9 research outputs found
How Do Real Options Concepts Fit in Agile Requirements Engineering?
Agile requirements engineering is driven by creating business value for the client and heavily involves the client in decision-making under uncertainty. Real option thinking seems to be suitable in supporting the clientâs decision making process at inter-iteration time. This paper investigates the fit between real option thinking and agile requirements engineering. We first look into previously published experiences in the agile software engineering literature to identify (i) âexperience clustersâ suggesting the ways in which real option concepts fit into the agile requirements process and (ii) âexperience gapsâ and under-researched agile requirements decision-making topics which require further empirical studies. Furthermore, we conducted a cross-case study in eight agile development organizations and interviewed 11 practitioners about their decision-making process. The results suggest that options are almost always identified, reasoned about and acted upon. They are not expressed in quantitative terms, however, they are instead explicitly or implicitly taken\ud
into account during the decision-making process at interiteration time
Clientsâ participation in software projects: comparative case study between an agile and a âtraditionalâ software company
One of the main characteristics of agile software development is the active and continuous participation and involvement of the clients throughout the project. According to agile proponents, this leads to building âthe rightâ product and to satisfied clients. In this paper we present a comparative study of two Dutch software development companies in respect to client participation and its impact on the project. One of the companies is purely agile while the other is following a traditional software development approach. Our study suggests that active clientsâ participation is not an exclusive attribute of agile projects and that it can be successfully integrated (and implemented) in a traditional project as well. Further, the study shows that by involving clients, software companies have the chance to get higher customer satisfaction, regardless whether or not they implement agile software development processes. Although our study is not quantitative, we think that it is indicative about the impact of the factor âclientâs participationâ on the clientâs satisfaction
Complementing Measurements and Real Options Concepts to Support Inter-iteration Decision-Making in Agile Projects
Agile software projects are characterized by iterative and incremental development, accommodation of changes and active customer participation. The process is driven by creating business value for the client, assuming that the client (i) is aware of it, and (ii) is capable to estimate the business value, associated with the separate features of the system to be implemented. This paper is focused on the complementary use of measurement techniques and concepts of real-option-analysis to assist clients in assessing and comparing alternative sets of requirements. Our overall objective is to provide systematic support to clients for the decision-making process on what to implement in each iteration. The design of our approach is justified by using empirical data, published earlier by other authors
A Conceptual Model of Client-driven Agile Requirements Prioritization: Results of a Case Study
ABSTRACT Requirements (re)prioritization is an essential mechanism of agile development approaches to maximize the value for the clients and to accommodate changing requirements. Yet, in the agile Requirements Engineering (RE) literature, very little is known about how agile (re)prioritization happens in practice. Conceptual models about this process are missing, which, in turn, makes it difficult for both practitioners and researchers to reason about requirements decision-making at inter-iteration time. We did a multiple case study on agile requirements prioritization methods to yield a conceptual model for understanding the inter-iteration prioritization process. The model is derived by using interview data from practitioners in 8 development organizations. Such a model makes explicit the concepts that are used tacitly in the agile requirements prioritization practice and can be used for structuring future empirical investigations about this topic, and for analyzing, supporting, and improving the process in real-life projects
Reprioritizing the Requirements in Agile Software Development: Towards a Conceptual Model from Clients' Perspective
Continuous and client-centric requirements reprioritization forms the very core of todayâs agile approaches. In this paper, we report on results of a grounded theory study on agile requirements prioritization methods. The outcome is a conceptual model for understanding the inter-iteration prioritization process from clientâs perspective. The latter is derived from the authorsâ experiences and by using empirical data, published earlier by other authors
Using measurements to support real-option thinking in agile software development
This position paper applies real-option-theory perspective to agile software development. We complement real-option thinking with the use of measurements to support midcourse decision-making from the viewpoint of the client. Our position is motivated by using empirical data gathered from secondary sources
Depressive symptoms in schizophrenia: a review and an exploration of the aetiological importance of decreased serotoninergic function. MD Thesis Queenâs University Belfast.
Managing the productâs backlog is a major task in agile projects. This case study reports on one organizationâs experiences from the transition to a backlog management tool and its contribution to improving sprint planning.. Our key lessons learnt are that a tool is particularly appropriate to organize and specify backlog items in a transparent manner and to handle dependencies. However, we also observed an overhead in backlog management and in reporting during meetings. The concrete project settings play the paramount role in whether such a tool helps or harms the process
Do We Know Enough about Requirements Prioritization in Agile Projects: Insights from a Case Study
Requirements prioritization is an essential mechanism of agile software development approaches. It maximizes the value delivered to the clients and accommodates changing requirements. This paper presents results of an exploratory cross-case study on agile prioritization and business value delivery processes in eight software organizations. We found that some explicit and fundamental assumptions of agile requirement prioritization approaches, as described in the agile literature on best practices, do not hold in all agile project contexts in our study. These are (i) the driving role of the client in the value creation process, (ii) the prevailing position of business value as a main prioritization criterion, (iii) the role of the prioritization process for project goal achievement. This implies that these assumptions have to be reframed and that the approaches to requirements prioritization for value creation need to be extended
Business Value Is not only Dollars: Results from Case Study Research on Agile Software Projects
Business value is a key concept in agile software development. This paper presents results of a case study on how business value and its creation is perceived in the context of agile projects. Our overall conclusion is that the project participants almost never use an explicit and structured approach to guide the value creation throughout the project. Still, the application of agile methods in the studied cases leads to satisfied clients. An interesting result of the study represents the fact that the agile process of many projects differs significantly from what is described in the agile practitionersâ books as best practices. The key implication for research and practice is that we have an incentive to pursue the study of value creation in agile projects and to complement it by providing guidelines for better clientâs involvement, as well as by developing structured methods that will enhance the value-creation in a project