Towards the statistical construction of hybrid development methods

Abstract

Hardly any software development process is used as prescribed by authors or standards. Regardless of company size or industry sector, a majority of project teams and companies use hybrid development methods (short: hybrid methods) that combine different development methods and practices. Even though such hybrid methods are highly individualized, a common understanding of how to systematically construct synergetic practices is missing. In this article, we make a first step towards a statistical construction procedure for hybrid methods. Grounded in 1467 data points from a large-scale practitioner survey, we study the question: What are hybrid methods made of and how can they be systematically constructed? Our findings show that only eight methods and few practices build the core of modern software development. Using an 85% agreement level in the participants' selections, we provide examples illustrating how hybrid methods can be characterized by the practices they are made of. Furthermore, using this characterization, we develop an initial construction procedure, which allows for defining a method frame and enriching it incrementally to devise a hybrid method using ranked sets of practice. K E Y W O R D S hybrid methods, software development, software process, survey research 1 | INTRODUCTION Today, companies often use highly individualized processes to run projects, often by integrating agile methods in their processes. For instance, Dikert et al 1 found choosing and customizing an agile model to be an important success factor and that agility in general changed the way software is developed. Dingsøyr et al 2 reflect on a decade of agile methodologies, and there is no denial that agile methods have become an important asset in many companies' process portfolios. 3-6 However, agile methods are not implemented as prescribed by authors or standards, 7,8 and in 2011, West et al 9 coined the term "Water-Scrum-Fall" to describe a pattern that they claimed most companies implement for their software projects.

What Makes Agile Software Development Agile?

“…In this regard, Finding 3 is of particular interest as it shows how the different project disciplines are affected by development methods and practices, i.e., whether to develop ML applications in an agile or traditional manner. Given [59]- [61], Finding 6 becomes relevant as specific domain-relevant items can be added to a process without impacting the perception of agility. ML-research mainly focuses on the stages to build the ML model as part of software development, but methods and practices used in ML-based software development are rarely discussed.…”

Toward Unveiling How SAFe Framework Supports Agile in Global Software Development

“…The practices, such as daily meetings, plannings and pair programming, adopted in distributed teams are adapted [36], [37] so that the teams can deal with the challenges of the GSD. Face-to-face meetings and pair programming, for example, are not possible to be implemented the way they are defined, as members are in different locations, as well as possibly different time zones [38].…”

Goals and challenges in hybrid software development approaches

“…This enables the conduct of software projects in phases with a detailed defined process. The most prominent model for plan‐based approaches is the waterfall model 9 . The model consists of mainly five phases, namely, requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and operations 5 .…”

“…Recent studies show that companies often do not use only agile methods but rather a mix of agile and plan‐based methods in order to combine the benefits of both approaches 6‐9 . Approaches where different methods are combined are called hybrid development approaches (short: hybrid approaches) and have become state‐of‐the‐practice 10 .…”

“…There is no structured approach that supports companies in finding and addressing the conflicts. Also existing models for the support of the creation of hybrid approaches, for example, by Bohem and Turner 3 or Tell et al, 9 do not consider these goals and arising challenges in hybrid approaches. Therefore, it is important to examine the goals and challenges in APH approaches 13 .…”