An Empirical Study of Scrumban Formation based on the Selection of Scrum and Kanban Practices

Scrumban is a combination of practices from Kanban and Scrum practices to manage the development of software based on different project situations. Scrumban practices formation can differ based on different projects and team members. However, since each method has its own pros and cons, inappropriate formation of Scrumban practices may lead to increased waste and time of development, and decreased quality, which in turn, affect the Agile organizations and cause inefficient and ineffective development. Practitioners of Kanban and Scrum are convinced that a combination of both methods is better than the use of one and thus, practitioners should be guided in their decision making. This study aims to show how Scrumban method is formed based on a combination of Kanban and Scrum methods. Scrumban formation and the identification of the factors, which assist in the combination of Kanban and Scrum were conducted through a review of the previous work and semi-structured interviews with 7 Agile experts, after which, content analysis was conducted to analyse the gathered data. Different factors - the method prescription, roles and responsibilities, adoption time, team size, batch size, requirements prioritization, feature size, lead time, technical practices, cost and quality, assist Agile team members in the formation of Scrumban by combining appropriate Kanban and Scrum practices. In addition, Scrumban were found to be more appropriate than Scrum or Kanban in saving time, improving quality and minimizing waste

An Empirical Study of Information Security Management Success Factors

Information security management (ISM) is a continuous, structured and systematic security approach to manage and protect the organisation’s information from being compromised by irresponsible parties. To ensure the information remains secure, many organisations have implemented ISM by establishing and reviewing information security (IS) policy, processes, procedures and organisational structures. Regardless of the efforts, security threats, incidents, vulnerabilities and risks are still plaguing many organisations. Lack of awareness of ISM effectiveness due to low understanding of the success factors is one of the major factors that cause this phenomenon.  This study aimed to address this subject by firstly identifying the ISM key factors from existing literature and then by confirming the factors and discovering other related factors from practitioners’ perspective. This study used qualitative method where it adopted semi-structured interviews involving nine practitioners. The data were analysed using content analysis technique. Through the analysis, the study validated several ISM factors and their elements that contribute to the success of ISM. The findings provide practitioners with the high understanding of ISM key factors and could guide practitioners in implementing proper ISM

Key Factors for Selecting an Agile Method: A Systematic Literature Review

Agile methods have become popular in recent years because the success rate of project development using Agile methods is better than structured design methods. Nevertheless, less than 50 percent of projects implemented using Agile methods are considered successful, and selecting the wrong Agile method is one of the reasons for project failure. Selecting the most appropriate Agile method is a challenging task because there are so many to choose from. In addition, potential adopters believe that migrating to an Agile method involves taking a drastic risk. Therefore, to assist project managers and other decision makers, this study aims to identify the key factors that should be considered when selecting an appropriate Agile method. A systematic literature review was performed to elicit these factors in an unbiased manner and then content analysis was used to analyze the resultant data. It was found that the nature of project, development team skills, project constraints, customer involvement and organizational culture are the key factors that should guide decision makers in the selection of an appropriate Agile method based on the value these factors have for different organizations and/or different projects

A Framework for Requirements Prioritisation Process in an Agile Software Development Environment: Empirical Study

User requirements are in high demand due to advancements of technology and business needs. Therefore it is extremely difficult to achieve user requirements at one single time. Agile methods have been introduced to mitigate such issues by implementing user requirements incrementally and iteratively. The top significant aspect in agile development is selecting a group of prominent requirements to be implemented in iteration. This could be derived from continuous requirements prioritisation (RP). To assign which requirements should be selected by practitioners is considered one of the obstacles faced in the process of implementing the inter-iteration period.  This study aimed to identify the RP elements and factors that should be considered through the RP process in agile software development. The elements and factors were identified through a review of previous studies and in-depth interviews involving 18 agile practitioners from different software development organizations in different countries (i.e., Malaysia and Jordan), over a period of 2 years. To get the best result, the data is analyzed by using grounded theory techniques (Open, Axial and Selective coding). The elements and factors from the RP process will guide practitioners to an effective RP process that can produce high quality requirements, which are expected to meet the needs of the intended users

Considerations for Cost Estimation of Software Testing Outsourcing Projects

Software testing outsourcing appears to be the best alternative to acquire better software quality with competent ratification by extrinsic parties who have the capability to do it. Through the effort, organizations are peeking to promising benefits constitute in it such as current testing technology, experts, an abridgment of the project’s duration and more concentration on the main organisation’s activity. Along with these benefits, one important reason that encourages the decision is optimization of cost expenditure, which the strategy is perceived as a good move for a competitive organization. However, implementing such preference eventually results in a different outcome. Organizations have to bear the higher cost and incur losses of cost deviation from the expected estimation. The conflicting between cost and benefits raises an important concern of striving better cost estimation for such projects. This paper aims to address this interest by analyzing the existing literature in order to identify the contributing factors towards better cost estimation for software testing outsourcing project-context. The analysis is done using the content analysis method. The results could be divided into two categories; which are the cost items and contributing factors. Cost items consist of direct cost and indirect cost, which refers to the expenses for the project. While the contributing factors consist of people and environment, which are needed to produce accurate cost estimation. The findings provide an insight to excogitate attentively the essentials in the endeavor of improving the exactitude of cost estimation for software testing outsourcing project

Understanding requirements dependency in requirements prioritization: a systematic literature review

Requirement prioritization (RP) is a crucial task in managing requirements as it determines the order of implementation and, thus, the delivery of a software system. Improper RP may cause software project failures due to over budget and schedule as well as a low-quality product. Several factors influence RP. One of which is requirements dependency. Handling inappropriate handling of requirements dependencies can lead to software development failures. If a requirement that serves as a prerequisite for other requirements is given low priority, it affects the overall project completion time. Despite its importance, little is known about requirements dependency in RP, particularly its impacts, types, and techniques. This study, therefore, aims to understand the phenomenon by analyzing the existing literature. It addresses three objectives, namely, to investigate the impacts of requirements dependency on RP, to identify different types of requirements dependency, and to discover the techniques used for requirements dependency problems in RP. To fulfill the objectives, this study adopts the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method. Applying the SLR protocol, this study selected forty primary articles, which comprise 58% journal papers, 32% conference proceedings, and 10% book sections. The results of data synthesis indicate that requirements dependency has significant impacts on RP, and there are a number of requirements dependency types as well as techniques for addressing requirements dependency problems in RP. This research discovered various techniques employed, including the use of Graphs for RD visualization, Machine Learning for handling large-scale RP, decision making for multi-criteria handling, and optimization techniques utilizing evolutionary algorithms. The study also reveals that the existing techniques have encountered serious limitations in terms of scalability, time consumption, interdependencies of requirements, and limited types of requirement dependencies

Whole of government critical success factors towards integrated E-government services: a preliminary review

Electronic Government (E-government) becomes one of the key elements for sustainable development of the country. Previous studies on E-government indicate that most governments are performing well in E-government implementation. However, the issues of process duplication and bureaucracy in services should be addressed to build trust and increase citizens’ satisfaction. Currently, there is a necessity to focus on the development of integrated and tailored-made services that suit with citizens’ needs. This initiative entails high commitment and collaboration from agencies, which can be achieved through the whole of government (WoG) approach. This study aims to identify the critical success factors of WoG towards the development of integrated E-government services. A preliminary review was conducted on previous studies and reports to get some insights of the subject being studied. The identified data were coded and analysed using content analysis method. The findings demonstrate that there are a number of critical success factors for WoG, which consist of technical and non-technical aspects. The findings act as a theoretical framework for better understanding about WoG approach for integrated E-government services

A Guidance to Legacy Systems Modernization

Rapid development of information technology and communication (ICT) has increased the use of information systems in organizations since a decade ago. At the same time, many organizations are still using old information systems to support their business, known as legacy systems. Even though these systems cause technical problems, but they are still used to support service delivery to the customer. These systems are also essential to organizations as they have been operated for many years and possess high business value. The operation of legacy systems cannot be stopped quickly, as it will affect daily business tasks. However, organizations with legacy systems need to think about the ability of the systems to support their future direction. Modernization of legacy systems needs to be implemented to ensure the systems are aligned with global changes as well as improving the competitiveness of the organizations. This study, therefore, reviewed the phases and factors involved in legacy systems modernization to identify gaps and their insufficiencies. There are many studies on legacy systems, but only a few have focused on the overall process of legacy systems modernization. Most studies on legacy systems are technical in nature and refer to specific aspects and phases of modernization. This study aims to provide overall guidance to the organizations in performing legacy systems modernization