Proposal Date: 01/09/2017 AIT CASE STUDY Student Name: Semester: Spring 2017 Case Study Title: Scaling up software development process with Agile Methodology. Advisor Name: Course AIT 710 AIT 715 AIT 720 AIT 725 AIT 730 AIT 735 Abstract: In software development, Agile Methodology has emerged as the leading methodology that all firms ought to utilize. With the different innovations, agile is the most reliable means because it addresses issues of cost, speed, changing user requirements and customer involvement. Agile has performed extremely well in small and medium size projects but poses a number of limitations when applied in large scale projects. This research focuses on identifying the current challenges in agile scalability by exploring the problems highlighted in other research works and analyze the existing frame that try to solve the identified problems in agile scalability for large scale projects. Based on the finding of this research, solutions to agile scalability for large scale projects can be outlined and solutions to the current limitations be identified so that future large scale projects can benefit from agile methodologies. Past Courses: Number Name AIT 600 AIT 610 AIT 628 AIT 630 AIT 632 Information Technology Infrastructure Systems Development Process Info Tech and Business Start Info Tech Project Mngt Database Management System AIT 612 AIT 613 AIT 620 Information Systems Vulnerability and Risk Analysis Introduction to Software Security Business Data Communications Semester Grade Spring 2016 Spring 2016 Spring 2016 Summer 2016 Summer 2016 A B A A B Fall 2016 Fall 2016 Fall 2016 B B+ A- FOR OFFICE USE ONLY Proposal Approved: Report Received: Scaling up software development process with Agile Methodology. Problem Description Agile methodology aims at ensuring development team work together as a team to plan, design, build and deliver a software product. Agile is suitable for anyone who deals with delivering software product such as UX designers, Team leaders, Project Managers, testers, programmers and other stakeholders etc. Agile is a unique approach in software development which is used to handle issue of low cost, tight schedules, changing user requirements, team coordination, continuous communication and distributed environments. Software development using agile methodology has proved to be successful in small and medium size project but it has several drawbacks when used in large scale projects. The aim of this research is to identify and understand agile limitations on large scale projects using literature reviews and findings from other scholars. Basing on the research finding, teams will understand how to effectively use agile practices in software development process despite the size of the project. The research finding will be based on the current methods that support large scale projects and the drawbacks that large scale projects experience. Problem Justification The significance of agile methodology in software development over old software methodologies such as waterfall cannot be ignored. It’s therefore essential for large scale projects to tap into the advantage and provide high quality, customer based products which come into market earlier to leverage on the full benefits of the project. Every project face cost constraints and organizations end up spending more than the budgeted cost due the development method. If Agile methodology is used which is known to have cost benefit because of its iterative nature and flexibility to allow some feature to be delivered earlier as the project continues will really have positive impact on the overall performance of the project. It’s also important to manage risks in a project and the clear visibility of small increments in agile methodology are known to both the project owner and the development team which help in risk reduction. Despite the numerous advantages associated with agile development, only small and medium scale projects have benefited fully from using agile. Large scale projects are yet to enjoy this benefits because of the challenges faced when implementing agile methodology. This challenges faced by large scale projects leads to the significance of this research topic where more studies need to be done to highlight the scalability issues of agile and also bring forward solutions of how large scale projects can enjoy the full benefits of agile methodologies. In the undertaking of this project, I’m expected to extensively understand the agile methodology and its different components. The research will also help to understand why agile is a suitable methodology in software development and try to find answers to why large organizations fail to benefits from the advantages of agile methodology. The research is also expected to enlighten my knowledge in software development techniques especially the important factors that are considered when teams are developing software systems. The study will help understand the different challenges that team size, project size and organization size have in relation to project development and the methodology to be used. The success of every project requires proper decision on the onset of the project. When teams fail from the planning phase, the success of the project is a doubt and after this research, I will be able to share my knowledge with developments teams to help them make informed decision in methodology selection accompanied by the benefits the team will ripe when a certain methodology is selected. Agile scalability is a complex topic to handle considering that not much have been written on the topic. The current researchers are focusing on how agile can be extended to large scale project so that the benefits can be enjoyed but still much needs to be done to ensure the said benefits are felt. With the changing market trends, there is need for large scale projects to adopt new agile techniques in-order to remain relevant. The available research work are focusing on the problems of agile scalability and none provided concrete solutions to the problem. That is the gap this research work intends to cover. The research tries to answer the following general question: Is Agile Methodology a suitable saleable software development Methodology? To get answer to this question, the following sub questions will be addressed:  Can agile methodologies be used in large scale projects?  What are the effects of scaling up agile?  Where have teams failed to benefit from the benefits of agile when solving large scale projects?  Has much been done to enable agile methodologies to be used in large scale projects?  What are the current scalability problems with agile methodology especially for large scale projects?  What are the proposed solutions to agile scalability problems and why do teams fail to utilize agile techniques in large scale projects? Preliminary Literature review Purpose: The purpose of this review is to summarize the literature on the scalability of agile methodologies on large scale projects. The review will focus majorly on large scale projects. Search process: Using key words in a literature-searching program, a comprehensive search was conducted on the following databases: National Achieves, Brunswick Canada, Google Scholars, Agile Education database, GI Global and CIPD databases. The search will focus on areas where agile has already been used successfully and what challenges were experienced. In the key word, agile and scalability must be considered. Study inclusion and exclusion criteria: The review will include journals, peer-to-peer reviews, books, workshops, publications and blogs written in the English language and detailed different approaches of agile methodologies and its limitations. The included materials must express how agile has been applied in different level, the challenges that were faced and how they were addressed to achieve the intended goals. Since the research will only focus on small bit of the agile methodology, concern must be given to already done work on agile to help build a strong base of the research. The, presentation abstracts that did not address agile methodology in use at any different level will be excluded. Publications that do not give more details on the issue of scalability either in low scale of large will be excluded. Also publications that are older than 10years from the time they were published will not be considered. The initial search identified 16 studies, but only 9 met the inclusion criteria and will be included in the review. Literature review When Agile was introduced in 2001, it was formed by combining lightweight methods which enabled small teams to work effectively and focus more on customer satisfaction. [1]. Scrum, DSMD, Crystal and XP matched the spirit of Agile as expressed in the Agile manifesto [2] and were all Agile. Agile worked well for small teams and today large organizations also want to use more agile methods in development. Since agile methods are not scalable, the organizations are compelled to use methods extended from the original agile methodologies so as to include large teams, oversight and risk assessments. This is because large organizations concentrate on a single project that may run for years unlike a small team which handle projects that run for few months. [3] The Agile process follows an empirical tactic where a problem’s complexity is accepted and addressed by frequent inspection and constant adaptations. The underlying practices in the various Agile processes implement empiricism through the iterations, frequent inspections and work increments, self-organizing teams, emerging architectures and requirements and user involvements in the development process. [4]. When we speak about Agile scalability, there are two terms that arise, “Scaling out” and “scaling up”. Scaling up is used when agile methods are used to develop large software projects that cannot be handled by small teams while scaling out means introducing Agile methods to large size organizations that have many years of experience in software development [5]. Its not guaranteed that the project fails completely but when results of large scale projects are compared to small size and medium level projects, the results are not the same. Some agile techniques such as crystal-blue are used in large scale projects but they don’t show the true properties of agile [6].Though large size projects also try to use agile techniques such as SCRUM but they are faced with some challenges due the limitations of the agile methods. [7]. Many researchers are currently focused on how agile can be extended in a managed environment and accommodate large scale projects and yield desired results. [8]. The idea of agile being scalable to accommodate large scale projects has been discussed for years and many researchers still continue to find alternatives that can be proposed to make the process more productive in large scale products. [9]. The aim of this research is to find out what has been done so far in agile scalability and the challenges that large project face in using agile. Research Method This research is aimed to employ literature review methodology to understand the works so far done in trying to make agile scalable. Literature review is an important tool as it provides a good foundation for the one to explore the chosen topic. Literature review gives an over of specific areas of interest and is composed of a collection of views from other writings by researchers and scholars, journal and publications. The major aim of this method in research is combine all this writing together and help the researcher to analyze the topic in-depth and get significant details. For this, research literature review will also be used to show that the student clearly understands the research topic by sharing his/her knowledge in the area of interest. In this research, no data is collected but we will base all facts from literature reviews. Preliminary Schedule Activities Topic selection Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). Introduction to the topic Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). Abstract Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). Literature review Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). Topic coverage Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). methodologies Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). Analysis Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). recommendation Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). conclusion Meeting with Advisor (Email/phone/face-to-face). Review Bibliography/Reference Estimated Time (in hours) 8 Half an Hour 14 Half an Hour 12 Half an Hour 16 Half an Hour 13 Half an Hour 22 Half an Hour 23 Half an Hour 9 Half an Hour 7 Half an Hour 16 Dates [1] Matthew Heusser, "CIO," 21 Aug 2015. [Online]. Available: http://www.cio.com/article/2974436/agile-development/comparing-scaling-agileframeworks.html. [2] Jim Highsmith, "The Agile Manifesto," 11-13 February 2001. [Online]. Available: http://agilemanifesto.org/history.html. [3] Abrahasson, Pekka, "Agile Software Development Methods," p. 107p, 2010. [4] Ken Schwaber, "Waterfall methodology," 15 September 15 2002. [Online]. Available: http://jeffsutherland.org/scrum/Schwaber_on_CMM.html. [5] Alistair, C, Software Engineering, Alistair Cockburn., 2001. [6] Dan, T., & Robert, F, "Limitations of agile software processes," International Conference On Extreme Programming and Flexible Processes In Software Engineering, 2002. [7] Ville T., Maria & Casper, "A mixed-method study of the planning process of a," in International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and , 2013. [8] Brian Fitzgerald,Donal O'Brien & Klaas-Jan Stol, "Scaling agile methods to regulated environments," Piscataway, University of Limerick, Ireland, 2013. [9] Erik Moore, "Scaling Agile: Finding your Agile Tribe," Siemens med, USA, 2008. I, __________ propose to complete this project during the __Spring __ semester of __2017__ and understand that this project and its derived materials (e.g., source code, written reports, presentation slides) are to reflect my own work, unless explicitly and appropriately referenced. Furthermore, I understand that plagiarism or other unattributed use of material not written by me is completely unacceptable, and will be considered sufficient cause for a failing grade on the project. Student’s Signature: ______ Instructor’s Signature: _____________________ Graduate Program Director’s Signature: ______________________________
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