Improving agile software development by the application of method engineering practices

Despite the vast attention and wide acceptance of the newly engineered agile methods for software development, those methods are seldom linked to the goals of software process improvement (SPI), an approach that aims to provide support for significant improvement of both the quality of those methods as well as the resultant software products. In this paper, we propose an extension to agile methods by adding extra characteristics in order for agile methods to better support SPI. We explain how agile methods can gain those extra attributes through the application of a method engineering approach along with our new tool (4-DAT) that assists method engineers and managers in selecting the most appropriate method fragments for their needed agile methods. Finally, we summarize a number of industrial case studies carried out over several years in order to test and improve the efficiency of our theory of adding SPI to an agile methodological approach

СОЗДАНИЕ МЕТОДОЛОГИИ ПРОЭКТИРОВАНИЯ CASE-СРЕД НА БАЗЕ СИТУАЦИОННОГО МЕТОДА

Рассмотрены принципы построения методологии MetaCASE для проектирования CASE-сред на основе ситуационного метода. Методология ориентирована на разработку CASE-сред, адаптируемых к ситуации применения. В рамках подхода определен набор базовых концепций инженерии ситуационного метода, используемых в MetaCASE. Описаны основные методологические решения по построению архитектуры и способам адаптации созданных CASE-сред. Определены пути реализации и развития методологии

Создание методологии проэктирования CASE-сред на базе ситуационного метода

Рассмотрены принципы построения методологии MetaCASE для проектирования CASE-сред на основе ситуационного метода. Методология ориентирована на разработку CASE-сред, адаптируемых к ситуации применения. В рамках подхода определен набор базовых концепций инженерии ситуационного метода, используемых в MetaCASE. Описаны основные методологические решения по построению архитектуры и способам адаптации созданных CASE-сред. Определены пути реализации и развития методологии

Tailoring Software Development Methodologies in Practice: A Case Study

Software development methodologies (SDM) have been traditionally defined in a prescriptive manner with an underlying assumption of universal applicability. However, as industrial practice suggests, this assumption is fundamentally flawed. Software development projects very rarely adopt a methodology in such a rigid fashion. Conversely methodologies are normally adapted to meet specific contextual characteristics. This adaptation, known as Method Tailoring (MT), generally occurs implicitly. Implicit adaptation has several drawbacks. Firstly, responsibility and consequences are not attributable to the decisions made during MT. Secondly, MT experience is not captured, thus not being shared and reused within the organization. As a consequence, implicit MT leads to reactive rather than proactive adaptation with negative effects on both productivity and efficient use of resources. In order to alleviate the problems described above, this paper proposes a framework aimed at assisting software development teams and organizations in the elicitation of their Method Tailoring processes. As a result the know-how and experience accumulated during the practice of Method Tailoring is made explicit and organized for the benefit of future projects. The framework has been applied a posteriori to a project carried out by a medium-sized software development company for the Italian national public health service

Supporting Adaptable Methodologies to Meet Evolving Project Needs

While most agile methodologies assume that change is inevitable, current approaches have adopted the strategy of defining practices and activities that are general enough to be adapted to many project settings. These methodologies have the ability to address variance and adaptability within the processes, but are unable to adopt different methodologies to meet the evolving needs of projects as they progress through their lifecycles, or change to meet new business or user conditions. For example, a project may begin with a Scrumbased process, but require some XP processes or even heavyweight processes later in the lifecycle. Agile methodologies should be able to react to these changes with appropriate practices and processes that fit project needs at any point in time. In this paper, we describe a methodology generator, a tool that can create hybrid approaches to software development spanning from the most simple to the agile to the heavyweight, depending on project needs. A rule based system is combined with an experience-based feedback mechanism to define the conditions under which a given methodology, process, or activity is applicable to project needs. Deviations from the defined process are freely allowed, but the deviations are captured by the tool so it can be analyzed for process improvements that can help software development organizations become more adaptive to changes in business and technology conditions

BPMNt : a proposal for flexible process tailoring representation in BPMN /

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a de-facto standard for business process modeling, which focuses on the representation of the process behavior. However, it can also succeed in representing the behavior of software processes, since they are a type of business process. Although BPMN has been extensively used for modeling processes in different domains, its standard specification does not have any mechanism to support users in activities related to process adaptation (tailoring). Moreover, researches extending BPMN are based on complex consolidated models, which hamper the analysis and maintenance of individual variant process models and are not appropriate for application domains in which process variations are difficult to predict, such as in software development processes. Thus, our objective was to provide a BPMN-compliant extension and associated mechanisms for specifying flexible process tailoring on models produced with this language while ensuring the correctness of adapted process models and explicitly capturing change traces. We have focused our research on the domains of Software Process Engineering (SPE) and Business Process Management (BPM). At last, we evaluated the applicability of the proposal for representing realistic tailoring scenarios in both domains.BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) é um padrão para modelagem de processos de negócio, que tem seu foco na representação do comportamento de processos. No entanto, ele pode também ser usado para representar o comportamento de processos de software, já que eles são um tipo de processo de negócio. Embora BPMN tem sido extensivamente usado para modelar processos em diferentes domínios, sua especificação padrão não possui nenhum mecanismo para apoiar usuários em atividades relacionadas à adaptação de processos. Pesquisas que estendem o padrão são baseadas em modelos complexos, que dificultam a análise e manutenção de modelos variantes, e não são apropriadas para domínios de aplicação onde variações de processo são difíceis de predizer, como em processos de desenvolvimento de software. Assim, nosso objetivo foi fornecer uma extensão para BPMN, chamada BPMNt, e mecanismos de suporte para especificar, de modo flexível, adaptações em processos modelados com esta linguagem. BPMNt deve também garantir a corretude de modelos adaptados e explicitamente capturar rastros de mudanças realizadas. Essa pesquisa teve como foco os domínios de Engenharia de Processos de Software e Gerenciamento de Processos de Negócio. Por fim, nós avaliamos a aplicabilidade da proposta para representar cenários de adaptação reais em ambos os domínios