Combining Behaviour-Driven Development with Scrum for Software Development in the Education Domain

When developing a Learning Management System (LMS) using Scrum, we noticed that it was quite often necessary to redefine some system behaviour scenarios, due to ambiguities in the requirement specifications, or due to misinterpretations of stories reported by the Product Owners (POs). The definition of test suites was also cumbersome, resulting in test suites that were incomplete or did not at all comply with the system requirements. Based on this experience and to deal with these problems, in this paper, we propose the ScrumOntoBDD approach to agile software development, which combines Scrum, ontologies and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD). This approach is centred on the concepts and techniques of Scrum and BDD and focuses on the planning and analysis phases of the software life cycle, since the BDD tools currently provide little support to these phases, while most of the problems during the LMS development were found exactly there. We claim that our approach improves the software development practices in this respect. Furthermore, ScrumOntoBDD employs ontologies in order to reduce ambiguities intrinsic to the use of a natural language as a BDD ubiquitous language. In this paper, we illustrate and systematically evaluate our approach, showing that it is beneficial since it improves the communication between members of an agile development team.

In this paper we propose to apply domain ontologies in agile software development to reduce the ambiguity caused by using natural language as ubiquitous language to report user stories. To justify and demonstrate our approach, we present a case study that combines Scrum and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) in the development of an educational support system, which was built to support the activities of the Medicine Programme of Federal University of Sao Carlos (UFSCar) in Brazil. Starting from a reference ontology for the Higher Education domain, we gradually specialized this ontology for this programme. Since we selected the Evaluation Management module of this system for our case study, we applied the Evaluation Process Ontology to that programme, and defined user stories to identify the feature set to be implemented. For evaluation and validation purposes, we assessed the quality of all ontologies used in this work according to structural and functional dimensions.

IntroductionThe aim of the paper is to present critical factors of a successful implementation of the Scrum method, based on an example of one of IT companies. The Scrum method is the most popular and the most rapidly growing method among the agile methodologies: 56% of agile practitioners use Scrum in their projects [VersionOne 2015, p. 9]. Agile approach means, generally, more flexible project planning and execution, with more emphasize on the constant contact with the customer, which in most cases leads to a higher customer satisfaction [PMBoK 2013; Goldman, Nagel & Preiss 1995; Highsmith 2002; MacCormack 2001, pp. 75-84; Manifesto for Agile Software Development 2001]. In traditional way of project management, the process of product development was divided into some sequential phases. In this model, the customer defined all requirements at the beginning of development process. Agile methods (for e.g. Scrum) are excluded sequential of phases in project and focus on relationship with customer [Takeuchi, Nonaka 1986; Schwaber & Sutherland 2013].Using literature review and the case study method, the authors of this paper attempted to analyze the factors which may help or disturb in the introduction of the Scrum in an organization and propose a model of their classification.The paper consists of five sections. The first one is the introduction. The second one presents a review of the current knowledge about Scrum and classification of critical factors of agile methodologies implementation. The third and the fourth sections show our research method and findings. The identified critical factors are described, basing on the proposed model. The last section is composed of conclusions.1.Theoretical backgroundThis section present review of the literature, to present current knowledge of researched field of study. The Scrum method and models of classification of critical factors for implementation of agile methodologies are described. Finally, the proposed by authors model of classification is presented.1.1.Scrum methodThe Scrum was presented in 1995 by Ken Schwaber at OOPSLA conference in Austin [Rubin 2013], but foundations of Scrum were appearing in the eighties [Pham & Pham 2012; Rubin 2013]. Schwaber & Sutherland [2013] suggested that a key to success in Scrum is descended from experiences and create vital part of know how in company.The Scrum is based on the empiricism, which is achieving by some qualities. Surveyed the literature on, the qualities, which build empiricism in Scrum are a clarity in each process, an inspection to detect problems in project and an adaptation to change [Schwaber & Sutherland 2013].Scrum consists of three main elements, which are presenting below [Schwaber & Sutherland 2013, pp. 4-15]:1. Roles - there are four main roles: (1) The Scrum Team - consist of Scrum Master, Development Team and Product Owner. (2) The Scrum Master - the person, who is responsible for understanding and using the values and rules of Scrum by Development Team and Product Owner. The main duties of Scrum Master is to serve for Scrum Team to achieve project aims. Scrum Master is not traditional manager, she/he is more like a counselor, who build the relationship with team members based on trust and cooperation [Schwaber 2004]. (3) The Product Owner - the person who knows the business case associated with the project. The main duties of Product Owner is to control the Product Backlog. Schwaber, Sutherland [2013] emphasize that Product Owner should have a decision-making power to make decisions on behalf of company. (4) The Development Team - developed the product according to requirements. Development Team is 'self-organizing', which means that it has a high degree of autonomy.2. Artifacts - are the material or immaterial results of the work. In the literature, the authors reefers to: (1) Product Backlog - determines scope and list of features which should be implemented during the project. …

This paper explores practitioner descriptions of agile method tailoring in large-scale offshore or outsourced enterprise projects. Specifically, tailoring of the product owner role is discussed. The product owner identifies and prioritizes customer requirements. But in globalized projects, the product owner must reconcile large numbers competing business interests and generate prioritized requirements for many development teams. The study comprises 8 international companies in London, Bangalore and Delhi. Interviews with 46 practitioners were conducted between February 2010 and May 2012. A grounded theory approach was used to identify that product owner teams comprise nine roles: Groom, Prioritizer, Release Master, Technical Architect, Governor, Communicator, Traveler, Intermediary and Risk Assessor. These product owner roles arbitrate between conflicting customer requirements, approve release schedules, make architectural design decisions, provide technical governance and disseminate information across teams. Understanding these roles will help agile coaches guide large scale agile teams.

Is business domain language support beneficial for creating test case specifications: A controlled experiment

Point of Sales is a system used to make sales transactions. MPC Computers is a retail that sells computer accessories. But in its operation MPC Computer still applies a manual system, so that the services provided are not optimal. Reporting that requires a long time makes it difficult for store owners to determine inventory for the future because the information is not detailed, this results in reduced performance. In dealing with this, a Point of Sales application is made with the SCRUM agile method. This method was chosen because it is fast and light in application development and has a vision of high value products in creativity and productivity. There are three roles in the development of SCRUM, namely the Product Owner, SCRUM Master and Development Team. The Product Owner will define the business requirements needed, then from those needs transformed into a product backlog facilitated by the SCRUM Master, the Product Backlog will be transformed back into a sprint backlog that will be developed by the Development Team. During the execution the requirements can change and be flexible with the consequences of development being disturbed. The output of SCRUM is an application that will provide various modules such as purchasing, sales, inventory and reporting. The goal is to control the number of store inventory assets. So that stores can improve service, get detailed information, save time, and reduce costs.

The past two decades have witnessed an unrelenting expansion of management education around the world. At the same time, however, influential scholars—Mintzberg, Bennis, Pfeffer, and others—have leveled pointed critiques at these programs questioning their quality and relevance, as well as their approach to teaching and learning. In the present era of globalization, information technology is really an opportunity for the management education system in Vietnam to convert it to be globally competitive through world-class quality. The present management education model in Vietnam drags the features of the British model designed by the British to train the natives as “OGA,” enabling them to run the administration of the country at that time. Now the management or business education system has changed. Many modern business schools introduced several features in the management education system as replacing the traditional model of curriculum-teacher-student by problem-coach-problem solver, moral education, competence-based techniques approach, etc. This chapter explores and integrated approach to problem-based learning in Vietnam.

In this work, we describe two of our experiences applying BDD: one at a large publisher of financial information and business news, and the other in a secure collaboration platform vendor. The team composition involves both a local team and an external service provider. We analyze two adoption processes, one driven by the product team, and the other driven by the development team. We cover the communication benefits and impacts on areas such as stakeholder alignment, software design, code refactoring, and bug fixing. We also discuss lessons learned, caveats and how we plan to expand this practice in the future.

Beginning Application Lifecycle Management is a guide to an area of rapidly growing interest within the development community: managing the entire cycle of building software. ALM is an area that spans everything from requirements specifications to retirement of an IT-system or application. Because its techniques allow you to deal with the process of developing applications across many areas of responsibility and across many different disciplines, the benefits and effects of ALM techniques used on your project can be wide-ranging and pronounced. In this book, author Joachim Rossberg will show you what ALM is and why it matters. He will also show you how you can assess your current situation and how you can use this assessment to create the road ahead for improving or implementing your own ALM process across all of your team's development efforts. Beginning Application Lifecycle Management can be implemented on any platform. This book will use Microsoft Team Foundation Server as a foundation in many examples, but the key elements are platform independent and you'll find the book written in a platform agnostic way. Inside this book, you will: Learn what application lifecycle management is, and why it matters. Understand the steps necessary for implementing an ALM process. Find tips and techniques you can use to gain control of your development efforts.

With the continuous expansion of universities and colleges scale, the reform of higher education teaching mode and the construction of ‘Double First-class’ universities, the complexity and diversity of educational administration business logic are also increasing, and the existing educational administration system can not meet the needs. In order to improve the educational management level of the college and improve the efficiency of educational management, the development of software and hardware related to educational management is in full swing. The educational management system based on biometric technology is born. The system provides hardware services based on biometrics technology and software services based on mobile terminal technology to provide convenient and efficient services for teachers and students.

The interest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) based systems has been gaining momentum at a fast pace, both for software development teams and for society as a whole. This work aims to identify the guidelines and ethical principles for systems based on Artificial Intelligence. Design Science Research methodology was adopted in order to understand the various guidelines and principles existing in the literature. From the current landscape, a body of knowledge in the field of AI ethics is presented, with the purpose of supporting developers and Product Owners in identifying the guidelines and ethical principles in the literature so that they can be used during the software development process. Thus, this work will contribute to the various stakeholders in the development of ethical systems in the context of AI, such as: policy makers, ethicists, users, organizations, data scientists, development teams, among others.

Diponegoro University Property (BMU) requires an inventory process by the assets and logistics division at least once every five years. The inventory process is still manually. So it is necessary to develop an Integrated Asset Management Information System Inventory Module. The development of an information system that used the Big Bang and Use Case Points method, in this study the Agile method with Scrum Framework will be implemented based on considerations. Scrum as a framework that implements Sprints to break down complexity and accommodate priority features that need to be built from an information system, also divides the roles in implementing development into Product Owner, Developer Team and Scrum Master. The results of implementing this method can be a solution to several problems that arise during development, that is : dividing roles with existing teams, accepting all updates and changes originating from user evaluations through mutual agreement, work transparency which can be a reference in assigning the workload of each team members, regular periodic inspections to remind each member of development targets and goals, as well as adapt to implementing conditions, especially in adjusting communication and implementation times. So make information system development time can implemented shorter.

Background: In Agile Software Development context, Requirements Engineering (RE) is an important process that happens continuously during the iterations of a product. To be able to deliver value, the teams should perform requirements validation to assure that they meet user’s expectations, and also foster the collaboration between stakeholders and developers. Despite this understanding, there are still few studies that provide empirical data that make it possible to generalize the aspects, practices, and difficulties found by the teams that perform validation of agile requirements. Goal: The goal of this work is to understand how the requirements validation activities are being put in practice by companies of the Brazilian software industry that adopt agile methodologies. Method: We carried out an online survey, involving 117 participants. Our instrument focused on identifying the most used requirements artefacts, and what are the main difficulties in adopting these practices. Results: The results of our study reported that (i) user stories and prototypes are the most used artefacts, (ii) teams usually validate requirements by running systematic refinement meetings, and (iii) the development team and Product Owner are the most popular roles that attend to these sessions. Conclusion: The analysis reveals that agile teams are running requirements validation sessions as part of their development processes but they still face general RE problems, like the lack of stakeholders engagement or stakeholders that have different business visions of the same product. These results also contribute with information that allows future studies focused on the improvement of agile requirements validation.

Effective communication is a success factor when developing software projects in both a local and geographically distributed environment (Global Software Development, GSD). The communication problems that arise between the development team and the product owner, as well as in the sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review and sprint retrospective events, result in problems of ambiguity in determining requirements. Low customer involvement, low uncertainty definition, or risk identification directly affect the scope, budget, and delivery time of a software product. Likewise, distance, differences between time zones and culture are some current challenges that present communication problems between the members of the work team, which have a great impact on project management. This paper briefly describes a proposal to adapt a strategic communication model that fits the Scrum framework and is suitable for both local and distributed environments.

The educational information resource management system, which is based on SOA, achieves the goal of "change as need" for the system, ensures rapid update of the businesses and functions, improves the services of reuse, shortens the system development cycle, and cuts down the developed costs. This paper firstly analyzed the current educational resources management system, and found the existing problems, so it is suggested to developed resource management system based on the SOA, and it also demonstrates the advantages of the SOA based resource management system. Then the paper introduces detailedly the Overall design of the educational resource management system based on the SOA, the system functions, and the system business process, and this paper also focuses on the implementation of the services related to the system,services Registration, discovery and call and the key technology of the services combination and flow arrangement.