A Soft-Structured Agile Framework for Larger Scale Systems Development

Abstract

One of the more important issues in the development of larger scale complex systems (product development period of two or more years) is accommodating changes to requirements. Requirements gathered for larger scale systems evolve during lengthy development periods due to changes in software and business environments, new user needs and technological advancements. Agile methods, which focus on accommodating change even late in the development lifecycle, can be adopted for the development of larger scale systems. However, as currently applied, these practices are not always suitable for the development of such systems. We propose a soft-structured framework combining the principles of agile and conventional software development that addresses the issue of rapidly changing requirements for larger scale systems. The framework consists of two parts: (1) a softstructured requirements gathering approach that reflects the agile philosophy i.e., the Agile Requirements Generation Model and (2) a tailored development process that can be applied to either small or larger scale systems.

Complex software project development: agile methods adoption

“…Through an industrial case study, Peterson and Wohlin 20 found that the main advantages of implementing agile and incremental practices in large‐scale software development can be listed as follows: (1) requirements are more precise due to reduced scope and thus easier to estimate, (2) direct communication in teams reduces the need for documentation, (3) early feedback due to frequent deliveries, (4) rework reduction, (5) testing resources are used more efficiently, (6) higher transparency of who is responsible for what creates incentives to deliver higher quality, (7) low requirements volatility in projects and (8) reduction of waste (discarded requirements) in the requirements engineering process. Agile practices such as evolutionary requirements, pair‐programming and direct stakeholder involvement have been proven to be successful for the development of large‐scale systems 21, 22. Few studies reported that some practices from agile methodologies such as iterative development, frequent testing and feedback, small release and refactoring are suitable for large projects, while others like stand‐meetings and the use of metaphors are not appropriate 17, 19.…”

“…As software complexities increase, so do the relevance and significance of software architecture and its related documents. Soundararajan and Arthur 21 further argued that larger scale systems involve lengthy development cycles and due to personnel turnover, also demand comprehensive documentation for support and training. Comprehensive documentation is often necessary when a large‐scale system is under consideration in order to provide the third party maintenance organizations with documented information 21.…”

Traverse the landscape of the mind by walking: an exploration of a new brainstorming practice

“…It is often used in the informal and early phase of software design (e.g., (Wu, Graham, & Smith, 2003)) and has been incorporated into software development processes as a standard idea generation technique (Paetsch, Eberlein, & Maurer, 2003). In software development, requirements are often elicited from the brainstorming sessions of developers and stakeholders (Soundararajan & Arthur, 2009). Since software development is a collaborative process usually undertaken by one or more development teams, brainstorming on software design is conducted by a group of people.…”

Agile Scalability for Large Scale Projects: Lessons Learned

“…Researchers are focused on finding the relation between size of the project/company and agile techniques [20]. Agile application in large size project not produced complete agility results, even agile technique name scrum cannot be apply without making changes in it [21] .Scaling activities like scaling up agile is the problem according to the researchers the agile techniques such as scrum and others create problems when used for large size projects [22]. Agile practices such as code refracting ,less documentation etc, are not feasible in large scale systems and here agile approaches have boundaries [23] .Agile software development is about feedback and change in the large size projects if applied agile techniques regular feedback and change will be needed [24].…”