DocumentCode :
1937466
Title :
A Structured Framework for Assessing the "Goodness" of Agile Methods
Author :
Soundararajan, Shvetha ; Arthur, James D.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Comput. Sci., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
fYear :
2011
fDate :
27-29 April 2011
Firstpage :
14
Lastpage :
23
Abstract :
Agile Methods are designed for customization, they offer an organization or a team the flexibility to adopt a set of principles and practices based on their culture and values. While that flexibility is consistent with the agile philosophy, it can lead to the adoption of principles and practices that can be sub-optimal relative to the desired objectives. We question then, how can one determine if adopted practices are "in sync" with the identified principles, and to what extent those principles support organizational objectives? In this research, we focus on assessing the "goodness" of an agile method adopted by an organization based on (1) its adequacy, (2) the capability of the organization to provide the supporting environment to successfully implement the method, and (3) the method\´s effectiveness. To guide our assessment, we propose the Objectives, Principles and Practices (OPP) framework. The design of the OPP framework revolves around the identification of the agile objectives, principles that support the achievement of those objectives, and practices that reflect the "spirit" of those principles. Well-defined linkages between the objectives and principles, and between the principles and practices are also established to support the assessment process. We assess the adequacy of an agile method by traversing the linkages in a top-down fashion. That is, given the set of objectives espoused by the agile method, we follow the linkages downward to ensure that the appropriate principles are enunciated, and that the proper practices are expressed. We assess the capability of an organization to implement its adopted method and the effectiveness of that implementation by using both a top-down and bottom-up traversal of the linkages. The bottom-up assessment, however, is predicated on the identification of people, process, project and product properties associated with each practice that attest to the presence and implementation of that practice. We refer to each prac- - tice, property pair as an indicator. By following the linkages upward from the indicators, we can infer the use of proper principles and the achievement of desired objectives.
Keywords :
software prototyping; agile method; bottom-up assessment; goodness assessment; objectives, principles and practices framework; organizational objectives; structured framework; Capability maturity model; Couplings; Measurement; Object recognition; Organizations; Programming; Software; Agile Assessment; Assessing Adequacy; Capability; Effectiveness; Indicators; Linkages between Objectives; Practices; Principles;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Engineering of Computer Based Systems (ECBS), 2011 18th IEEE International Conference and Workshops on
Conference_Location :
Las Vegas, NV
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-0065-1
Electronic_ISBN :
978-0-7695-4379-6
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/ECBS.2011.26
Filename :
5934800
Link To Document :
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