Web-Based Agile Software Development - Report Example

?EASYBUYS REPORT ON MOBILE ONLINE SHOPPING Part A: Agile Approach and non agile model Agile approaches are system methods that are designed to reduceor cut on the cost of change, particularly where significant facts and ideas emerge late in the project and in situations where companies are obliged to acclimatize important unrestrained factors (Fowler and Highsmith, 2001). This for instance, it will be important for EasyBuys’ management who has decided to press ahead with the idea of making their facility for online shopping available on mobile devices. This is because of the fact that mobile shopping application provides similar functionality broadly to their existing browser based on their online shopping system. However, no one in the company, IT department included, is familiar with the mobile application and the different platforms of mobile. Due to these facts, this report will help the EasyBuys’ management and the IT department as a guide through the MOSA project. EasyBuys’ management should pay keen attention on the agile approaches as will be illustrated in this report, which aims to analyze the approaches of agile, their strengths and weaknesses and recommendation for adoption. Agile approaches have emerged so as the changes needed for development may be adopted quickly and with ease. This is in contrary to the non agile approaches which are plan driven and traditional. The main idea behind the agile approaches is to release early the working software via responding quickly to the alterations in specifications through the use of code refactoring, collaborative techniques, customer involvement, and test driven development. There are various agile approaches that can be used by companies such as the EasyBuys, however the focus is the same as they all emphasize on efficiency and effectiveness, and therefore in this report, we will put emphasis on the Scrum agile approach (Glass, 2001). Scrum is a business oriented framework used for managing development of software process. This agile approach was created by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Scwaber. It is an iterative, incremental that uses using rolling wave planning in order to determine, identify and prioritize project requirements. The team, such as the IT department for this report, works on the requirements in a prioritized manner in order to deliver feature of the highest value as possible. Some of the areas that the Scrum approach puts emphasis during implementation include: customer collaboration when doing business, individual interactions when using tools and processes in the project, response to change over the abrupt need by the market, and the working software for reasons of comprehensive documentation (Fowler, 2000). The Scrum agile approach has defined principles and values that the practitioners, the IT department, will have to follow during its implementation as a guide. The Scrum agile approach has various strengths and reasons that lead to great demand by other companies, EasyBuys’ management, included. Some of the strengths that the management are likely to derive from the agile approach include: better management of priorities of change, better business IT alignment, high acceleration of time to market, enhances quality of software, and increasing company productivity. These strengths give the Scrum agile approach an upper hand for adoption and implementation in the company. The approach however demands that, for successful implementation, the project for which the agile approach is being adopted must be planned and defined, executed as detailed in the plan, and the management of the project must monitor and control the results (Highsmith, 2000). For instance, during the adoption of this Scrum agile approach, the EasyBuys’ management and the IT department will, from the outset of the project, work closely with their customers in order to understand the vision for the project, how the newly updated systems will be used, and how the projects support the goals of the business. In addition, this agile approach demands that reliance on tools and processes must be downplayed in favor of collaboration, communication, and delivering high quality systems or software. This may serve as a weakness of the approach; however, they can be handled and adopted. Other weaknesses include the assumption that the cost and time of the project is fixed and the project scope is flexible. The team, IT department, will therefore have to outline the project sequence of release and iterations that need to be delivered at a given time in a period to come and hence creating capability roadmap. The IT department will also need to identify what every capability will offer as a necessary part of process of release planning (Constantine, 2001). As a guide for use of the agile approach, the Scrum approach demands that the product owner, the management, prepares and maintains a product backlog or list of features that they have prioritized based on their business values. The IT department will hence use the list of features to plan the iterations containing subsets of the items product backlog. The iteration or sprint backlog planned is then managed by the team for implementation. In case of any detected defects, they are documented in a bug tracking system and fixed by the development team by reserving some time for debugging activities. This continuous process of debugging ensures that the quality of the products released is always high. An acceptance testing is done by the product owner, the management, after all the project functionality has been implemented and the latest built product presented. Any other defects detected in this stage are fixed upon demand and the project is accepted as completed by the product owner, the management. Scrum has proven productivity, simplicity, and ability to act as a wrapper for numerous engineering practices. These are some reasons the approach has gained popularity and should be adopted by the EasyBuys’ management. As mentioned earlier, no one is familiar with this system in the company (Cockburn, 2002). On the other hand, non agile approaches cannot match the advantages of the agile approaches. Non agile approaches seek to achieve organizational efficiency and effectiveness through anticipating, eliminating or controlling variables in order to eliminate the desire for changes and any costs associated with changing. This is in contrary to agile approaches that are designed to reduce or cut on the cost of change, particularly where significant facts and ideas emerge late in the project and in situations where companies are obliged to acclimatize important unrestrained factors. Non agile approaches such as the traditional development waterfall style are responsible for failures of most projects due to their tendency of eliminating change and costs associated with it. This is as a result of eventual cancellation of any needed change without deploying any useful software. For example, in a study carried out in the UK, out of 1027 projects, 87% failed due to the traditional non agile approach, the waterfall style of management. This non agile approach was cited as the major problem in the projects. In another study, out of 6700 projects, it was noted that 4 out of 5 major factors that contribute to the failure of projects were aggravated by the waterfall model. This included the inability to handle changing requirements as well as the concerns of late integration. The waterfall model is therefore an expensive and risky means of building software systems. This is one reason why many other companies are implementing agile approaches, and the EasyBuys is no exception (Cockburn and Williams, 2000). Part B: Agile approach implementation recommendation As mentioned earlier, agile approaches are system methods that are designed to reduce or cut on the cost of change, particularly where significant facts and ideas emerge late in the project and in situations where companies are obliged to acclimatize important unrestrained factors. This report therefore recommends that the EasyBuys’ management who has decided to press ahead with the idea of making their facility for online shopping available on mobile devices, because mobile shopping application provides similar functionality broadly to their existing browser based on their online shopping system, needs to adopt the scrum agile approach. Scrum agile approach is based on incremental and iterative development focusing on customer iteration, working software, collaboration and responding to change instead of tools and processes following a rigid plan which is what EasyBuys needs now. This approach will fit so well with the EasyBuys’ project which have incomplete requirements and need evolutionary deployment and development (Boehm, 2002). When the EasyBuys adopts the Scrum agile approach for their project, they are likely to benefit in the following ways: highest features of business will be delivered first; their project could be began and in operation even with incomplete requirements; transparent process and simple rules for the company departments and stakeholders, highest level of continuous adaptation, self organization and innovation; and the project requirements could be changed during the process of the project as many times as required by the company. In addition, the agile approach is associated with various strengths on the part of the project implementation some of which have been mentioned in part A, and other strengths include: customer satisfaction, ease of adaptation to requirements of change, frequent product delivery, frequent teamwork, project is build with motivated individuals in the company, encourages face to face communication, it measures progress using the software, maintains a constant pace of the project, focuses on simplicity, focuses on the industrial progress, and encourages self organization, reflection and adjustment (Ambler, 2002). Since no one is familiar with the application, the following guide should be forwarded to the IT department for training and implementation of the application. The Scrum is a lightweight framework of agile project management best suited for the EasyBuys’ management for reasons of managing and controlling incremental projects and change of shopping application. It simple as follows: the management will have to work closely with all other departments in order to determine, identify and prioritize functionality of the system in terms of product features or product backlog. This backlog fixes bugs and non functional requirements. The cross functional team and the management estimates and signs up to deliver shippable increments of software during the successive sprints that lasts for 30 days typically. No additional functionality may be added once the product features or product backlog is committed, except by the team. The product features are then analyzed and if necessary reprioritized once the iteration or sprint has been delivered. However, the scrum agile approach has additional weaknesses and challenges than must be noted before implementation: fear of change, outdated skills by the management, requires specialized skill for implementation, requires an attitude of do it all at once, have a heavy mind set of documentation, may result into office politics and close mindedness, and requires serial thinking, and black and white mindset (Aoyama, 2000). As a summary of the report, there is no need of experiencing trouble with the current application when EasyBuys can change to agile approach. The ultimate aim is to meet the expectations of the customers and satisfy them completely. The agile approach will therefore ensure that the EasyBuys responds quickly to the changes, even when it is late in the software development effort. The agile approach will also ensure a complete satisfaction upon the delivery of the project and software. And undoubtedly, the clients will be happy with the new online shopping application. The IT department will have to train the other departments on the application of the application. This is because agile approach is a team work oriented and focues on collaboration. This may also impact either way on the IT department since they too are not familiar with the application as mentioned earlier. Normally, learning a new skill may elicit trepidation, fear, and excitement on the IT staff. However, achieving the most value out of the practices of the agile approaches often involves increase in discipline through particular practices of software engineering. It will therefore take some time to have these practices learned, and provide support and guidance. In addition, having a plan for adoption and a means of measuring teams’ maturity of agile approaches offers visibility into the required changes overtime. The report therefore recommends that the entire company, including the IT department, goes through training and guidance of application of this approach in their project in order to ensure high achievement of efficiency and effectiveness. Bibliography Ambler, S., 2002. Refactoring for Fitness, Software Development, 3(2), 6-10 Aoyama, Mikio, 2000. Web-Based Agile Software Development, IEEE Software, 2(4), 12-20 Boehm, B. 2002. Get Ready for Agile Methods, with Care, IEEE Computer, 3(2), 6-12 Cockburn, A., 2002. Agile Software Development joins the 'would-be' crowd, Cutter IT Journal, 15 (1), 6-12. Cockburn, L. and L. Williams, 2000. The Costs and Benefits of Pair Programming, XP2000. Constantine, L., 2001. Methodological Agility, Software Development, 2(1) 12-16 Fowler, M. and J. Highsmith, 2001. Agile Manifesto, Software Development, 6(2) 10-20 Fowler, M., 2000. Put Your Process on a Diet, Software Development, 4(2) 11-17 Glass, R., 2001. Agile versus traditional: Make love, not war, Cutter IT Journal, 14(12), 12-18 Highsmith, J., 2000. Retiring Lifecycle Dinosaurs, Software Testing and Quality Engineering, London: Prentice Hall. Read More