Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Challenges of Scaled Agile for Safety-Critical Systems

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Book cover Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 11915))

Abstract

Automotive companies increasingly adopt scaled agile methods to allow them to deal with their organisational and product complexity. Suitable methods are needed to ensure safety when developing automotive systems. On a small scale, R-Scrum and SafeScrum® are two concrete suggestions for how to develop safety-critical systems using agile methods. However, for large-scale environments, existing frameworks like SAFe or LeSS do not support the development of safety-critical systems out of the box. We, therefore, aim to understand which challenges exist when developing safety-critical systems within large-scale agile industrial settings, in particular in the automotive domain. Based on an analysis of R-Scrum and SafeScrum®, we conducted a focus group with three experts from industry to collect challenges in their daily work. We found challenges in the areas of living traceability, continuous compliance, and organisational flexibility. Among others, organisations struggle with defining a suitable traceability strategy, performing incremental safety analysis, and with integrating safety practices into their scaled way of working. Our results indicate a need to provide practical approaches to integrate safety work into large-scale agile development and point towards possible solutions, e.g., modular safety cases.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.scaledagileframework.com/.

  2. 2.

    https://less.works/less/framework/index.html.

  3. 3.

    See, e.g., https://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/DigitalHealth/DigitalHealthPreCertProgram/ucm584020.htm.

References

  1. Althammer, E., Schoitsch, E., Sonneck, G., Eriksson, H., Vinter, J.: Modular certification support – the DECOS concept of generic safety cases. In: 6th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics, pp. 258–263, July 2008. https://doi.org/10.1109/INDIN.2008.4618105

  2. Antonino, P.O., Trapp, M.: Improving consistency checks between safety concepts and view based architecture design. In: PSAM12, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA 282 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Broy, M., Krüger, I.H., Pretschner, A., Salzmann, C.: Engineering automotive software. Proc. IEEE 95(2), 356–373 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cleland-Huang, J., Gotel, O.C., Huffman Hayes, J., Mäder, P., Zisman, A.: Software traceability: trends and future directions. In: Proceedings of the on Future of Software Engineering, pp. 55–69. ACM (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Cleland-Huang, J., Vierhauser, M.: Discovering, analyzing, and managing safety stories in agile projects. In: IEEE 26th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), pp. 262–273, August 2018. https://doi.org/10.1109/RE.2018.00034

  6. Denney, E., Pai, G.: Towards a formal basis for modular safety cases. In: Koornneef, F., van Gulijk, C. (eds.) SAFECOMP 2015. LNCS, vol. 9337, pp. 328–343. Springer, Cham (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24255-2_24

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. Ebert, C., Favaro, J.: Automotive software. IEEE Softw. 34(3), 33–39 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2017.82

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Ebert, C., Jastram, M.: ReqIF: seamless requirements interchange format between business partners. IEEE Softw. 29(5), 82–87 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Eckstein, J.: Architecture in large scale agile development. In: Dingsøyr, T., Moe, N.B., Tonelli, R., Counsell, S., Gencel, C., Petersen, K. (eds.) XP 2014. LNBIP, vol. 199, pp. 21–29. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14358-3_3

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Fenn, J.L., Hawkins, R., Williams, P., Kelly, T., Banner, M., Oakshott, Y.: The who, where, how, why and when of modular and incremental certification. In: IET Conference Proceedings, pp. 135–140(5), January 2007

    Google Scholar 

  11. Fitzgerald, B., Stol, K.J., O’Sullivan, R., O’Brien, D.: Scaling agile methods to regulated environments: an industry case study. In: International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2013, pp. 863–872. IEEE Press, Piscataway (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Gallina, B., Carlson, J., Hansson, H., et al.: Using safety contracts to guide the integration of reusable safety elements within ISO 26262. In: 21st Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC), pp. 129–138. IEEE (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Hanssen, G.K., Stålhane, T., Myklebust, T.: SafeScrum®-Agile Development of Safety-Critical Software. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99334-8

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. International Organization for Standardization: Road vehicles - functional safety. ISO 26262:2011, November 2011

    Google Scholar 

  15. Kasauli, R., Knauss, E., Kanagwa, B., Nilsson, A., Calikli, G.: Safety-critical systems and agile development: a mapping study. In: 2018 44th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA), pp. 470–477, August 2018

    Google Scholar 

  16. Knauss, E., Pelliccione, P., Heldal, R., Ågren, M., Hellman, S., Maniette, D.: Continuous integration beyond the team: a tooling perspective on challenges in the automotive industry. In: 10th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, p. 43. ACM (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Lisagor, O., Bozzano, M., Bretschneider, M., Kelly, T.: Incremental safety assessment: enabling the comparison of safety analysis results. In: 28th International System Safety Conference (ISSC) (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Maro, S., Steghöfer, J.P., Staron, M.: Software traceability in the automotive domain: challenges and solutions. JSS 141, 85–110 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Mukelabai, M., Nešic, D., Maro, S., Berger, T., Steghöfer, J.P.: Tackling combinatorial explosion: a study of industrial needs and practices for analyzing highly configurable systems. In: 33rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Myklebust, T., Stålhane, T., Lyngby, N.: An agile development process for petrochemical safety conformant software. In: 2016 Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS), pp. 1–6. IEEE (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Nair, S., de la Vara, J.L., Melzi, A., Tagliaferri, G., de-la-Beaujardiere, L., Belmonte, F.: Safety evidence traceability: problem analysis and model. In: Salinesi, C., van de Weerd, I. (eds.) REFSQ 2014. LNCS, vol. 8396, pp. 309–324. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05843-6_23

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. Putta, A., Paasivaara, M., Lassenius, C.: Benefits and challenges of adopting the scaled agile framework (SAFe): preliminary results from a multivocal literature review. In: Kuhrmann, M., et al. (eds.) PROFES 2018. LNCS, vol. 11271, pp. 334–351. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03673-7_24

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Schooenderwoert, N.V., Shoemaker, B.: Agile Methods for Safety-Critical Systems: A Primer Using Medical Device Examples. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Scotts Valley (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Sharvia, S., Papadopoulos, Y.: Integrated application of compositional and behavioural safety analysis. In: Zamojski, W., Kacprzyk, J., Mazurkiewicz, J., Sugier, J., Walkowiak, T. (eds.) Dependable Computer Systems. AINSC, vol. 97, pp. 179–192. Springer, Heidelberg (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21393-9_14

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  25. Stålhane, T., Myklebust, T., Hanssen, G.: The application of safe scrum to IEC 61508 certifiable software. In: 11th International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management Conference and the Annual European Safety and Reliability Conference, pp. 6052–6061 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Wilson, A., Preyssler, T.: Incremental certification and integrated modular avionics. IEEE Aerosp. Electron. Syst. Mag. 24(11), 10–15 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Zimmer, B., Bürklen, S., Knoop, M., Höfflinger, J., Trapp, M.: Vertical safety interfaces – improving the efficiency of modular certification. In: Flammini, F., Bologna, S., Vittorini, V. (eds.) SAFECOMP 2011. LNCS, vol. 6894, pp. 29–42. Springer, Heidelberg (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24270-0_3

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

We thank all participants in our focus group for their insights and their engagement. This work was supported by Software Center (www.software-center.se).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Division, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers | University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Jan-Philipp Steghöfer, Eric Knauss, Jennifer Horkoff & Rebekka Wohlrab

Authors
  1. Jan-Philipp Steghöfer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Eric Knauss
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jennifer Horkoff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Rebekka Wohlrab
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan-Philipp Steghöfer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier Franch

  2. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Tomi Männistö

  3. Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Silverio Martínez-Fernández

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Steghöfer, JP., Knauss, E., Horkoff, J., Wohlrab, R. (2019). Challenges of Scaled Agile for Safety-Critical Systems. In: Franch, X., Männistö, T., Martínez-Fernández, S. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11915. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35333-9_26

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35333-9_26

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-35332-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-35333-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation