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Scaling for agility: A reference model for hybrid traditional-agile software development methodologies

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Abstract

The adoption of agility at a large scale often requires the integration of agile and non-agile development elements for architecting a hybrid adaptive methodology. The challenge is ”which elements or components (agile or non-agile) are relevant to develop the context-aware hybrid adaptive methodology reference architecture?” This paper addresses this important challenge and develops a hybrid adaptive methodology reference architecture model using a qualitative constructive empirical research approach. In this way, we have uncovered the agility, abstraction, business value, business policy, rules, legal, context and facility elements or components that have not been explicitly modelled or discussed in International Standards (IS) such as the ISO/IEC 24744 metamodel. It is anticipated that a context-aware hybrid adaptive methodology can be architected by using the proposed context-aware hybrid adaptive methodology reference architecture elements for a particular situation when using a situational method engineering approach.

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Notes

  1. Abstraction element may be named as ‘mindset’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, 2007, Australia

    Asif Qumer Gill

  2. King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

    Mahmood Niazi

  3. Riphah International University, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Mahmood Niazi

Authors
  1. Asif Qumer Gill
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  2. Brian Henderson-Sellers
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  3. Mahmood Niazi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Asif Qumer Gill.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Hybrid agile product-enhancement process model (Qumer and Henderson-Sellers 2008b)

The hybrid agile product-enhancement process has two main parts: feature generation and product development. The feature generation focuses on the identification of new features for enhancing the product. The product development focuses on incremental product architecture, design, coding, testing, integration and release. This combines both the agile and traditional approaches.

The hybrid agile product-enhancement process was tailored in a workshop conducted in industry in a case study organisation. The following figure is from the process tailoring workshop screenshot.

figure b

Appendix 2: Agile service oriented process model (Qumer and Henderson-Sellers 2008b)

The agile service-oriented process has three main parts: project initialization, project preparation and project execution. The project initialization focuses on the identification of services for the project in hand. The project preparation focuses developing the service backlog and architecture. The project execution focuses on iterative planning, design, coding, testing and release of services. This is a case of abstraction-specific (service oriented) process that combines both the agile and service oriented approaches.

The agile service oriented process, similar to the first process, was tailored in a workshop conducted in industry in a case study organisation. The following figure is from the process tailoring workshop screenshot.

figure d

Appendix 3: Agile values, principles and levels

The following tables show the mapping of agile values, principles and corresponding agile levels that form the agile adoption and improvement model.

Agile Principles

Agile Values

•Early and Continuous Delivery

•Welcome Change

•Frequently Delivery

•Motivate Individuals

•Collaborative Work

•Face to Face Conversation

•Working Software

•Simplicity

•Self-Organizing Team

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Keeping the process cost effective

•Reflection and Tuning

Keeping the process agile

•Sustainable Development

•Enhance Agility

Keeping the process agile

Keeping the process cost effective

ᅟ

Agile Levels

Name

Encourage & Focus

Agile Principles

Level 1

Agile Infancy

Evolutionary

Early and Continuous Delivery

Welcome Change

Frequently Delivery

Motivate Individuals

Level 2

Agile Initial

Collaborative

Collaborative Work

Face to Face Conversation

Level 3

Agile Realization

Simple Results Focused

Working Software

Simplicity

Level 4

Agile Value

People Focused

Self Organizing Team

Level 5

Agile Smart

Knowledge Focused

Reflection and Tuning

Level 6

Agile Progress

Lean Agile

Sustainable Development

Enhance Agility

Appendix 4: Agile values and practices mapping

The following table shows the mapping of agile values and corresponding agile practices distilled from six well-known agile methods.

Agile Values

XP

Scrum

FDD

ASD

DSDM

Crystal

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

1. Sit together

2. Whole team

3. Informative workspace4. Energized work

5. Pair programming

1. Scrum teams2. Sprint planning meeting3. Daily scrum meeting

4. Collocation

1. Domain object modelling2. Individual class ownership3. Feature teams4. Inspection

1. Adaptive management model2. Collaborative teams3. Joint application development by independent agents4. Customer focus group reviews

1. Active user involvement2. Empowered teams.3. Collaboration and cooperation among stakeholders

1. Staging.2. Parallelism and Flux.

3. Holistic diversity and strategy3. User viewings.

4. Personal safety

5. Daily stand-ups

Working software over comprehensive documentation

1. Ten-Minutes build2. Continuous integration. 3. Test-First programming

4. Incremental design

5. Pair programming

1. Sprint2. Sprint review

1. Developing by Feature2. Inspection3. Regular Builds4. Reporting / visibility of results

1. Developing by components2. Software inspection3. Project postmortem

1. Frequent product delivery2. Iterative and incremental development3. Integrated testing

1. Revision and Review2. Side-by-side programming

3. Agile interaction design

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

1. Weekly cycle

2. Quarterly cycle

1. Product backlog2. Sprint planning meeting

1. Domain object modelling.

1. Adaptive management model2. Joint application development

1. Collaboration and cooperation among stakeholders2. Requirements are baselined at a high level.

1. Staging2. Revisions and review

3. User viewing

4. Agile interaction design

Responding to change over following a plan

1. Stories2. Weekly cycle3. Quarterly cycle4. Slack

1. Sprint review2. Sprint planning meeting

1. Domain object modelling2. Configuration Management

1. Adaptive cycle planning2. Customer focus group reviews

1. Reversible changes

1. Reflection Workshops

2. Methodology Tuning

3. Blitz planning

4. Delphi estimation

5. Monitoring of a progress

6. Burn charts

Keeping the process agile

-

1. Sprint review2. Daily scrum meeting

1. Reporting / visibility of results2. Inspection

1. Software inspection2. Project Postmortem

1. Integrated testing

1. Reflection workshops

2. Monitoring of a progress

Keeping the process cost effective

-

-

-

-

-

1. Reflection workshops

2. Process miniature

3. Methodology shaping

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Gill, A.Q., Henderson-Sellers, B. & Niazi, M. Scaling for agility: A reference model for hybrid traditional-agile software development methodologies. Inf Syst Front 20, 315–341 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-016-9672-8

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