Agile Requirements Engineering: A systematic literature review

Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Hybrid development models, with the integration of User-Centered Design (UCD), are applied with the aim to deliver competitive products with a suitable User Experience (UX). Therefore, stakeholder and user involvement during Requirements Engineering (RE) are essential in order to establish a collaborative environment with constant feedback loops. The aim of this study is to capture the current state of the art of the literature related to Agile RE with focus on stakeholder and user involvement. In particular, we investigate what approaches exist to involve stakeholder in the process, which methodologies are commonly used to present the user perspective and how requirements management is been carried out. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included studies. We identified 27 relevant papers. After analyzing them in detail, we derive deep insights to the following aspects of Agile RE: stakeholder and user involvement, data gathering, user perspective, integrated methodologies, shared understanding, artifacts, documentation and Non-Functional Requirements (NFR). Agile RE is a complex research field with cross-functional influences. This study will contribute to the software development body of knowledge by assessing the involvement of stakeholder and user in Agile RE, providing methodologies that make ASD more human-centric and giving an overview of requirements management in ASD.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Applying Agile Software Development Methodolgies to Business Process Redesign/ Management (BPRM)

Agile principles are known to improve and speed software development. In this paper we explore the relationship between stakeholders and business process redesign/management (BPRM), how stakeholder involvement affects BPRM, and present a short case study that illustrates how Agile principles and methodologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of BRPM

Identifying Agile Requirements Engineering Patterns in Industry

Agile Software Development (ASD) is gaining in popularity in today´s business world. Industry is adopting agile methodologies both to accelerate value delivery and to enhance the ability to deal with changing requirements. However, ASD has a great impact on how Requirements Engineering (RE) is carried out in agile environments. The integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) plays an important role due to the focus on user and stakeholder involvement. To this end, we aim to introduce agile RE patterns as main objective of this paper. On the one hand, we will describe our pattern mining process based on empirical research in literature and industry. On the other hand, we will discuss our results and provide two examples of agile RE patterns. In sum, the pattern mining process identifies 41 agile RE patterns. The accumulated knowledge will be shared by means of a web application.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

Teaching Agile Development with DevOps in a Software Engineering and Database Technologies Practicum

[EN] DevOps is a new concept for Software Engineering. Teaching DevOps can be challenging with the limited resources that are available at many universities. This paper exams how to teach of an Agile Development Methodology using a DevOps approach for the Regis University (RU) M.S. in Software Engineering and Database Technologies Practicum. With faculty support, heavy stakeholder involvement and RU Information Technology Services (Operations Support) mentoring, students were able to successfully follow the Agile Development methodology to create an application that was incoporated into the RU Web-site infrastructure.Mason, R.; Masters, W.; Stark, A. (2017). Teaching Agile Development with DevOps in a Software Engineering and Database Technologies Practicum. En Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1353-1362. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD17.2017.5607OCS1353136

Stakeholder involvement in software system development – Insights into the influence of product-service ratio

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2015.05.006Software systems have a growing importance in how services are delivered in the present-day. New methods and technologies are constantly introduced for realizing novel services in a wide range of industries. In this study, stakeholder involvement in the development of financial service software system is examined, as software has been integral to the delivery of financial services. Two projects are selected for their varying degrees of product and service content. Both teams used an adapted stakeholder identification framework developed for the healthcare industry to identify stakeholders and their involvement need in the development projects. The suitability of this framework for financial service software development, and the differences in stakeholders for the development of new software systems of dissimilar product-service mix are discussed in the paper. Four insights into the influence of product-service ratio in stakeholder involvement are gained in the perspectives of product quality, relationship management, product support by customer, and service delivery process.The second author thanks Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and Nokia Foundation (201410491) for financially supporting his dissertation work on innovations in agile software development context

Proposal of a visual environment to support SCRUM

Agile methodologies are increasingly considered important in the current context because of their focus on business benefit, strong stakeholder involvement and rapid incorporation of changing requirements. The Scrum methodology presents a generic and agile model for software development, but there are some gaps regarding solution architecture and requirements modeling and traceability. Fast customer feedback and support for volatile requirements result in higher product value, however, initial requirements modelling using modelling techniques are not commonly used in agile processes such as Scum to prepare the phase of Implementation of the software project.This article presents a first proposal for a visual environment to support the product / sprint backlog, helping to prioritize, track and decide on the most valuable, aligned and quickly deployable requirements.This work has been supported by national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019

Implementation Science Meets Software Development to Create eHealth Components for an Integrated Care Model for Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation Facilitated by eHealth: The SMILe Study as an Example

To describe a process of creating eHealth components for an integrated care model using an agile software development approach, user-centered design and, via the Behavior Change Wheel, behavior theory-guided content development. Following the principles of implementation science and using the SMILe project (integrated care model for allogeneic stem cell transplantation facilitated by eHealth) as an example, this study demonstrates how to narrow the research-to-practice gap often encountered in eHealth projects.; We followed a four-step process: (a) formation of an interdisciplinary team; (b) a contextual analysis to drive the development process via behavioral theory; (c) transfer of content to software following agile software development principles; and (d) frequent stakeholder and end user involvement following user-centered design principles.; Our newly developed comprehensive development approach allowed us to create a running eHealth component and embed it in an integrated care model. An interdisciplinary team's collaboration at specified interaction points supported clear, timely communication and interactions between the specialists. Because behavioral theory drove the content development process, we formulated user stories to define the software features, which were prioritized and iteratively developed using agile software development principles. A prototype intervention module has now been developed and received high ratings on the System Usability Scale after two rounds of usability testing.; Following an agile software development process, structured collaboration between nursing scientists and software specialists allowed our interdisciplinary team to develop meaningful, theory-based eHealth components adapted to context-specific needs.; The creation of high-quality, accurately fitting eHealth components specifically to be embedded in integrated care models should increase the chances of uptake, adoption, and sustainable implementation in clinical practice

Involving External Stakeholders in Project Courses

Problem: The involvement of external stakeholders in capstone projects and project courses is desirable due to its potential positive effects on the students. Capstone projects particularly profit from the inclusion of an industrial partner to make the project relevant and help students acquire professional skills. In addition, an increasing push towards education that is aligned with industry and incorporates industrial partners can be observed. However, the involvement of external stakeholders in teaching moments can create friction and could, in the worst case, lead to frustration of all involved parties. Contribution: We developed a model that allows analysing the involvement of external stakeholders in university courses both in a retrospective fashion, to gain insights from past course instances, and in a constructive fashion, to plan the involvement of external stakeholders. Key Concepts: The conceptual model and the accompanying guideline guide the teachers in their analysis of stakeholder involvement. The model is comprised of several activities (define, execute, and evaluate the collaboration). The guideline provides questions that the teachers should answer for each of these activities. In the constructive use, the model allows teachers to define an action plan based on an analysis of potential stakeholders and the pedagogical objectives. In the retrospective use, the model allows teachers to identify issues that appeared during the project and their underlying causes. Drawing from ideas of the reflective practitioner, the model contains an emphasis on reflection and interpretation of the observations made by the teacher and other groups involved in the courses. Key Lessons: Applying the model retrospectively to a total of eight courses shows that it is possible to reveal hitherto implicit risks and assumptions and to gain a better insight into the interaction...Comment: Abstract shortened since arxiv.org limits length of abstracts. See paper/pdf for full abstract. Paper is forthcoming, accepted August 2017. Arxiv version 2 corrects misspelled author nam

Enterprise Experience into the Integration of Human-Centered Design and Kanban

he integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Agile Software Development (ASD) promises the development of competitive products comprising a good User Experience (UX). This study has investigated the integration of HCD and Kanban with the aim to gain industrial experiences in a real world context. A case study showed that requirements flow into the development process in a structured manner by adding a design board. To this end, the transparency concerning recurring requirements increased. We contribute to the body of knowledge of software development by providing practical insights into Human-Centered Agile Development (HCAD). On one hand, it is shown that the integration of HCD and Kanban leads to a product with a good UX and makes the development process more human-centered. On the other hand, we conclude that a cross-functional collaboration speeds up product development.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

The XP customer team: A grounded theory

The initial definition of XP resulted in many people interpreting the on-site customer to be a single person. We have conducted extensive qualitative research studying XP teams, and one of our research questions was “who is the customer”? We found that, rather than a single person, a customer team always exists. In this paper we outline the different roles that were typically on the team, which range from the recognized “Acceptance Tester” role to the less recognized roles of “Political Advisor” and “Super-Secretary”