CEFAM: Comprehensive Evaluation Framework for Agile Methodologies

Abstract

Agile Software Development is regarded as an effective and efficient approach, mainly due to its ability to accommodate rapidly changing requirements, and to cope with modern software development challenges. There is therefore a strong tendency to use agile software development methodologies where applicable; however, the sheer number of existing agile methodologies and their variants hinders the selection of an appropriate agile methodology or method chunk. Methodology evaluation tools address this problem through providing detailed evaluations, yet no comprehensive evaluation framework is available for agile methodologies. We introduce the Comprehensive Evaluation Framework for Agile Methodologies (CEFAM) as an evaluation tool for project managers and method engineers. The hierarchical (and mostly quantitative) evaluation criterion set introduced in this evaluation framework enhances the usability of the framework and provides results that are precise enough to be useful for the selection, adaptation and construction of agile methodologies.

Multicriteria decision aid for agile methods evaluation using fuzzy PROMETHEE

“…However, as it is claimed by the authors, the project characteristics and their associated criteria could add an extra complexity to the classification. Due to the conflicting criteria related to a project context, Hesari et al and Taromirad et al have persuaded that a deep evaluation of the agile methods is required. Besides, Harb et al stated that selecting the best agile methodology is a decision‐making problem under multiple conflicting criteria.…”

“…Besides, Taromirad and Ramsin proposed an MCDA framework so‐called CEFAM with 13 criteria which belong to five groups: process, modeling language, usage, agility, and cross context. The XP is the only method evaluated using CEFAM.…”

“…The SQA concerns the preventive procedures or practices destined to control conformance of product and process with customer needs. Notwithstanding, agile methods do not pay a great attention to modeling and modeling language, a modeling group of criteria was proposed, since models are often still important for developing software, even though partially or indirectly . The four categories encompass the previous 20 defined criteria, which are distributed according to the context that they aim and organized in a hierarchy as we can see in the Figure .…”

“…Therefore, one of the main challenges facing IT project manager is to make the decision of selecting the appropriate agile method from several methodologies for a specific project. Furthermore, involving conflicting criteria to make a decision might have significant consequences on project success as it is claimed by Silva et al Hesari et al and Taromirad and Ramsin argued that a deep assessment of the appropriateness of agile methods to their development environments is important due to their extensive number and diversity. Thus, evaluation of agile methods could be considered as a decision‐making problem with qualitative and quantitative human assessments that should be done.…”

Modelling the critical success factors of agile software development projects in South Africa

“…Currently, there is confusion over which software development process to choose in different circumstances. Consequently, there is a need for software development managers to understand when it is appropriate to use agile and when to use traditional methodologies (Taromirad & Ramsin 2008).…”