Software Development Methodologies: A Comparative Study Agile Methodology and the Traditional System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

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ABSTRACT

This study examined experiences of decision uncertainty for nine project managers of agile software development teams. Agile software development methodologies differ from traditional, plan-driven approaches in that they allow software requirements and design to evolve during the project rather than be defined at the beginning of the project. Agile methodologies acknowledge ambiguity and uncertainty by accommodating and encouraging change. Transition to an agile development methodology can be difficult for a project manager accustomed to a highly structured plan-driven process. The major conclusions derived from this study revealed that there was an initial period of decision uncertainty and anxiety, but that it was only temporary.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTii

DECLARATIONiii

ABSTRACTiv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background of the study1

Aim of the research2

Significance of the study3

Research Questions3

Research objectives3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW4

Agile Development4

A Generic Software Process Meta-Model5

Evolution of PM-SDLCs5

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY6

Research Approaches6

Case Study Method6

Research Design7

Research techniques and procedures7

Search Technique7

Keywords Used8

Ethical Considerations8

REFERENCES9

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

With the emergence and widespread application of software systems in recent decades, it has become necessary to introduce software development processes targeting different features and paradigms. The number and variety of software processes and software development methodologies has made it difficult to select a methodology for a specific project, or to construct the appropriate methodology through assembling method chunks. Methodology evaluation has hence become an essential task. Apart from the research conducted on analysis and evaluation of software development methodologies and processes, there is still a need for a general multi-aspect framework that facilitates the evaluation of methodologies of different types and paradigms (function-oriented, object oriented, aspect-oriented, etc).

Indeed, the lack of general criteria that target different features is a major deficiency of existing evaluation frameworks. On the other hand, a potential problem in devising a general and multi-aspect evaluation framework is defining a large set of requirement features, as these may be difficult for the user to understand. This may in turn cause the framework to lose its applicability. When comparing methodologies that belong to different contexts, multiple sets of criteria at different levels of detail may be required. Hence, a suitable evaluation framework should offer the possibility of extracting and tailoring a desired subset of criteria that provides the appropriate degree of precision. This can facilitate the selection of methodologies by the user. However, when no specific context is involved, only the general and main features of methodologies can be compared.

To overcome these problems, an appropriate solution is to categorize the set of features at different levels of ...