The agile governance of business IT projects

Organisations typically define and execute their selected strategy by developing and managing a portfolio of projects. The governance of this portfolio has proved to be a major challenge, particularly for large organisations. Executives and managers face even greater pressures when the nature of the strategic landscape is uncertain. This paper explores approaches for dealing with different levels of certainty in business IT projects and provides a contingent governance framework. Historically business IT projects have relied on a structured sequential approach, also referred to as a waterfall method. There is a distinction between the development stages of a solution and the management stages of a project that delivers the solution although these are often integrated in a business IT systems project. Prior research has demonstrated that the level of certainty varies between development projects. There can be uncertainty on what needs to be developed and also on how this solution should be developed. The move to agile development and management reflects a greater level of uncertainty often on both dimensions and this has led the adoption of more iterative approaches. What has been less well researched is the impact of uncertainty on the governance of the change portfolio and the corresponding implications for business executives. This paper poses this research question and proposes a govemance framework to address these aspects. The governance framework has been reviewed in the context of a major anonymous organisation, FinOrg. Findings are reported in this paper with a focus on the need to apply different approaches. In particular, the governance of uncertain business change is contrasted with the management approach for defined IT projects. Practical outputs from the paper include a consideration of some innovative approaches that can be used by executives. It also investigates the role of the business change portfolio group in evaluating and executing the appropriate level of governance. These results lead to recommendations for executives and also proposed further research.

A practical comparison of agile web frameworks

[ES] Los web frameworks son herramientas para mejorar el desarrollo y mantenimiento de sitios web. Aprender a utilizar un framework requiere varios meses y existen más de 100 web frameworks. Por ello es interesante que haya estudios que muestren sus diferencias. En este proyecto se realizó una comparativa de web frameworks para valorar sus diferencias, debilidades y fortalezas. Para seleccionar los web frameworks se utilizaron variables como las estadísticas de uso, popularidad y resultados en otras omparativas. Además, se decidió que los web frameworks seleccionados estuviesen basados en distintos lenguajes de programación. En base a esto se seleccionaron los web frameworks : Rails, Grails, Django y Codelgniter. Para compararlos se implementó una aplicación muy sencilla, MyBlog, con cada uno de ellos, un sistema de usuarios con blogs, posts y comentarios. La preparación para esta implementación consistió en : leer documentación sobre el lenguaje de programación, realizar un conjunto de ejercicios muy sencillos y leer la documentación del web framework. Todas estas tareas, incluida la implementación de MyBlog se tuvieron que realizar en un tiempo límite asignado. En base a este desarrollo se concluyó que Rails, Grails y Django son frameworks que requieren mucho tiempo en su aprendizaje, mientras que Codelgniter es mucho más sencillo de aprender. Sin embargo, los primeros producen un código más conciso y menos repetitivo, mientras que el último resulta en un código repetitivo y extenso. Por otro lado, la documentación de Grails era de baja calidad e incrementaba la dificultad en su aprendizaje. Rails y Django presentan una buena documentación. Rails es el único framework con un gran soporte para migraciones y Javascript. Django es el único que soporta las class-based views. Grails es el único que soporta internacionalización desde la generación de código.

Metodologie di sviluppo agile per il corporate banking

L’applicazione dei metodi tradizionali dell’ingegneria del software non garantiscono il successo di un progetto, per questo motivo da circa quindici anni è emersa una nuova filosofia di sviluppo nota come Agile Software Development. In questa tesi è stata decritta una panoramica sulle metodologie agili, con particolare attenzione al framework Scrum e un caso di studio reale al quale Scrum è stato applicato. Il caso di studio riguarda l’implementazione di una applicazione web per la gestione del front-end di un Corporate Banking. L’applicazione di Scrum ha permesso di ottenere la soddisfazione del cliente finale, la crescita dello Scrum Team e un tasso di manutenzione correttiva accettabile.

Mondrian: An Agile Visualization Framework

Data visualization is the process of representing data as pictures to support reasoning about the underlying data. For the interpretation to be as easy as possible, we need to be as close as possible to the original data. As most visualization tools have an internal meta-model, which is different from the one for the presented data, they usually need to duplicate the original data to conform to their meta-model. This leads to an increase in the resources needed, increase which is not always justified. In this work we argue for the need of having an engine that is as close as possible to the data and we present our solution of moving the visualization tool to the data, instead of moving the data to the visualization tool. Our solution also emphasizes the necessity of reusing basic blocks to express complex visualizations and allowing the programmer to script the visualization using his preferred tools, rather than a third party format. As a validation of the expressiveness of our framework, we show how we express several already published visualizations and describe the pros and cons of the approach.

Parsing for agile modeling

In order to analyze software systems, it is necessary to model them. Static software models are commonly imported by parsing source code and related data. Unfortunately, building custom parsers for most programming languages is a non-trivial endeavour. This poses a major bottleneck for analyzing software systems programmed in languages for which importers do not already exist. Luckily, initial software models do not require detailed parsers, so it is possible to start analysis with a coarse-grained importer, which is then gradually refined. In this paper we propose an approach to "agile modeling" that exploits island grammars to extract initial coarse-grained models, parser combinators to enable gradual refinement of model importers, and various heuristics to recognize language structure, keywords and other language artifacts.

Tailoring the Scrum Development Process to Address Agile Product Line Engineering

Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) is becoming widely used due to the improvement it means when developing software products of the same family. However, SPLE demands long-term investment on a product-line platform that might not be profitable due to rapid changing business settings. Since Agile Software Development (ASD) approaches are being successfully applied in volatile markets, several companies have suggested the idea of integrating SPLE and ASD when a family product has to be developed. Agile Product Line Engineering (APLE) advocates the integration of SPLE and ASD to address their lacks when they are individually applied to software development. A previous literature re-view of experiences and practices on APLE revealed important challenges about how to fully put APLE into practice. Our contribution address several of these challenges by tailoring the agile method Scrum by means of three concepts that we have defined: plastic partial components, working PL-architectures, and reactive reuse.

Combining series elastic actuation and magneto-rheological damping for the control of agile locomotion

All-terrain robot locomotion is an active topic of research. Search and rescue maneuvers and exploratory missions could benefit from robots with the abilities of real animals. However, technological barriers exist to ultimately achieving the actuation system, which is able to meet the exigent requirements of these robots. This paper describes the locomotioncontrol of a leg prototype, designed and developed to make a quadruped walk dynamically while exhibiting compliant interaction with the environment. The actuation system of the leg is based on the hybrid use of series elasticity and magneto-rheological dampers, which provide variable compliance for natural-looking motion and improved interaction with the ground. The locomotioncontrol architecture has been proposed to exploit natural leg dynamics in order to improve energy efficiency. Results show that the controller achieves a significant reduction in energy consumption during the leg swing phase thanks to the exploitation of inherent leg dynamics. Added to this, experiments with the real leg prototype show that the combined use of series elasticity and magneto-rheologicaldamping at the knee provide a 20 % reduction in the energy wasted in braking the knee during its extension in the leg stance phase.

On the biomimetic design of agile-robot legs

The development of functional legged robots has encountered its limits in human-made actuation technology. This paper describes research on the biomimetic design of legs for agile quadrupeds. A biomimetic leg concept that extracts key principles from horse legs which are responsible for the agile and powerful locomotion of these animals is presented. The proposed biomimetic leg model defines the effective leg length, leg kinematics, limb mass distribution, actuator power, and elastic energy recovery as determinants of agile locomotion, and values for these five key elements are given. The transfer of the extracted principles to technological instantiations is analyzed in detail, considering the availability of current materials, structures and actuators. A real leg prototype has been developed following the biomimetic leg concept proposed. The actuation system is based on the hybrid use of series elasticity and magneto-rheological dampers which provides variable compliance for natural motion. From the experimental evaluation of this prototype, conclusions on the current technological barriers to achieve real functional legged robots to walk dynamically in agile locomotion are presented.

Agile Construction and Evolution of Product-Line Architectures

Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) has proved to have significant advantages in family-based software development, but also implies the up¬front design of a product-line architecture (PLA) from which individual product applications can be engineered. The big upfront design associated with PLAs is in conflict with the current need of "being open to change". However, the turbulence of the current business climate makes change inevitable in order to stay competitive, and requires PLAs to be open to change even late in the development. The trend of "being open to change" is manifested in the Agile Software Development (ASD) paradigm, but it is spreading to the domain of SPLE. To reduce the big upfront design of PLAs as currently practiced in SPLE, new paradigms are being created, one being Agile Product Line Engineering (APLE). APLE aims to make the development of product-lines more flexible and adaptable to changes as promoted in ASD. To put APLE into practice it is necessary to make mechanisms available to assist and guide the agile construction and evolution of PLAs while complying with the "be open to change" agile principle. This thesis defines a process for "the agile construction and evolution of product-line architectures", which we refer to as Agile Product-Line Archi-tecting (APLA). The APLA process provides agile architects with a set of models for describing, documenting and tracing PLAs, as well as an algorithm to analyze change impact. Both the models and the change impact analysis offer the following capabilities: Flexibility & adaptability at the time of defining software architectures, enabling change during the incremental and iterative design of PLAs (anticipated or planned changes) and their evolution (unanticipated or unforeseen changes). Assistance in checking architectural integrity through change impact analysis in terms of architectural concerns, such as dependencies on earlier design decisions, rationale, constraints, and risks, etc.Guidance in the change decision-making process through change im¬pact analysis in terms of architectural components and connections. Therefore, APLA provides the mechanisms required to construct and evolve PLAs that can easily be refined iteration after iteration during the APLE development process. These mechanisms are provided in a modeling frame¬work called FPLA. The contributions of this thesis have been validated through the conduction of a project regarding a metering management system in electrical power networks. This case study took place in an i-smart software factory and was in collaboration with the Technical University of Madrid and Indra Software Labs. La Ingeniería de Líneas de Producto Software (Software Product Line Engi¬neering, SPLE) ha demostrado tener ventajas significativas en el desarrollo de software basado en familias de productos. SPLE es un paradigma que se basa en la reutilización sistemática de un conjunto de características comunes que comparten los productos de un mismo dominio o familia, y la personalización masiva a través de una variabilidad bien definida que diferencia unos productos de otros. Este tipo de desarrollo requiere el diseño inicial de una arquitectura de línea de productos (Product-Line Architecture, PLA) a partir de la cual los productos individuales de la familia son diseñados e implementados. La inversión inicial que hay que realizar en el diseño de PLAs entra en conflicto con la necesidad actual de estar continuamente "abierto al cam¬bio", siendo este cambio cada vez más frecuente y radical en la industria software. Para ser competitivos es inevitable adaptarse al cambio, incluso en las últimas etapas del desarrollo de productos software. Esta tendencia se manifiesta de forma especial en el paradigma de Desarrollo Ágil de Software (Agile Software Development, ASD) y se está extendiendo también al ámbito de SPLE. Con el objetivo de reducir la inversión inicial en el diseño de PLAs en la manera en que se plantea en SPLE, en los último años han surgido nuevos enfoques como la Ingeniera de Líneas de Producto Software Ágiles (Agile Product Line Engineering, APLE). APLE propone el desarrollo de líneas de producto de forma más flexible y adaptable a los cambios, iterativa e incremental. Para ello, es necesario disponer de mecanismos que ayuden y guíen a los arquitectos de líneas de producto en el diseño y evolución ágil de PLAs, mientras se cumple con el principio ágil de estar abierto al cambio. Esta tesis define un proceso para la "construcción y evolución ágil de las arquitecturas de lineas de producto software". A este proceso se le ha denominado Agile Product-Line Architecting (APLA). El proceso APLA proporciona a los arquitectos software un conjunto de modelos para de¬scribir, documentar y trazar PLAs, así como un algoritmo para analizar vel impacto del cambio. Los modelos y el análisis del impacto del cambio ofrecen: Flexibilidad y adaptabilidad a la hora de definir las arquitecturas software, facilitando el cambio durante el diseño incremental e iterativo de PLAs (cambios esperados o previstos) y su evolución (cambios no previstos). Asistencia en la verificación de la integridad arquitectónica mediante el análisis de impacto de los cambios en términos de dependencias entre decisiones de diseño, justificación de las decisiones de diseño, limitaciones, riesgos, etc. Orientación en la toma de decisiones derivadas del cambio mediante el análisis de impacto de los cambios en términos de componentes y conexiones. De esta manera, APLA se presenta como una solución para la construcción y evolución de PLAs de forma que puedan ser fácilmente refinadas iteración tras iteración de un ciclo de vida de líneas de producto ágiles. Dicha solución se ha implementado en una herramienta llamada FPLA (Flexible Product-Line Architecture) y ha sido validada mediante su aplicación en un proyecto de desarrollo de un sistema de gestión de medición en redes de energía eléctrica. Dicho proyecto ha sido desarrollado en una fábrica de software global en colaboración con la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid e Indra Software Labs.

Agile user stories enriched with usability

Usability is a critical quality factor. Therefore, like traditional software teams, agile teams have to address usability to properly catch their users experience. There exists an interesting debate in the agile and usability communities about how to achieve this integration. Our aim is to contribute to this debate by discussing the incorporation of particular usability recommendations into user stories, one of the most popular artifacts for communicating agile requirements. In this paper, we explore the implications of usability for both the structure of and the process for defining user stories. We discuss what changes the incorporation of particular usability issues may introduce in a user story. Although our findings require more empirical validation, we think that they are a good starting point for further research on this line.

Adding Usability Mechanisms into Agile Requirements: Tool Support with U-Kunagi

The growing interest for integrating agile methodologies and usability has brought various challenges to practitioners. This research focuses on a specific part of these challenges that is related to the integration of usability mechanisms (features such as cancel, undo, warning, etc.) into agile requirements, usually written in the form of user stories. For this aim, a framework has been developed, conformed first by a well-defined modeling language that aims to formalize previous empirical research in the field, models of the impact of usability mechanisms into user stories, and a tool to help practitioners applying them to user stories. Results show that the use of this framework helps agile developers to think about usability from the beginning of the development process, without needing to be an expert in the subject. Our proposal can therefore complement other usability practices to improve the quality of use of software developed using agile methodologies.

Change-Impact driven Agile Architecting.

Software architecture is a key factor to scale up Agile Software Development ASD in large softwareintensive systems. Currently, software architectures are more often approached through mechanisms that enable to incrementally design and evolve software architectures aka. agile architecting. Agile architecting should be a light-weight decision-making process, which could be achieved by providing knowledge to assist agile architects in reasoning about changes. This paper presents the novel solution of using change-impact knowledge as the main driver for agile architecting. The solution consists of a Change Impact Analysis technique and a set of models to assist agile architects in the change -decision-making- process by retrieving the change-impact architectural knowledge resulting from adding or changing features iteration after iteration. To validate our approach, we have put our solution into practice by running a project of a metering management system in electric power networks in an i-smart software factory.