Green-Agile Maturity Model: An Evaluation Framework for Global Software Development Vendors

Abstract

Agile methods are extensively adapted by software development organizations due to the competitive benefits it offers. In recent years global software development (GSD) projects practice agile methods as prominent methods to deliver the software in increments with utmost user satisfaction and affordable cost. Beside the use of agile methods, the software industry has also considered the green aspect of software, to be in line with the demands of the organizations and the world technological ecosystem. The green and sustainable feature of software should focus both the energy and resource efficiency key factors. This phenomenon of embedding the green flavor in software has emerged a new research area, green software engineering, that promises the development of eco-friendly software with minimum energy and use of less computing resources, to trim down the adverse effects on both society and environment. The principal objective of this research study is to design and develop a multi-level Green-Agile Maturity Model (GAMM) to assess the GSD vendors' agile maturity in terms of green software development. The model has been built in four phases. In phase I and II, systematic literature review (SLR) was performed to identify the success factors and risk factors that either supports or hinders the green and sustainable software development respectively by practicing the agile methods in GSD. The results have been validated from 106 relevant experts, dealing with agile and green software projects, through questionnaire survey. The experts' demographic represents 25 different countries. We also identified the industry practices through SLR and survey, to address our identified critical factors. Phase III of this research deals with development of the GAMM by categorizing the identified factors into seven Green-Agile maturity levels. A similar approach has been used in other models such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), Implementation Maturity Model (IMM) and Software Outsourcing Vendors Readiness Model (SOVRM). In phase IV of this research, five case studies were conducted at GSD organizations, to evaluate the structure and efficacy of the GAMM, while as a major contribution, this paper presents our developed model, the GAMM, which aims to assess the green-agile maturity of the GSD vendors in terms of green and sustainable software development. INDEX TERMS Agile software development, Green and sustainable software, Green-Agile Maturity Model (GAMM), Global software development (GSD), Agile methods

An Evaluation Method for Service-Oriented Architecture Maturity Model

“…Based on the literature reading, the IT Risk Management Maturity Model for SOA is one of the few models that highlights the importance of evaluating the model through a case study approach. A similar finding has also been mentioned in other maturity models set up in the Global Software Development (GSD) domain, where they state that the case study approach is a powerful evaluation tool that can provide valuable real-world information [10].…”

Software integration model: An assessment tool for global software development vendors

“…• Utilization of 24 • Geographically closer presence to the end consumer However, some studies report that GSD is still in its infancy stage, and there are various challenges that need to be tackled. 2,[14][15][16][17][18][19] In GSD, the clients and vendors as well as the development team may be scattered at diverse geographical locations of the globe. This geographical dispersion has raised a number of challenges, [20][21][22][23] Like any other field, GSD will also take its time to mature and overcome the temporal, cultural, linguistics, communication, and coordination issues.…”

“…The term “global software development” is coined for software development environment with a diversified pool of experts at minimal efforts and cost across the globe with different time zones, to collaborate in the development process using either synchronous/asynchronous communication 9,10 . Some extrusive GSD benefits are listed as follows 11–13 : Utilization of 24‐h working day Availing latest technology and experts Decreasing the cost by off‐shoring the development work to low wages countries Provision of efficient IT skills Innovation and sharing of best practices Vendor presence at different local markets Opportunities for vendors in new markets Competitive environment Capitalization on global resource pools Geographically closer presence to the end consumer However, some studies report that GSD is still in its infancy stage, and there are various challenges that need to be tackled 2,14–19 . In GSD, the clients and vendors as well as the development team may be scattered at diverse geographical locations of the globe.…”

“…In GSD, the clients and vendors as well as the development team may be scattered at diverse geographical locations of the globe. This geographical dispersion has raised a number of challenges, 20–23 listed below: Cultures diversity Time zones differences Language diversity Inadequate communication Difficulties in knowledge management Poor contract management Poor relationship management, etc. Like any other field, GSD will also take its time to mature and overcome the temporal, cultural, linguistics, communication, and coordination issues 8,10,11,13,19 . Alongside, the aforementioned non‐technical issues, GSD teams also face technical issues, such as problems in the architecture of software components, their development iterations management, configuration management, and integration of components developed by different GSD teams due to inadequate communication and coordination 24–28 …”

“…This geographical dispersion has raised a number of challenges, [20][21][22][23] Like any other field, GSD will also take its time to mature and overcome the temporal, cultural, linguistics, communication, and coordination issues. 8,10,11,13,19 Alongside, the aforementioned non-technical issues, GSD teams also face technical issues, such as problems in the architecture of software components, their development iterations management, configuration management, and integration of components developed by different GSD teams due to inadequate communication and coordination. [24][25][26][27][28] Almost all types and sizes of software are composed of more than one software component or module.…”