value of this method is twofold; (i) it has the potential to improve dynamic sensibility in the process of qualitative data analysis, and (ii) it can provide a more rigorous approach to developing CLDs in the formation stage of system dynamics modelling. We propose that the further development of this method requires its implementation within CAQDAS packages so that CLD creation, as a precursor to full system dynamics modelling, is contemporaneous with coding and consistent with a bridging strategy of paradigm crossing

Improving automation standards via semantic modelling: Application to ISA88

Standardization is essential for automation. Extensibility, scalability, and reusability are important features for automation software that rely in the efficient modelling of the addressed systems. The work presented here is from the ongoing development of a methodology for semi-automatic ontology construction methodology from technical documents. The main aim of this work is to systematically check the consistency of technical documents and support the improvement of technical document consistency. The formalization of conceptual models and the subsequent writing of technical standards are simultaneously analyzed, and guidelines proposed for application to future technical standards. Three paradigms are discussed for the development of domain ontologies from technical documents, starting from the current state of the art, continuing with the intermediate method presented and used in this paper, and ending with the suggested paradigm for the future. The ISA88 Standard is taken as a representative case study. Linguistic techniques from the semi-automatic ontology construction methodology is applied to the ISA88 Standard and different modelling and standardization aspects that are worth sharing with the automation community is addressed. This study discusses different paradigms for developing and sharing conceptual models for the subsequent development of automation software, along with presenting the systematic consistency checking methodPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

An ontology to model the research process in information systems

The IS community has relied mostly on two main paradigms to undertake IS research: positivist and interpretivist. This paper argues that the ongoing debate around which of these paradigms is better suited to undertake IS research has created confusion amongst IS researchers, particularly between those who are relatively inexperienced (e.g. PhD researchers). Inexperienced researchers tend to place emphasis on the justification of their research approaches in the context of existing paradigms without offering a clear description of how the chosen methods and paradigms are applied in the context of their own research, a key issue to assess and understand any research output. This paper does not attempt to give any suggestions as to which research methods/paradigms should be used for IS research, but to raise the awareness that the way we currently communicate our thoughts in the research methods domain may not be very effective. We argue that an initial step to undertake this challenge could be to take a more “practical” approach by focusing on the process of thinking and planning the research activity rather than focusing on the justification of the use of one or many research methods usually “loaned” from other discipline