Comparative Study on Agile software development methodologies

Today-s business environment is very much dynamic, and organisations are constantly changing their software requirements to adjust with new environment. They also demand for fast delivery of software products as well as for accepting changing requirements. In this aspect, traditional plan-driven developments fail to meet up these requirements. Though traditional software development methodologies, such as life cycle-based structured and object oriented approaches, continue to dominate the systems development few decades and much research has done in traditional methodologies, Agile software development brings its own set of novel challenges that must be addressed to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software. It is a set of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development process, where requirements and development evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams that allows rapid delivery of high quality software to meet customer needs and also accommodate changes in the requirements. In this paper, we significantly identify and describe the major factors, that Agile development approach improves software development process to meet the rapid changing business environments. We also provide a brief comparison of agile development methodologies with traditional systems development methodologies, and discuss current state of adopting agile methodologies. We speculate that from the need to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software, Agile software development is emerged as an alternative to traditional plan-based software development methods. The purpose of this paper, is to provide an in-depth understanding, the major benefits of agile development approach to software development industry, as well as provide a comparison study report of ASDM over TSDM.Comment: 25 pages, 25 images, 86 references used, with authors biographie

Performance-Measurement Framework to Evaluate Software Engineers for Agile Software-Development Methodology

In spite of the marked benefits agile development brings, it has several shortcomings in quantitative quality measurement, especially in evaluating the performance of individual software engineers. The evaluation criteria for software engineers’ performance have been traditionally driven by metrics that don’t fit into agile-development principles. This study proposes a measurement framework to evaluate the performance of software engineers. The proposed measurement framework aligns with agile-development core values and principles. This framework can be applied to various agile methods, although the research assumes the use of the Scrum methodology by the software-development team and organization. The proposed framework is simple and doesn’t impose overhead on the development team or organization, as it is driven by key agile and Scrum development metrics such as team velocity, escaped-defects rate, defect-cycle time, defect spill-over rate, and individual communication and social skills.Keywords : Agile Software Management, Software Quality Management, Software Engineers Performance Measure, Scrum

Comparative Study on Agile Software Development Methodologies

Today2018;s business environment is very much dynamic, and organizations are constantly changing their software requirements to adjust with new environment. They also demand for fast delivery of software products as well as for accepting changing requirements. In this aspect, traditional plan-driven developments fail to meet up these requirements. Though traditional software development methodologies, such as life cycle-based structured and object oriented approaches, continue to dominate the systems development few decades and much research has done in traditional methodologies, Agile software development brings its own set of novel challenges that must be addressed to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of the valuable software. It2018;s a set of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development process, where requirements and development evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams that allows rapid delivery of high quality software to meet customer needs and also accommodate changes in the requirements. In this paper, we significantly indentify and describe the major factors, that Agile development approach improves software development process to meet the rapid changing business environments. We also provide a brief comparison of agile development methodologies with traditional systems development methodologies, and discuss current state of adopting agile methodologies

DSL4SPM: Domain-specific language for software process modeling

This paper presents a novel formal approach to software process modeling based on the Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM) for the syntactic aspect of a process model and a domain-specific language (DSL) for the semantic aspect of the model. This approach provides a conceptual framework for designing processes in a more abstract way and to enable process implementation on various platforms. A Process-Centered Software Environment (PCSE) called DSL4SPM (Domain-Specific Language for Software Process Modeling) is a plug-in tool which satisfies the meta-requirements for Process Modeling Languages (PMLs). The key concept of the DSL4SPM is the use of a toolbox, containing SPEM elements, to instantiate objects in a graphical scene. The process model designer links these elements with relations, and defines the values of the attributes required for both these and the objects, with the aim of arriving at a consolidated view of the problem. An overview of the advantages of the approach is presented. With it, the process manager is able to quickly and easily model a process from innovative perspectives, with the aim of better understanding the risks associated with software development

Cadre de conception multi-perspectives pour la modélisation des processus de génie logiciel

RÉSUMÉ La littérature scientifique rapporte abondamment les cas de projets de développement logiciel qui débordent de leurs planifications, dépassent les ressources allouées et présentent une faible qualité. Les chercheurs et les praticiens essayent ensemble de résoudre cette « crise » du logiciel. L‘amélioration des processus de développement est un des moyens fondamentaux pour améliorer la qualité du logiciel et atteindre une efficacité organisationnelle. La modélisation des processus est un des leviers de cette amélioration. La modélisation des processus est une discipline du génie logiciel qui soutient la conception et la maintenance des processus1. Elle explicite les pratiques de développement pour pouvoir les étudier, les améliorer et les utiliser de manière répétable, gérable et possiblement automatisable. Les techniques de cette discipline ne cesse d‘évoluer en passant des processus maison peu profonds et informels des années 1960 aux processus basés sur le paradigme orienté-objet. L‘évolution des langages de modélisation des processus (PML) est supportée par l‘évolution des paradigmes2 du génie logiciel. Alors que cette évolution des langages est clairement marquée au niveau de la syntaxe définissant les composants structurant les processus, elle est moins marquée sur le plan de la sémantique qui reste relativement abstraite et manque d‘une description formelle clarifiant le sens et l‘intention des modèles de processus. L‘aspect sémantique permettrait pourtant de considérer différentes préoccupations du gestionnaire d‘un projet informatique selon des perspectives distinctes (ex. productivité, connaissances, risques, CMMI, etc.). Dans ce projet de recherche, nous proposons un nouveau cadre de modélisation conceptuelle, en complément à une description textuelle, des processus dans le but de produire des modèles de processus adaptés au contexte du projet à développer. Sur le plan théorique, nous proposons un enrichissement sémantique pour considérer différentes perspectives. Nous avons adopté une approche ontologique pour formaliser le concept de relations attribuées entre les composants structurant un modèle de processus. Sur le plan pratique, nous proposons un nouvel outil qui supporte la modélisation nommé : « Domain-Specific-Language for Software Process Modeling » (DSL4SPM). En plus de la perspective de modélisation orientée-Activités conforme au standard SPEM, l‘outil DSL4SPM offre trois autres perspectives : Gestion des connaissances, simulation et alignement avec le CMMI. ----------ABSTRACT Cost and schedule of software projects are often overrun. This fact is closely-related to the software process and less to the final product as acknowledged by researchers and practitioners (Boehm, 1991; Barros et al., 2004; Roy, 2004; McConnell, 2009). However, it is also acknowledged that the software production is human and knowledge-intensive process, which means the nature of uncertainty. In order to build efficient process modeling tools, there is a need for conceptualization of process models to address different concerns such as a breakdown structure of activities, knowledge, simulation, alignment with CMMI practices and so on. Addressing those concerns provide a context for analysis, assessment and enhancement of process models, which in turn enhance the quality of software projects. One attempt to enhance the process modeling flexibility has been made with the tool called DSL4SPM (Domain-Specific Language for Software Process Modeling). DSL4SPM was developed and applied to bring order and structure to the software development process. It implements the Software & Systems Process Engineering Meta-model (SPEM 2.0) specification, and is characterized by: 1) a conceptual framework for designing processes in an abstract way; and 2) multi-view-oriented process modeling, which acknowledges the relevance of a multitude of issues in a process model. The conceptual framework emphasizes the relationships among the SPEM elements