Projeto de um ambiente de desenvolvimento para métodos ágeis

Abstract

The demand for software engineering support environment was evident since the 70s. It was necessary to control the integration between processes, tools and developers in order to increase software quality and productivity. An important concept in this context was Application Life Cycle Management (ALM). It is a model that covers software activities from conception to maintenance. The emergence of agile methods has changed how the software process is viewed, which human values and the way people work together are the key factors while the practices, tools and processes used are second-order. In essence, they provide fast and incremental software delivery, fostering co-operation between supplier and customer during software building. Thus, it is imperative to use appropriate tools to achieve agile project management and impose them on employees. Therefore, research is needed to recognize the importance of software development practices and studies are needed to overcome the barrier of non-use of tools or the use of non-flexible tools and to improve the conservation of the use of MA in software development. In addition, the design of an environment conducive to the context of MA requires research and exploratory studies that combine experiences in industry and academy. In this context, this paper presents a proposal for an ADS project based on ALM principles to articulate the use of Scrum as a management method and software development support techniques, named Agile Development Environment (ADE). In addition, the ADE describes the elements belonging to the environment, its architecture, the development process and the integrations between the elements. The evaluation of the ADE was carried out in two parts, the first a comparison a comparison with previous development environment is also presented. The second part of the evaluation was carried out through a qualitative empirical study, adopting Grounded Theory procedures, from the point of view of experts with experience in the software industry and agile methods. The results obtained from this study provided indications of feasibility of its use and served as a basis for improvements in the ADE proposal.