The conventional software development methodologies projects have failed to overcome the problem of volatility in the present project management processes in organizations. This is because they are mostly linear and sequential, imposing a significant challenge when meeting changing user requirements. Volatility in user requirements has been a significant predicament until the discovery of agile project management methodologies such as scrum, Extreme programming, and Future driven development. Volatility originates from the urge of organizations to cope up with varying technological structure and market dynamics (Cockburn, 2002). The conventional software development methods include sequential and linear processes cannot meet changing user requirements, but have shown their efficacy in meeting consistent requirements. These challenges have increased sophistication and inter-reliance of systems subjecting the usual methods to extinction. The concept of agile software development refers to an iterative method employed when determining the necessities of software developments projects with regard to flexibility and intensified interaction. Apparently, agile software development methodologies are more advantageous than conventional methods. The supporting facts to this statement reveal why scrum and XP are increasing emerging as preferable techniques. The main purpose of this is to discuss the criteria used to support the claim that agile software development methodologies are a superior design method. This paper affirms that agile software development methodologies are more effective than the conventional project methodologies because they are simple, iterative and incremental, resulting to efficacy in meeting changing customer requir...
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...plementation of efficient ways that allow development of groupware software. Some of the disadvantages that have opposed the rise to popularity of agile methodologies include insufficient requirements, paired programming in XP, evolution of agile requirements, and product testing.
References
Cockburn, A. (2002). Agile Software development methods join the “would be” crowd. Cutter IT Journal , 6-12.
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Agile project management is an iterative approach to the planning and monitoring of project processes. Agile projects are conducted in smaller tranches called iterations with each of these iterations closely reviewed and critiqued by the project team (employees, representatives of the clients etc.). The knowledge gained from this process is then used to ascertain the next steps of the
Software design and development is a field that requires various skills and abilities. Companies engaged in the development of software should provide an inclusive work environment where the different strengths of their employees are recognised, utilised and respected. Software development involves far more than programming skills. Personnel are required with strong communication, teamwork, attention to detail, creativity, design and problem-solving skills. Different personnel will possess these skills in varying proportions. It is the job of management to foster and encourage the development and enhancement of skills in the workplace.
Wells, D. (2009). Agile Software Development: A gentle introduction. In Agile Process. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from http://www.agile-process.org.
It is well known that the team work is far better than performing a task individually. Such kind of practice plays a very important role in software engineering. A lot of things can be achieved together with the combination of diversified people, as they input different tactics and skills so that the main objective of a certain mission can be accomplished appropriately. Even though teaming up and working for a project is essential and helpful; there exist some issues that could bring interruptions and conflicts in the team.
Scharff C., Gotel O., and Kulkarni V., " Transitioning to Distributed Development in Students’ Global Software Development Projects: The Role of Agile Methodologies and End-to-End Tooling". in Fifth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances, pp. 388-394, 2010
While developing a software many complex activities are required which in turn have dependencies along them. Large software projects require the involvement of programmers, documentation specialists, program managers, architects, database analysts, system analysts, , and trainers and last but not the least testers. Along with their independent responsibilities these persons are also responsible to maintain and keep a check on the software system quality as well.
The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) consists of phases used in developing a piece of software. It is the plan of how to develop and maintain software, and when necessary, replace that software. In 2007 during my hospital’s transition to a new software system, I was fortunate enough to be included in the process. I did not get involved until the implementation phase, but from then on, until now, I remain very active in the process. I decided to highlight the Waterfall Model of SDLC. The Waterfall Model is a “sequential development process” with each phase continuing in a line (McGonigle and Mastrian, 2012, p. 205).
Scrum is basically a framework for agile development. Scrum is a process that is used most of the time during complex projects in software development. It is also a simple yet affective way to manage work. The strategy in Scrum is to divide members into a team and have them work together to achieve a common goal or project. Scrum provokes communication between the members of the teams. This communication is imperative to the success of the project.
Given the time, it takes to develop large sophisticated software systems it not possible to define the problem and build the solution in a single step. Requirements will often change throughout a projects development, due to architectural constraints, customer’s needs or a greater understanding of the original problem. Iteration allows greater understanding of a project through successive refinements and addresses a projects highest risk items at every stage of its lifecycle. Ideally each iteration ends up with an executable release – this helps reduce a projects risk profile, allows greater customer feedback and help developers stay focused.
When comparing and contrasting waterfall and agile, they both use the same type of building blocks for the project: scope, cost, schedule and performance. They both also analyze, design, build, test, and deploy the requirement needed for the end result. The difference in these terms for each method is that when using waterfall for scope, cost, schedule, and performance, it sets the scope up front and then allows the cost, schedule, and performance to change depending on what is needed. An agile method will set the cost, schedule, and performance upfront and then have the scope vary, depending on what the company’s requests are after a working prototype. The waterfall is an iterative method meaning the next step cannot begin until the current one is completed. Once the current step is completed, it cannot be revised in anyway unless the project is scrapped and begin again. If the waterfall method is chosen, then the project team
Schrodl, Holger and Wind, Stefan, "Adoption of SCRUM for Software Development Projects: An Exploratory Case Study from the ICT Industry" (2011). AMCIS 2011 Proceedings - All Submissions. Paper 256.
As more companies that are leading technology are transforming from the traditional waterfall development model to an Agile software methodology, requirements engineering provides a process for software engineers to understand the problems they need to solve (Martin, Newkirk, & Koss, 2014). It is of key importance to understand the customer 's wants and needs before beginning designing or building the computer-based solution, as developing a solution that ignores the customer’s needs provides value to none of the parties involved. Thus, the intent of requirements engineering is to produce a written understanding of the customer 's problem (Pressman, 2010). Work products that are available to communicate this understanding include user scenarios, function and feature lists, analysis models, and specifications. This paper provides an evaluation of requirement patterns, an assessment of problem solving techniques most effective, a descriptive explanation of the patterns that includes a visual taxonomy, and an explanation of how the patterns identified are related.
Agile software development is a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.
When working on software with a certain group of people, the programmer will tend to talk more on what they for the program. The programmer gets a list of things needed for the software. They test the software and then release to the group. This usually happens when the programmer work independently or a small business. In bigger corporations this will not be as likely.