Get ready for agile methods, with care

This research work explores the trends in formal and agile software development methods. Software development has evolved, from the era of “code and fix” to methods categorized as “heavyweight” and “lightweight”. The heavyweight methods are championed by the waterfall method, while agile methods are considered the lead in lightweight methods of software development. Both methods have proven records of successes and failures. Bridging the divide between them and harmonizing their symbiotic properties has the synergy of creating beneficial and more robust methodology with complementary advantage which is termed ambidexterity. Ambidexterity allows for a high level approach of selecting a methodology on the basis of the problem requirements, and coordinates their independent processes complementarily without conflict. Keywords: Global Software Development, Agile Software Development, off Shoring, Near-shoring, Distribution

The general architecture of the US National Airspace System (NAS) is presented. Background on the overall air traffic control (ATC) system's history is given as prologue to descriptions of the major elements of the NAS Plan, the US Federal Aviation Administration's current effort to upgrade and modernize the ATC system. Technologies central to achieving the planned end-state configuration for each element are characterized in terms of their functional impact and potential benefit. Communications, navigation aids, weather support, surveillance, and maintenance systems are all undergoing significant technology upgrade. Digital processing capabilities and communications technology lead the way in permitting this modernization program to become reality. Significant consolidation efforts are yielding a much more cost-effective, responsive, and flexible ATC environment.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Agile software development methods have been developed and evolved since early 1990s. Due to the short development life cycle through an iterative and incremental process, the agile methods have been used widely in business sectors where requirements are relatively unstable. This paper explains the differences between traditional software development methods and agile software development methods, and introduces the characteristics of one of the popular agile methods, Scrum. Finally, the paper illustrates issues and challenges discovered through an in-depth case study in a company which has employed Scrum for many projects. The insights presented in the paper can be used in organizations that are in the process of agile software development using Scrum.

In recent years, agile software development methods have gained increasing popularity. Distributed software development have been becoming a common business reality also. Software development organizations are striving to blend agile development methods like Scrum and distributed development to reap the benefits of both. However, agile and distributed development approaches differ significantly in their key tenets. While agile methods mainly rely on informal processes to facilitate coordination, distributed development typically relies on formal mechanisms. This paper aims at implementing modular design of software products to identify feature clusters that can be implemented co-located to minimize the communication needs between distributed teams. Presented method is evaluated with simulations that demonstrate how this method can produce 1) lower-risk feasible plans, 2) balanced workload on teams, and 3) provide higher quality feature distributions. Finally, the paper analyzes benefits and issues from the use of this method.Keywordsdistributed software developmentagile release planning

Discussions on agile software development methodologies have a tendency to develop into an argument between proponents of agile methods and proponents of more traditional process-oriented methodologies. The terminology used in these debates is often unhelpful, and in many cases are inaccurate and biased representations. It needs to be accepted that there are no “silver bullets” providing universal solutions (Jeffries, 2001). Bearing this in mind, the decision to adopt a particular software development methodology is a difficult one, and the decision to choose an agile method is no exception. In theory, as in practice, definitions and descriptions of the various agile methods are presented, yet the factors considered in the decision to adopt, or not adopt, an agile method are not addressed. While agile methodologies try to avoid the excessive use of procedures or tools (Beck &amp; Fowler, 2001), one agile methodology, dynamic systems development method (DSDM), does recommend the use of appropriate tools during the development process (Coesmans, 2003). However, it appears that none of the available agile methodologies suggest a tool to assist decision makers at the project initiation phase, therefore, the debate on agile suitability is usually a debate on agile versus traditional methods (DeMarco &amp; Boehm, 2002), rather than an examination of the suitability of agile methods for a particular project. While the “agile debate” rages, individual projects are not adequately assessed prior to the adoption of a method.

Thales is delivering the ground station equipment for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Surveillance Broadcast Services (SBS) Program which is part of the FAA Next Generation Air Traffic System (NGATS or NextGen). Demanded by the constraints and requirements laid out in the FAA essential and critical services specification, this new generation of automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) ground station equipment provides significantly higher performance and flexibility than its already successful predecessor AS680. This paper presents background, function, and performance of the new equipment generation.

Exposure to Flame Retardants in Commercial Aircraft

Rapid change and increasing software criticality drive successful development and acquisition organizations to balance the agility and discipline of their key processes. The emergence of agile methods in the software community is raising the expectations of customers and management, but the methods have shortfalls and their compatibility with traditional plan-driven methods such as those represented by CMMI, ISO-15288, and UK-DefStan-00-55 is largely unexplored.This tutorial pragmatically examines the aspects of agile and plan-driven methods and provides an approach to balancing through examples and case studies.

Rapid change and increasing software criticality drive successful development and acquisition organizations to balance the agility and discipline of their key processes. The emergence of agile methods in the software community is raising the expectations of customers and management, but the methods have shortfalls and their compatibility with traditional plan-driven methods such as those represented by CMMI, ISO-15288, and UK-DefStan-00-55 is largely unexplored.This tutorial pragmatically examines the aspects of agile and plan-driven methods and provides an approach to balancing through examples and case studies.

Software development depends on various factors and organizational culture is one of them. Recently agile software development, with its emphasis on agility, has received much attention. Research so far has focused on the constructs that define agility and also identified the reasons that limit teams from exhibiting all the constructs of agile software development. This lead to re-defining agility by using economic, quality, simplicity and the relationship with the environment it operates on. One of the factors that contribute to relationship with environment is organizational culture. Though relationship of organizational culture and software methods is not new, analyzing the relationship further in the new defined definition of agility can provide deep insights into software development. In this paper a qualitative research method of multiple case-studies consisting of 3 releases of one product development team was selected. Data was collected using participant-observation method. Research findings have identified some useful insights that could provide researchers and practitioners to develop software development life-cycle that incorporates existing agile methods and uses diverse set of methods to resolve issues including organizational issues. Thereby the new software development life-cycle would not distinguish between agile and plan-driven development methods and could shape itself in the changing context.

Agile software development methods have become increasingly popular since the late 1990s, and may offer improved outcomes for software development projects when compared to more traditional approaches. However there has previously been little published empirical evidence to either prove or disprove this assertion. A survey carried out in March 2006 gathered responses from a large number of software development professionals who were using many different methods, both traditional and agile. A statistical analysis of this data reveals that agile methods do indeed improve outcomes from software development projects in terms of quality, satisfaction, and productivity, without a significant increase in cost. However, adoption of methods appears to involve a high degree of adaptivity, with many methods being used in combination and sets of techniques being adopted on an ad hoc basis. In this context, our analysis suggests that choosing specific combinations of methods can be particularly beneficial. However, we also find that successful adoption of an agile method is to some extent dependent on rigorous integration of certain core techniques.

Military-industrial complexes of many countries have invested billions of dollars in the industry over 120 years of development and have achieved significant progresses in the creation of surface, water and underwater equipment. Groups of military unmanned vehicles include unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), deck-based UAVs, water, underwater and hybrid unmanned vehicles (UAVs). Their purpose is intelligence, surveillance, strategic research projects, and military transport purposes. As for the civilian use of unmanned vehicles, this is a young industry, it is 15 years old. The beginning of the era of non-military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and then unmanned floating vehicles (UAVs) is considered to be 2006, when the US Federal Aviation Administration allowed the flights of small custom drones. At the same time, they were given a definition: a device that is remotely controlled by an operator; a device that moves along a pre-planned route. Unmanned vehicles the use of which for the purposes of the forest complex of our country is carried out or is planned to begin in the near future must meet some special requirements that are discussed in this article.

Fluorinated halon replacement agents in explosion inerting

Forecasting (aggregate) demand for US commercial air travel

This report provides a review of research on air traffic controller selection in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Sweden.The development and validation of the multiple hurdle selection system used by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from 1976 through 1992 is described first.The computeradministered test battery that supplanted the second-stage screening conducted at the