Balancing Systems Engineering Rigor with Agile Software Development Flexibility

Abstract

Conflict among team members predictably emerged in a successful US Department of Defense project when leadership inserted agile software development methodologies into the well‐established systems engineering‐oriented work environment. Yet, despite the conflict, project leadership saw inherent value in both agile development and systems engineering methodologies. So, instead of choosing one methodology over the other, project leadership took action to structure an approach that mitigated the conflict and enabled the project stakeholders to enjoy the benefits each methodology provided. This paper describes the project team's problem space analysis, the analysis results, and the balanced approach they developed with the goal of advancing the project to the next level.

Product Line Re‐Engineering for Modularity in a US Department of Defense Project

“…In Step 2, the development organization will create a high-level architecture identifying the four variant's functionality overlaps, differences, and gaps. In Step 3, the development team, following an agile approach, will set the priority for converting existing code into the re-usable modular components (Fowler andHighsmith 2001, Tolentino andWood 2018). Note: Since this is a re-engineering effort, and the development organization is not starting with a clean slate, they will need to balance MOSA efforts with existing requirements, new feature development, technical refreshes, and bug fixes.…”

“…T his case study focuses on a US DoD software development organization that supports naval aviation (Maley, Lofber, and Lasiter 2008, Maley et al 2009, Schmidley 2011, Tolentino and Wood 2018. The project's flagship product began as an informal community development model with the intent of supporting multiple aircraft types (Maley et al 2009).…”