Abstract
The adoption of agile software development methodologies may appear to be a rather straightforward process yielding instantly improved software in less time and increasingly satisfied customers. This paper will show that such a notion is a misunderstanding and can be harmful to small software development organisations. A more reasonable approach involves a careful risk assessment and framework for introducing agile practices to address specific risks. A case study with a small software development organisation is provided to show the assessment in practice and the resulting risk mitigation strategies for process improvement.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Boehm, B.: Get Ready for Agile Methods, with Care. IEEE Computer 35(1), 64–69 (2002)
Boehm, B., Turner, R.: Rebalancing Your Organization’s Discipline and Agility. In: Maurer, F., Wells, D. (eds.) XP/Agile Universe 2003. LNCS, vol. 2753, pp. 1–8. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Boehm, B., Turner, R.: Using Risk to Balance Agile and Plan-Driven Methods. IEEE Computer 36(6), 57–66 (2003)
Boehm, B., Turner, R.: Balancing Agility and Discipline – A Guide for the Perplexed. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2004)
Abrahamsson, P., Warsta, J., Siponen, M.T., Ronkainen, J.: New Directions On Agile Methods: A Comparative Analysis. In: Proc. 25th Int. Conf. Software Engineering, pp. 244–254. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2003)
Highsmith, J.: Agile Software Development Ecosystems. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2002)
Larman, C., Basili, V.R.: Iterative and Incremental Development: A Brief History. IEEE Computer 36(6), 47–56 (2003)
Larman, C.: Agile & Iterative Development – A Manager’s Guide. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2004)
Royce, W.W.: Managing the Development of Large Software Systems. In: Proc. WESCON, pp. 1–9. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1970), Available for download at: http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf
Turk, D., France, R., Rumpe, B.: Limitations of Agile Software Processes. In: Wells, D., Williams, L.A. (eds.) XP/Agile Universe 2002, pp. 43–46. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Turk, D., France, R., Rumpe, B.: Assumptions Underlying Agile Software Development Processes. Journal of Database Management 16(4), 62–87 (2005)
Keefer, G.: Extreme Programming Considered Harmful for Reliable Software Development 2.0. In: AVOCA GmbH 2003, (last visited, January 2006), Available at: http://www.avoca-vsm.com/Dateien-Download/ExtremeProgramming.pdf
McBreen, P.: Questioning Extreme Programming. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2003)
Kent, B., Andres, C.: Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, 2nd edn. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2005)
Ruping, A.: Agile Documentation – A Pattern Guide to Producing Lightweight Documentation for Software Projects. John Wiley, Chichester (2003)
http://www.sugarcrm.com (last visited, January 2006)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki (last visited, January 2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Taylor, P.S. et al. (2006). Applying an Agility/Discipline Assessment for a Small Software Organisation. In: Münch, J., Vierimaa, M. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4034. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11767718_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11767718_25
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-34682-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-34683-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)