Context: Agile software development has nowadays reached wide adoption. However, moving agile to large‐scale contexts is a complex task with many challenges involved. Objective: In this pa...

Scaling agile in large organizations: Practices, challenges, and success factors

https://research.chalmers.se/publication/522021/file/522021_Fulltext.pdf

Requirements engineering challenges and practices in large-scale agile system development

Software organizations are increasingly combining agile methodologies and distributed software development (DSD) for efficiently and effectively built software products. There are numerous...

Prioritizing challenges of agile process in distributed software development environment using analytic hierarchy process

Motivated by their success in software development, companies implement agile methods and their practices increasingly for software-intense, large products, such as cars, telecommunication infrastructure, and embedded systems Such systems are usually subject to safety and regulative concerns as well as different development cycles of hardware and software Consequently, requirements engineering involves upfront and detailed analysis, which can be at odds with agile (software) development In this paper, we present results from a multiple case study with two car manufacturers, a telecommunications company, and a technology company that are on the journey to introduce organization wide continuous integration and continuous delivery to customers Based on 20 qualitative interviews, 5 focus groups, and 2 cross-company workshops, we discuss possible scopes of agile methods within system development, the consequences this has on the role of requirements, and the challenges that arise from the interplay of requirements engineering and agile methods in large-scale system development These relate in particular to communicating and managing knowledge about a) customer value and b) the system under development We conclude that better alignment of a holistic requirements model with agile development practices promises rich gains in development speed, flexibility, and overall quality of software and systems

Requirements Engineering Challenges in Large-Scale Agile System Development

[Context and Motivation] Focusing single-mindedly on delivering functional requirements while neglecting quality requirements has been a point of criticism of Agile software development methods since their introduction. [Question/problem] Empirical evidence on the challenges that organizations currently face when dealing with quality requirements in Agile, is however scant. [Principle ideas/results] We performed a qualitative exploratory multiple case study in the context of real-life large-scale distributed Agile projects, in order to understand the challenges Agile teams face regarding quality requirements. Based on 17 semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth interviews with Agile practitioners from six organizations in the Netherlands, we collected and analysed data, revealing 13 quality requirements challenges classified in five categories: (1) team coordination and communication, (2) quality assurance, (3) quality requirements elicitation, (4) conceptual definitions, and (5) software architecture. We found an incongruity in the way QRs are conceptualized by Agile practitioners and in RE textbooks. [Contribution] The main contributions of the paper are the explication of the challenges from practitioners’ perspective and the comparison of our findings with previously published results.

Quality requirements challenges in the context of large-scale distributed agile : An empirical study

In the last decades, agile methods had a huge impact on how software is developed. In many cases, this has led to significant benefits, such as quality and speed of software deliveries to customers. However, safety-critical systems have widely been dismissed from benefiting from agile methods. Products that include safety critical aspects are therefore faced with a situation in which the development of safety-critical parts can significantly limit the potential speed-up through agile methods, for the full product, but also in the non-safety critical parts. For such products, the ability to develop safety-critical software in an agile way will generate a competitive advantage. In order to enable future research in this important area, we present in this paper a mapping of the current state of practice based on a mixed method approach. Starting from a workshop with experts from six large Swedish product development companies we develop a lens for our analysis. We then present a systematic mapping study on safety-critical systems and agile development through this lens in order to map potential benefits, challenges, and solution candidates for guiding future research.

Safety-Critical Systems and Agile Development: A Mapping Study

Motivated by their success in software development, companies implement agile methods and their practices increasingly for software-intense, large products, such as cars, telecommunication infrastructure, and embedded systems. Such systems are usually subject to safety and regulative concerns as well as different development cycles of hardware and software. Consequently, requirements engineering involves upfront and detailed analysis, which can be at odds with agile (software) development. In this paper, we present results from a multiple case study with two car manufacturers, a telecommunications company, and a technology company that are on the journey to introduce organization wide continuous integration and continuous delivery to customers. Based on 20 qualitative interviews, 5 focus groups, and 2 cross-company workshops, we discuss possible scopes of agile methods within system development, the consequences this has on the role of requirements, and the challenges that arise from the interplay of requirements engineering and agile methods in large-scale system development. These relate in particular to communicating and managing knowledge about a) customer value and b) the system under development. We conclude that better alignment of a holistic requirements model with agile development practices promises rich gains in development speed, flexibility, and overall quality of software and systems.

Requirements Engineering Challenges in Large-Scale Agile System Development.

As agile methods become more pervasive, agile practices are applied to more large-scale systems with a scope that goes beyond pure software. The expansion of agile in these contexts provides benefits, but creates new challenges. Widespread use of agile has changed the way we must think about practices both in Requirements Engineering (RE) and in System Testing (ST). Our experience shows that many challenges in the application of large-scale agile development relate to either RE or ST, and in particular to the alignment between these areas. In this paper we present large-scale agile-related challenges from a multiple case study which relate to REST alignment. We map our challenges to an existing framework for REST alignment, and make an initial attempt to suggest agile RE practices from the literature which may alleviate these challenges. Our results show that the interviewed companies need to first adopt more agile RE practices to enhance REST alignment and then leverage agile testing. Future work will look more towards evaluating these best practices.

Rashidah Kasauli

Papers

Requirements engineering challenges and practices in large-scale agile system development

Requirements Engineering Challenges in Large-Scale Agile System Development

Safety-Critical Systems and Agile Development: A Mapping Study

Requirements Engineering Challenges in Large-Scale Agile System Development.

Challenges of Aligning Requirements Engineering and System Testing in Large-Scale Agile: A Multiple Case Study