Hybrid Software Development Approaches in Practice: A European Perspective

Self Cite

The emergence of agile methods and practices has not only changed the development processes but might also have affected how companies conduct software process improvement (SPI).Through a set of complementary studies, we aim to understand how SPI has changed in times of agile software development. Specifically, we aim (a) to identify and characterize the set of publications that connect elements of agility to SPI, (b) to explore to which extent agile methods/practices have been used in the context of SPI, and (c) to understand whether the topics addressed in the literature are relevant and useful for industry professionals. To study these questions, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the literature identified in a previous mapping study, an interview study, and an analysis of the responses given by industry professionals to SPI-related questions stemming from an independently conducted survey study. Regarding the first question, we identified 55 publications that focus on both SPI and agility of which 48 present and discuss how agile methods/practices are used to steer SPI initiatives. Regarding the second question, we found that the two most frequently mentioned agile methods in the context of SPI are Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP), while the most frequently mentioned agile practices are integrate often, test-first, daily meeting, pair programming, retrospective, on-site customer, and product backlog. Regarding the third question, we found that a majority of the interviewed and surveyed industry professionals see SPI as a continuous activity. They agree with the agile SPI literature that agile methods/practices play an important role in SPI activities but that the importance given to specific agile methods/practices does not always coincide with the frequency with which these methods/practices are mentioned in the literature. KEYWORDSagile methods, software process improvement, SPI, systematic review INTRODUCTIONSoftware has become the key driver in many industry sectors, and software development processes face increasing demands for flexibility, customer-and value-orientation, short time-to-market cycles, and high quality. As a consequence, companies are challenged with finding appropriate software development methods that, on the one hand, allow for flexible project operation and, on the other hand, allow for creating high-quality products. To define, adapt, evaluate, and improve their software processes, companies implement software process improvement (SPI) initiatives. According to Humphrey 1 and Münch et al, 2 SPI comprises a variety of tasks, ie, scoping, assessment, design and realization, and continuous improvement. Furthermore, SPI is considered relevant to companies 3 regardless of their size and industry sector.SPI has been around for decades, 4 and numerous approaches to conduct SPI have been proposed. 5,6 The different SPI approaches range from formal/prescriptive/de-facto (commercial) standards, such as the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) or ISO/IEC 15504, which are often critic...

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confidence: 70%

Section: Study Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How has SPI changed in times of agile development? Results from a multi‐method study

Küpper

Pfahl

Jürisoo

et al. 2019

Self Cite

“…However, the challenges of deciding on important artifacts and handling artifact degradation were confirmed by other related studies. () Moreover, it is indeed common that a mix of methods is used, and not the entire organization moves to agile practices at once …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 80%

Boundary objects and their use in agile systems engineering

Wohlrab

Knauss

Larsson

2019

Summary Agile methods are increasingly introduced in automotive companies in the attempt to become more efficient and flexible in the system development. The adoption of agile practices influences communication between stakeholders and makes companies rethink the management of artifacts and documentation like requirements, safety compliance documents, and architecture models. Practitioners aim to reduce irrelevant documentation but face a lack of guidance to determine what artifacts are needed and how they should be managed. This paper presents artifacts, challenges, guidelines, and practices for the continuous management of systems engineering artifacts in automotive based on a theoretical and empirical understanding of the topic. In collaboration with 53 practitioners from six automotive companies, we conducted a design‐science study involving interviews, a questionnaire, focus groups, and practical data analysis of a systems engineering tool. The guidelines suggest the distinction between artifacts that are shared among different actors in a company (boundary objects) and those that are used within a team (locally relevant artifacts). We propose an analysis approach to identify boundary objects and three practices to manage systems engineering artifacts in industry.

Exploring the industry's challenges in software testing: An empirical study

Garousi

Felderer

Kuhrmann

et al. 2020

ContextSoftware testing is an important and costly software engineering activity in the industry. Despite the efforts of the software testing research community in the last several decades, various studies show that still many practitioners in the industry report challenges in their software testing tasks.ObjectiveTo shed light on industry's challenges in software testing, we characterize and synthesize the challenges reported by practitioners. Such concrete challenges can then be used for a variety of purposes, eg, research collaborations between industry and academia.MethodOur empirical research method is opinion survey. By designing an online survey, we solicited practitioners' opinions about their challenges in different testing activities. Our dataset includes data from 72 practitioners from eight different countries.ResultsOur results show that test management and test automation are considered the most challenging among all testing activities by practitioners. Our results also include a set of 104 concrete challenges in software testing that may need further investigations by the research community.ConclusionWe conclude that the focal points of industrial work and academic research in software testing differ. Furthermore, the paper at hand provides valuable insights concerning practitioners' “pain” points and, thus, provides researchers with a source of important research topics of high practical relevance.