11738025341 a--2041-2043-NASIR--CO-IMRAN

Sci.Int.(Lahore),26(5),2041-2043,2014
ISSN 1013-5316; CODEN: SINTE 8
2041
GREEN AGILE MATURITY MODEL FOR GLOBAL SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT VENDORS
Nasir Rashid and Siffat Ullah Khan
Department of Computer Science and IT, University of Malakand, Pakistan
[email protected], [email protected]
ABSTRACT: Global software development (GSD) is now-a-days pervasive in software industry aiming to
develop global standard software through geographically distributed skilled teams with reduced
production cost. Due to frequent changes in preferences of developers and requirements of the clients, GSD
developers have reshaped traditional methodologies and trying to incorporate agile practices for quick and
interactive software development. Most of the efforts have been spent on applicability of agile methods in
GSD but there is a dearth of models that define how software can be developed with agile methods using
green aspects in globally distributed projects. In this research paper, we propose a model, GAMM for
GSD, to be developed that will integrate green aspects with agile methods in GSD. The main goal of this
model will be to assist GSD vendors in measuring their maturity towards green-agility for the development
of green and sustainable software using agile methods.
Keywords: Global software development, GSD vendors, green-agility, GAMM
1. INTRODUCTION
Global software development (GSD) is growing rapidly due
to increase in globalization of software business industry [1].
In GSD, software engineers and developers from various
countries having different cultures and time zones are
involved in software development process. Development
tasks are allocated at various stages of the software lifecycle
among the number of participating developers at different
geographic locations. These distributed development players
coordinate through the latest knowledge sharing and
communication tools [2]. GSD offers tremendous benefits
that include access to qualified and skilled pool of software
developers at lower cost, global standard software, business
advantage of proximity to markets, access to quick
knowledge of software developers and the possibility to use
“follow-the-sun” and “round–the-clock” development. As a
result, software development is now a multisite,
multicultural and globally distributed undertaking [3, 4].
However, although GSD opens new doors for global
software business but it also poses a number of challenges
with respect to temporal, communication and culture. These
include hidden costs, lack of client involvement, division of
work at different sites, lack of trust among the outsourcing
companies and lack of software development outsourcing
practices [5, 6].
Agile software development is a new paradigm and
invigorating approach towards software development. It
provides a conceptual framework for undertaking any
software project that is co-located or globally distributed.
Unlike traditional methods of software development, agile
methods attempt to reduce risks and maximize software
productivity by developing software in short and iterative
cycles [7]. Agile methods deal with flexibility by relying on
developers’ skills and their creativity rather than formalized
processes and formal documentation [8]. Thus, agile
methods seek to avoid prescribing cumbersome and time
consuming processes that add small value to software
product and for this reason it is considered to be “just for
enough” methodology [9].
Using agile methods in GSD environment offers many
benefits like constant communications and delivery of
software, continuous integration of software code, improved
project’s quality and efficiency, minimal documentation and
early expert customer feedback [27-28].
Green Software is the development of software, whose direct
and indirect negative impacts on economy, society, human
beings, and environment that result from development,
deployment, and usage of the software are minimal and/or
which have a positive effect on sustainable development.
Green software engineering is an emerging paradigm and is
growing rapidly. Greening in software aims to develop
software with green practices to reduce environmental
impact caused by the software itself [10].
We intend to dig out the green-agile adaption for the
development of green and sustainable software in the
context of GSD. By green-agile we mean the development
of green and sustainable software using agile methods with
integration of green practices.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Research in the area of green-agile is growing. A number of
researchers have worked on agile methods with green
aspects to promote quick and interactive development of
sustainable software [11-13]. Several researchers have
proposed enhanced model of agile methods specifically
SCRUM and eXtreme programming (XP) that integrates
green aspects of software engineering for co-located
software development teams [14-17].
Jeff Sutherland et al. [18] have adapted the most popular
agile method, Scrum for globally distributed projects. They
have proved through case study that outsourced teams can be
productive as collocated team with excellent implementation
of Scrum along with good engineering practices.
Rehan Akbar et al. [19] have proposed a light weight agile
model, named as distributed agile model (DAD) for globally
distributed environment. The model focuses only four of
twelve basic principles, described by agile manifesto in the
context of GSD. The model lacks specific enhancement to
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ISSN 1013-5316; CODEN: SINTE 8
Figure 1: GAMM for GSD development structure
existing agile approaches but it is rather a general agile
approach for web based applications development.
Kirscher et al [20] have proposed enhanced XP for GSD.
This extension has been named as Distributed eXtreme
Programming (DXP). All of the practices available in
traditional XP have been upgraded to work better in GSD
scenario.
3. RESEARCH FOCUS
The motivation of the research comes from exploring how
agile methodologies are adapted for faster and greener
delivery of software product in GSD scenario. Keeping in
view the above mentioned importance of agile approaches
for the development of customer-centric software in short
sprints, there is a need to adapt agile methods in distributed
software development. There is a dearth of new models that
can measure the green agile maturity level of GSD vendors.
Our proposed model will help the GSD vendors to assist and
measure their capability towards agility for developing green
software. With the above mentioned aim in mind, we have
formulated the following research questions (RQs).
RQ1. What are the motivators/success factors, as identified
in the literature, for adapting agile methods to develop green
and sustainable software by the GSD vendors?
RQ2. What are the de-motivators/risk factors, as identified
in the literature, to be avoided by the GSD vendors for the
development of green and sustainable software using agile
methods?
RQ3. What are the motivators/success factors, as identified
in the real-world practice, for adapting agile methods to
develop green and sustainable software by the GSD
vendors?
RQ4. What are the de-motivators/risk factors, as identified
in the real-world practice, to be avoided by the GSD vendors
for the development of green and sustainable software using
agile methods?
RQ5. What are the practices, as identified in the real-world,
to address green agile factors in GSD?
4. METHODOLOGY
Our research design for the development of our proposed
model GAMM for GSD consists of three phases. In the first
phase we will dig out the data through systematic literature
review (SLR). SLR is a systematic way of identifying,
Sci.Int.(Lahore),26(5),2041-2043,2014
evaluating and interpreting all available research relevant to
a particular research question, topic area, or phenomenon of
interest” [21]. SLR is a protocol based review mechanism
for investigating current literature, elicitation of the required
data and synthesizing it in a systematic way. In second phase
of this research project, empirical study in GSD industry, as
followed by other researchers [22-24], will be carried out in
order to validate the findings of SLR and to identify any
other factors apart from the outcomes of the SLR and to
bring out real world practices. Fig 1 depicts the development
structure of GAMM for GSD vendors.
Based on the inputs from the SLR and empirical study the
proposed model GAMM for GSD vendors will be
developed. A similar approach has been used by other
researchers [22, 29]. The proposed model will be validated
through case studies in five different organizations involved
in GSD. A case study approach permits the authentic
representation and provides valuable findings about the
situation to be explored [25-26]. At the end of case studies
focus group session will be conducted with the participants
of the case studies and the proposed model will be molded as
per their feedback.
5. CONCLUSION
We believe that global software development is growing
rapidly as the globalization of software business industry
increases. Despite the evidence that agile methods have been
adapted in software development, its applications in globally
distributed projects still have to gain momentum. Although
green computing strategies have been implemented up to
some extent in software development and a number of
models have been proposed [14-17] that incorporates green
aspects with agile method in co-located environment.
However nobody has worked on the development of greenagile maturity model for vendors in the context of GSD.
Our proposed model is therefore expected to bridge the gap
between agile and green practices in GSD environment. Our
proposed model will help the GSD vendors to assess their
capability towards green-agility for developing green and
sustainable software.
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