Ethics Deconstruction in Agile Software Engineering

Agile software engineering practices, originated in the context of individual software project development, are getting vast attention from enterprises for handling multiple agile software engineering projects at a large program and portfolio level. Adoption of agility at a large scale is a challenging task. The success of agility adoption at a large scale is dependent on the knowledge and skills of people involved. This suggests that agile software engineering education and training remains one of the important factors for organizations pursuing to scale agile practices for large environments. However, the teaching of agile software engineering practices for a large scale poses many challenges to software engineering educators. These difficulties include how to establish and simulate an appropriate large scale software engineering environment. This paper presents learnings from teaching agile software engineering practices for large scale at the University of Technology - Sydney (UTS), Australia. The learnings from this paper can be used by other educators who are aiming to teach enterprise scale agile software engineering practices.

Decision-making is a central activity in agile software engineering (SE), yet research on how decisions are made and supported in agile contexts remains fragmented across models, methods, roles, and lifecycle stages. While prior studies have examined isolated aspects such as prioritization or planning, a comprehensive synthesis of decision-making as a phenomenon in agile SE is lacking. This systematic literature review addresses this gap by consolidating and structuring existing research on agile decision-making and to identify dominant patterns, gaps, and future research directions. A systematic search was conducted in IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, Scopus, and Web of Science, complemented by backward and forward snowballing, covering publications from 2014 to 2024. In total, 42 studies were included and analyzed using a structured coding scheme covering decision models, methods, actors, lifecycle contexts, and research methodologies. The results reveal a strong concentration of analytical and hybrid decision-making models in planning and requirements activities, while decision-making in coding, testing, and operations remains underexplored. Software developers are the most frequently studied decision-making actors, whereas managers are mainly discussed as external stakeholders rather than active decision-makers within agile workflows. The main contributions of this study are the following: a structured synthesis of agile decision-making research over multiple analytical dimensions, the identification of key research gaps in lifecycle coverage and actor perspectives, and the proposal of a coherent nomenclature for decision-making in agile SE. These contributions provide a foundation for future empirical studies and support the development of more comprehensive theories of decision-making in agile software engineering organizations.

Software Engineering capstone projects have been running successfully since 2002 for the final year software engineering (SE) students of the Bachelor of Software Engineering (BSE) Program at Monash University, accredited by Engineers Australia and Australian Computer Society. Agile methods are being increasingly adopted in the industry. In this paper, we describe the objectives of SE capstone projects and report on how our innovative projects for supporting the software engineering projects in undergraduate programs at Monash University have evolved and have been scaled up to support agile SE capstone projects. We detail the evolution from our early innovative software engineering projects in the mid 1990s that have served as catalysts for more innovation in the early 2000, and for scaling up agile SE projects with increasing central technical infrastructure support from the School. More recently, we have adapted our approach with a combination of open-source and commercial tools under academic licence for developing and deploying these projects effectively with agile distributed teams. The paper concludes with a discussion on lessons learnt from our innovative projects in the mid 1990s and from the evolution in scaling up to agile practices for the SE capstone projects from 2002-2008.

Traditional construction techniques have been altered by the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) within the software engineering process, necessitating the use of cutting-edge tools and methods to handle the particular difficulties presented by projects utilizing AI. Agile methodologies, known for their adaptability and iterative nature, have emerged as an ideal framework for managing the complexity and uncertainty inherent in AI systems. This paper explores the intersection of Agile software engineering and AI, highlighting strategies for effective collaboration between cross-functional teams, managing data-driven workflows, and integrating AI-specific tools into the development lifecycle. Key topics include iterative model training, AI networks for continuous development and installation, ethical considerations, and leveraging automation to enhance productivity. Case studies and real-world examples demonstrate the successful application of Agile practices in AI projects, offering actionable insights for practitioners. By bridging Agile principles with AI development needs, this paper provides a comprehensive guide for dealing with the quickly changing field of software design powered by AI.

The use of agile principles and practices in software development is becoming a powerful force in today's workplace. In our quest to develop better products, therefore, it is imperative that we strive to learn and understand the application of agile methods, principles and techniques to the software development enterprise. Unfortunately, in many educational institutions, courses and projects that emphasize agile software development are minimal. At best, students have only limited exposure to the agile philosophy, principles and practices at the graduate and undergraduate levels of education. In an effort to address this concern, we offered an advanced graduate-level course entitled Agile Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. The primary objectives of the course were to introduce the values, principles and practices underlying the agile philosophy, and to do so in an atmosphere that encour-ages debate and critical thinking. The course was designed around three central components: (1) teaching the essentials of how one develops a product within an agile framework, (2) having invited talks by notable industry experts, and (3) having students present and discuss current agile research topics and issues. This paper describes our experiences during the offering of that course, and in particular, the unique perspectives of the class instructor, the teaching assistant and a student who was enrolled in the course.

The traditional teaching-learning processes used by Chilean universities are changing. This document describes two innovative strategies applied to teach software engineering (SE) at two universities in Chile. Teaching experiences are part of our ongoing effort to improve the current teaching-learning strategies of SE in the mentioned universities. In this paper, we describe our teaching experiences using both problem-based learning (PBL) and an agile software engineering methodology, to achieve learning outcomes and to improve students' participation during classes. We present two ways to correlate the activities of a software project; these activities are tasks of a software methodology and an active learning strategy based on PBL. The strategies used to verify the accomplishment of these goals are also detailed.

Many computing students do not receive adequate training in software quality management. Some students do not have the opportunity to practice software process improvement activities even if they do see the topics covered in their course lectures and textbooks. Serious games are gaining popularity as a means of instruction in higher education. Some excellent prescriptive software process simulation games have been created, as well as a few software engineering drill and practice games. In general, these games do not allow students to create agile process models or experiment with process improvement strategies. We are creating a serious game that will serve as a virtual learning environment to allow students to explore agile process improvement practices. Our game is designed as a single-player game where the player takes the role of software team leader and plays against an AI (artificial intelligence) opponent representing the customer's interests and needs. Players are rewarded for developing project strategies that allow for completion of projects on time, within budget, and meet the necessary software quality requirements. It is our intention to create a game with sufficiently detailed instructions to allow instructors to introduce hands on practice with agile process improvement activities without requiring additional class time.

Non-Functional requirements (NFRs) are overlooked whereas Functional Requirements (FRs) take the center stage in developing agile software. Research has shown that ignoring NFRs can have negative impacts on the software and could potentially cost more to fix at later stages. This research extends the Capture Elicit Prioritize (CEP) methodology to predict NFRs in the early stages agile software development. Research in other fields such as the medical field have shown that historical data can be beneficial in the long run. In the medical field it was found that historical data can be beneficial in determining patient treatments. The Capture Elicit Prioritize (CEP) methodology extended the NERV and NORMAP methodologies in previous research. The CEP methodology identified 56 out of 57 requirement sentences and was successful in eliciting 98.24% of the baseline an improvement of 10.53% of the NORMAP methodology and 1.75% improvement over the NERV methodology. The NFRs count for the CEP methodology was 86 out of 88 NFRs which was an improvement of 12.49% over the NORMAP methodology and 4.55% over the NERV methodology. The CEP was used and utilized the EU eProcument requirements document. The CEP methodology utilized the capture methodology by gathering potential NFRs using OCR from requirements images. The elicit part took the NFR Locator plus and takes sentences from documents and places them in distinct categories. The NFR categories are defined from the Chung's NFR framework utilizing a set of keywords utilized for training to locate NFRs. The e αβγ-framework was utilized to prioritize the NFRs. Utilizing the data from previous research of the CEP methodology and extending the CEP methodology to include a decision tree to predict future NFRs. A simple decision tree was utilized to make a prediction utilizing the past NFRs data. If a certain NFR appears three times or higher in the requirements document. It is most likely that NFRs will appear in the next iteration of the software requirements specification. If the NFRs is equivalent to three times it is likely it will appear in the next iteration. If the NFRs is between one and two it is not likely to appear in future iteration. The path can be traced from the root of the tree to a decision tree's leaf (yes or no) that determines whether the NFRs will appear in future iterations. This research showed that using the data available can be beneficial for the next iteration of software development. This research showed that historical metadata can help in predicting NFRs utilizing a decision tree to make a prediction where NFRs appear multiple times in a set of the EU procurement documents can predict the next iteration of software development. The NFRs Availability, Compliance, Confidentiality, Documentation, Performance, Security, and Usability were found and these NFRs are most likely to appear in the next iteration of the EU procurement software.

The central region of Ecuador faces persistent challenges in cattle production due to extremely low temperatures, locally known as frost, which threaten livestock health, productivity, and overall welfare. Farmers traditionally rely on empirical mitigation practices; however, these methods lack scientific validation and often provide limited protection against cold-related losses. To address this issue, a technological prototype was developed to monitor frost-associated environmental variables and deliver actionable information for improved decision-making in livestock management. The system integrates sensors that record temperature, humidity, and wind speed in real time, enabling continuous and accurate environmental surveillance. The software generates automated early warnings that allow farmers to relocate or shelter livestock, adjust feeding strategies, and intensify preventive health monitoring. Parameterized thresholds improve the precision and usefulness of alerts, while the integration of solar-powered operation ensures sustainability, energy autonomy, and stable performance in remote high-altitude areas with restricted access to conventional electricity. From a methodological perspective, the prototype was developed using an agile software engineering approach that incorporated iterative design, sensor integration, and field-based validation with local livestock producers. This innovation represents a significant advancement in technological livestock management under extreme climatic conditions. By combining environmental monitoring, intelligent alert mechanisms, and renewable-energy operation, the system strengthens the resilience of cattle production to frost events and supports timely protective actions for farmers exposed to increasingly variable climatic patterns. Ultimately, the prototype safeguards animal health, reduces productivity losses, enhances resource efficiency, and promotes the adoption of more sustainable, reliable, and climate-adaptive livestock practices throughout central in Ecuador.

Agile methodologies are becoming increasingly common on Software Engineering Teams. Unfortunately, their relation with the security activities is complex to approach, even more complex when the Security Team has strong requirements of independence. This paper shows a case study of a software security testing process, based on the Microsoft Software Development Lifecycle for Agile, on a company moving their Software Engineering Teams from waterfall to agile. The results of this case study show a successful synchronization between the tasks of agile Software Engineering Teams and the independent Security Team.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems currently used by American businesses are unsuitable for adoption by small and medium size Chinese businesses. Cross-cultural issues include not only the obvious localization and interface language differences but also bearable implementation costs, culturally-specific management styles, and financial report format discrepancies. This paper discusses the cross-cultural issues that must be addressed to bridge the gap between American and Chinese ERP systems and presents a case study of an ERP system designed using scrum, an agile software engineering methodology, to meet this need.

This paper explains when and how to integrate aspects of usability engineering in the agile development process proposed by the InterMod methodology. The aim of InterMod is to facilitate the accurate development of high-quality interactive software. This is accomplished by means of agile software engineering activities and continuous assessment in which certain usability evaluation techniques have been suitably integrated. Such integration brings benefits to the early steps of the development process. On the one hand, this integration promotes development tailored to users' expectations. On the other hand, it helps to plan the agile process of activities. In terms of developing a mobile application, the use of prototypes in early stages of the development process has been considered as being quite beneficial for organizing the workflow. Using heuristic evaluations and user tests has also been valuable when grouping evaluations in specific iterations.

The chapter presents and discusses a structured approach to assessment planning and organization. The approach is inspired by Kanban-style notations as well as by the SEMAT approach for agile software engineering processes. It is based on a breakdown of assessments into their essential elements and phases. It is hence more suitable for agile assessment planning than traditional workflow and process models. It allows to define assessment workflows very easily, so that teachers, item authors and staff can focus better on their individual duties. The chapter is organized in three main sections: The first section introduces the breakdown of assessments into their essential elements and phases. The second section demonstrates how to use these elements in a Kanban-style notation to formulate assessment scenarios. It also discusses examples from practical experience in different scenarios. The third section very briefly elaborates on tool support.

Participation from all stakeholders is important in a successful software development project, especially if the development project is complex and has many stakeholders. Identifying the key stakeholders is very difficult in a large community-based open source development project, because a lot of conflicting ideas exist in the community and not all of the necessary stakeholders are represented in the discussions. We analyzed the homogeneity of the stakeholders in the story-test driven development tool community and the diversity of the opinions represented by the stakeholders. We gathered opinions from the agile software engineering community on a list of desired features in a story testing tool. Then we categorize the community using a social network analysis to analyze the consensus building process. The network analysis reveals that the community has several key people with dominant degree centrality in the social network and the tool development community is remarkably homogeneous. Our research shows that a social network analysis is a good way to analyze the characteristics of consensus reached during a product visioning process.

This paper presents the basis of the Agile Governance in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which is based on Agile Software Engineering Methodologies principles and values. Its development was done through a systematic review process, supported by Bibliometrics and Scientometrics methods and techniques, where the Critical Success Factors (CSF) of ICT Governance projects and the principles of the Agile Manifesto were analyzed. Next, through an inductive approach, focused on the convergence between the concepts involved, it was analyzed how agile principles could help to minimize the gap between ICT and business. Evidences of their occurrence were taken through a Conceptual Survey Research. As a result, the foundations and concepts of Agile Governance in ICT were defined and, finally, the development of a reference model was proposed as a future work.