Agile Software Development with HP Agile Manager

User story management is a critical aspect of agile software development, as it involves understanding and prioritizing the needs of stakeholders, and translating them into actionable tasks for development teams. Furthermore, the identification of new activities within products is crucial for enhancing software quality assurance, and user story management is a crucial component of agile software development and software testing. Reusing manually written test steps would be a waste of time and effort for the testers because requirements in agile software development are continually changing and eventually becoming out-dated. Therefore, developers need to implement the necessary functions and write test steps for user stories to determine the desired behaviour or desired result of the program. In an agile world, the user story is the link between the customer and the development team, as well as the main pillar on which the development team relies to understand the product requirements. Therefore, developers need to implement the necessary functions and write test steps for user stories to determine the desired behaviour or desired result of the program. Since agile testing can detect defects early in the software life cycle and deliver a high-quality product, we propose our approach to generating test cases using natural language processing to analyse the user story. Therefore, Neural Language Processing (NLP) techniques help the development team to obtain clear data and achieve customer satisfaction.

In Agile software development, user stories play a vital role in capturing and conveying end-user needs, prioritizing features, and facilitating communication and collaboration within development teams. However, automated methods for evaluating user stories require training in NLP tools and can be time-consuming to develop and integrate. This study explores using ChatGPT for user story quality evaluation and compares its performance with an existing benchmark. Our study shows that ChatGPT’s evaluation aligns well with human evaluation, and we propose a “best of three” strategy to improve its output stability. We also discuss the concept of trustworthiness in AI and its implications for non-experts using ChatGPT’s unprocessed outputs. Our research contributes to understanding the reliability and applicability of Generative AI in user story evaluation and offers recommendations for future research.

The principles behind the Agile Manifesto begin with highest priority is to satisfy the customer.... It also states that Agile projects should be build around motivated and self-organized teams, which might also lead to more satisfied developers. Several studies indeed report an increased job satisfaction by anecdotal evidence. In this paper we address the topic of satisfaction by in-depth analysis of the results of a nationwide survey about software development in Switzerland. We wanted to find out if satisfaction depends on the applied development method, and, more concrete, how satisfaction relates to other elements in the development process, including the use of various practices, and the influences on business, team and software issues. We found that higher satisfaction is reported more by those using Agile development than with plan-driven processes. We explored the different perspectives of developers and those with a management role and found a high consistency of satisfaction between Agile developers and Agile management, and big differences with using working plan-driven methods. We found that certain practices and influences have high correlations to satisfaction, and that collaborative processes are closely related to satisfaction, especially when combined with technical practices. Applying recursive partitioning, we found which elements were most important for satisfaction, and gained insight about how practices and influences work in combination. We also explored the relationship between satisfaction and personal experience with Agile development. Our results in this analysis are principally descriptive, but we think they can be a relevant contribution to understand the challenges for everyone involved in Agile development, and can help in the transformation to Agile.

With increasing competition in the software market, software companies are using new management strategies to increase their competitiveness. In recent years, with the prevalence of agile methodologies in software development, paying attention to human resources, and selecting and managing talented human resources have become inevitable. This should be achieved by adopting appropriate talent management processes. However, in software engineering, talent management has not yet been seriously considered. Due to the critical role of agile methodologies in human resources, and the authority and freedom of individuals in agile teams, the benefit of talent management in these methodologies is vital. As a starting point, this article tries to provide a concise overview of talent management in agile software development and address the ambiguities and research gaps facing software researchers in this regard. The initial results of this study show that several ambiguities such as appropriate models of talent management applicable in agile methodologies, how to use them, effective factors in talent assessment, and the relationship between talent management and the quality of teamwork are some of the most noticeable research gaps in this area.

This paper discusses features required for agile requirements management tools where requirements are captured in the form of user stories. Few of the leading agile project management tools have been compared to arrive at an understanding of the level of support for the requirements management features. Also, Agile-Scrum practitioners have been surveyed to achieve insight into tools being used for requirements management in the software industry. It was observed that a few key features like user role modeling and Persona, customer feedback are not available in most of the tools. We have implemented a tool called “AgileRE” which has all the basic requirements management features. The tool empowers product owners to create and manage requirements in the form of user stories. The tool allows customers and Scrum team members to collaborate on the user stories. The tool built in cloud infrastructure, is accessed through a web browser interface and has a simple workflow. Some of the key features the “AgileRE” tool provides are: role-based access for product owners, customers, and the agile team, Persona creation, epic and user story management and lifecycle, customer feedback and sign off, dashboard and reports.

This study investigates the crucial function of Application Performance Management (APM) in software development, emphasizing how it affects teamwork, user pleasure, and application quality. Successful APM procedures are now necessary to guarantee the best possible application performance in a competitive environment as businesses depend increasingly on digital solutions. Examining how APM is changing and how it affects software development processes is the main goal of this research. The study's objectives are to evaluate the efficacy of APM methods, uncover important themes, and point out areas that require more investigation. The main issue addressed is the lack of knowledge on the long-term effects of APM on business results and the difficulties that businesses encounter when implementing APM methods. The approach used in this study is qualitative and is based on secondary data collected from industry reports, expert analyses, and existing literature. The main conclusions show that APM is included in DevOps procedures, proactive monitoring is becoming more prevalent, and user-centric metrics are prioritized. Nonetheless, there are still issues with tool selection and use. One of the limitations of this study is using secondary data, which might not fully represent the subtleties of APM practices. The practical implications emphasize the value of implementing cutting-edge monitoring systems and encouraging teamwork. In contrast, the theoretical implications point to the necessity for additional study into the long-term impacts of APM.

Agile development has become increasingly popular among software development teams due to its capacity to deliver and update software rapidly while accommodating evolving requirements. Within this dynamic context, access control policies are critical for ensuring the security of systems by defining who can access specific resources under given conditions. However, identifying and documenting these policies often rely on manual, time-intensive processes prone to errors and oversight. This paper proposes an innovative framework leveraging Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate the extraction and organization of access control policies from user stories and software documentation. The framework focuses on the early stages of the development lifecycle, capturing access control requirements as expressed in natural language artifacts. It comprises two core components: (1) a pipeline for extracting and categorizing access control policies, enabling precise mappings between roles, actions, and resources, and (2) an interactive chatbot designed to support Security Operations Center (SOC) analysts in evaluating suspicious access requests by providing contextualized insights into access policies. By integrating advanced natural language processing techniques with retrieval-based augmentation, the framework aims to reinforce access control mechanisms by improving visibility, and providing contextualized insights for security analysts.

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Context:</i> User stories have been widely accepted as artifacts to capture the user requirements in agile software development. They are short pieces of texts in a semi-structured format that express requirements. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques offer a potential advantage in user story applications. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Objective:</i> Conduct a systematic literature review to capture the current state-of-the-art of NLP research on user stories. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Method:</i> The search strategy is used to obtain relevant papers from SCOPUS, ScienceDirect, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, SpringerLink, and Google Scholar. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are applied to filter the search results. We also use the forward and backward snowballing techniques to obtain more comprehensive results. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</i> The search results identified 718 papers published between January 2009 to December 2020. After applying the inclusion/exclusion criteria and the snowballing technique, we identified 38 primary studies that discuss NLP techniques in user stories. Most studies used NLP techniques to extract aspects of who, what, and why from user stories. The purpose of NLP studies in user stories is broad, ranging from discovering defects, generating software artifacts, identifying the key abstraction of user stories, and tracing links between model and user stories. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Conclusion:</i> NLP can help system analysts manage user stories. Implementing NLP in user stories has many opportunities and challenges. Considering the exploration of NLP techniques and rigorous evaluation methods is required to obtain quality research. As with NLP research in general, the ability to understand a sentence’s context continues to be a challenge.

This case describes the agile management methods for an iPhone software development project. The overall objective was to design a smartphone solution that allowed surgeons access to dynamic Electronic Health Record (EHR) data to optimize their workflow. Three separate organizations distributed the responsibilities. Specifically, the lead organization, Cerner Corporation, collaborated with the University of Missouri Health Care and University of Missouri Information Experience Lab to create the technology. Project goals included increased surgeon satisfaction; improved task efficiency, as measured by time spent retrieving lab and vital sign data on morning rounds; dynamic data accessibility; and increased revenue from new product sales. To accomplish these goals, agile project management was utilized, applying iterative usability methods to create deliverables within a short development cycle. Each development cycle focused on user-centered design principles. Several challenges were encountered related to the user-centered design methods, usability data extraction, academic collaborations, and interface design choices.

Software maintenance is one of the most debated phases in software development process for so many years. Having reputed as the most expensive phase of software development life cycle (SDLC), it utilizes the maximum share of the overall project costs as well as time. Agile software development provides opportunities to assess the direction of a project throughout the development lifecycle. However, it does not ideally map with the existing software maintenance process. One of the highlighted issues is the difficulty for searching of information as well as lack of knowledge to solve the maintenance problems within certain time frame. Thus, the main objective of this study is to improve the governance of software maintenance process in an Agile development team. In doing so, a tool named Axita is developed to assist the software maintenance team for storing of information in central data repository and managing projects in more efficient and timely manner. Based on the literature review as well as mapping between the agile software development and the existing ISO software maintenance process, we also proposed six best practices to better govern the software maintenance process in an Agile development team, to overcome the difficulty of information finding and reduce the time spent to solve the maintenance issues. We believe that our study and findings complement the efforts that have been put forth in improving the way we manage software maintenance thus enhance the efficiency of the software development process. Â

Agile software development has proliferated over the last two decades and become one of the dominant frameworks used by software development companies. Agile development methods and User Experience (UX) both strive towards providing software that meets the users’ needs. The purpose of this study is twofold; firstly, to study the current literature and approaches of integrating UX into Agile software development with the intention of combining it into good development practices for use by Agile and UX practitioners. Secondly, to investigate how UX is integrated into Agile in the South African context thus confirming if literature from studies conducted abroad apply within the South African context. A review of the literature confirms that there are a significant number of publications on Agile software development from a South African perspective (Joseph and Santana 2016; Chiyangwa and Mnkandla 2017; Sebega and Mnkandla 2017; Mudarikwa and Grace 2018). However, there are no publications that have explored UX integration within an Agile software environment. Recent research attempts, such as those by Coleman (2018) and Brosens (2018), are evidence of the growing interest in UX; however, these studies do not provide a higher level of abstraction on Agile UX integration practices. This research presents results of a qualitative study on how UX and Agile can be integrated. UX cannot be quantified or adequately explained by using variables or experiments. The grounded theory research method has been used. It is qualitative in nature and the theory consists of iterative data collection and analysis with an aim of producing a theory. The results of this study highlighted approaches for increasing user involvement in Agile and good development practices to integrate UX into Agile. It also highlighted issues and challenges experienced. This research offers insight for UX/Agile practitioners and adds academic value in the form of a generic framework for the integration of UX into Agile. The framework has been developed through the lens of the Design Thinking paradigm.

In project-based organizations knowledge is a critical resource used to develop and deliver products and services with a high level of quality. Therefore, a systematic and sustainable process is necessary to coordinate knowledge management, project management and product lifecycle. This scenario predominates in companies focused on the creation and maintenance of information systems. This article presents an exploratory study based on a framework that integrates cognitive, managerial, and operational processes in a public Brazilian organization that provides services in the area of information and communications technology, focusing on the construction and maintenance of information systems. Those processes are operationalized by three management models considering knowledge, project, and software development processes. Our proposal aims to understand the relationships between those three management models and their influence on the software development process in the organization under study. Our premise is based on the principle that cognitive management, project management, and software development management must be integrated to fulfill the demands of product development and service provision. The research data was composed of registers of working hours spent on software development and maintenance projects involving 244 people allocated to 5064 projects in the period from 2007 to 2013. The study resulted in the identification of the relationships among the three management models adopted by the organization, with emphasis on knowledge management activities, which were not directly identified, making it difficult to account for and measure them. We established a set of activities connected to each one of the knowledge management model phases. Since those activities were not visible before, our approach contributed to build a systematic process to register and relate activities linked to the dimensions of cognitive processes, project management, and software construction.

In the past decade, there have been a number of notable changes in industrial software engineering, including the movement towards agility. The Agile Manifesto characterizes the term “agile”, and lists a set of principles that form a basis for agile methodologies [1], such as Extreme Programming (XP), OpenUP, and Scrum. There is creation, communication, and consumption of knowledge during (agile) software development [2]. For the success of an agile project, it is crucial that such knowledge be managed effectively. In doing so, an appropriate selection and use of certain tools and technologies can be helpful. In the past few years, there has been a proliferation of Social Web Applications, such as Wiki [3]. Indeed, a number of noteworthy uses of Wiki in software engineering have been reported [4]. However, these studies are largely independent of any software development methodology, and are centered mostly on collaboration. The primary reasons for selecting Wiki for agile software development include the following: (1) the deployment of agile methodologies, especially XP and Scrum, with teams that are increasingly geographically-dispersed, (2) the involvement in sustainable software development by organizations with basic infrastructure and modest budgets for resources, and (3) the need of inexpensive, mature, and widely-available tools for supporting iterative development, by almost anybody, at anytime, anywhere, using almost any device. The purpose of this research is to provide a framework for integrating Wiki for the purpose of facilitating the dynamics of knowledge during agile software development.

Despite of many criticisms, agile software development (Beck et al., Manifesto for Agile Software Development, http://agilemanifesto.org, [1]) philosophy has been proved to be quite successful to increase the project success rate up to a significant extent. The primary reasons behind the criticism of agile are the strong violation of the traditional disciplined software engineering theories, principles and practices. The goal of this research paper is to establish the fact that agility may also be achieved by following traditional process models especially with BRIDGE (Mandal, 2009 IEEE International Advance Computing Conference (IACC 2009) Patiala, India, [2]) process model. Hence, the aim of this paper is to integrate the agile and traditional disciplined software development process models and establish the compatibility between both the approaches. At the beginning, we have explored the objectives and principles of agile software development. Next, we briefly discussed the BRIDGE process model and further justified that--following BRIDGE process model, the philosophy of agile may also be achieved and conclude that BRIDGE model has both the capability of traditional software development process model as well as of the agile process.

Background: Software organizations increasingly need developers with high skills for social interactions. Managers, leaders, and academics need to know the human factors influencing the individuals, the development team, and the software project activities. Despite the increasing number of secondary studies about human factors in Software Engineering (SE) and in Agile Software Development (ASD), there is no study synthesizing which human factors influence software development without a specific perspective from SE or human factor thematic. Objective: We aim to summarise human factors and their influence on SE development teams and ASD teams. Method: We executed a tertiary study. We used thematic analysis to examine the resulting data. Results: We found 29 systematic literature reviews and systematic mapping studies addressing the human perspective in SE teams. We identified 101 human factors and 79 influences grouped in 4 categories (Team member, Team, Project, and Organization). Also, we identified 71 human factors and 60 influences on ASD. The most investigated human factors are Communication, Collaboration, Knowledge, and Motivation. Conclusions: The identified human factors and their influences can be considered most significant by software organizations, researchers, and academics in SE practices. Based on our results, practitioners might propose activities that enhance human capital behaviors that influence individual motivation, agile mindset, team climate, software quality, or agile transition in traditional organizations.