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Highlights • Mostly of the selected studies analyzed neglected the quality criteria and have difficulties to use methods to synthetize the research results. • The integration of usability with agile software development is possible and is strongly aligned with user-centered design. • Most studies are interested in investigating this relation and the viability of this integration, but there is no consensus established about how to integrate them. Abstract In the last years the interest in developing research on integration of usability and agile software development has been increasing. The number of systematic literature reviews, systematic mapping studies and non-systematic reviews, related to this thematic has also increased. Nevertheless, there is no analysis on the quality of these published secondary studies, nor is there a consolidated research that brings the answer of how to integrate these two areas. The goal of this paper is to categorize secondary studies related to the integration of usability and agile software development and present a critical analysis on the quality of the selected studies. To accomplish this goal a tertiary study was performed to categorize the related studies selected. Initially 3,065 papers were identified and further narrowed to 14 by applying exclusion criteria and analysis. We classified the selected studies as systematic literature reviews, systematic mapping studies and non-systematic literature reviews to report the data analysis. As a result of this study different forms to integrate usability and agile software development were detected as well as the various challenges that must be overcome for the integration success. Six main categories were identified to represent ways of integrating usability into agile development: processes, techniques, practices, recommendations, principles and different approaches. Regarding to the challenges for the integration seven main categories were also identified: issues related to tests, time, work balance, modularization, feedback, prioritization, and documentation. Although the interest in researching the integration of usability and agile software development has increased in the last years, mostly of the analyzed studies neglected the quality criteria and presented difficulties to use methods to synthetize the research results. Despite this, it has been realized that the integration of usability with agile software development is possible and is strongly aligned with user-centered design. The initial studies indicated a separation of activities and roles into specific tracks with parallel work to treat usability in agile software development, but the trend is no longer to manage and control these activities in separate ways, so new challenges are becoming to appear. Although we have identified several points of tension, the integration does not become unfeasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Misinterpretation of the agile values/principles and adoption of partial solutions limit obtaining benefits of agile methods. • Agility assessment is an important step to guide agile adoption in software projects when performed with specific models. • Balancing predictive and adaptive work, and making continuous improvement a part of daily work are key principles for agility. Abstract Adoption of agile values and principles and transformation of organizations towards agility are not easy and straightforward. Misinterpretation of agile principles and values, and adoption of partial solutions with few agile practices instead of holistic approaches prevent organizations to obtain full benefits of agile methods. We developed the Software Agility Assessment Reference Model (AgilityMod) for the appraisal of software projects from agility perspective and to provide guidance on specifying gaps on the road towards agility (agile maturity). The meta-model of AgilityMod was defined in relation with the ISO/IEC 15504-Process Assessment Model. AgilityMod was developed in an iterative and incremental manner by running successive case studies and getting opinions of experts for the evaluation and improvement of the Model. The multiple case study that we present here in detail included the implementation of the Model in eight software development companies. The results of this case study were evaluated by the case study participants. According to the significant majority of the case study participants, AgilityMod achieves its purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Hybrid development models, with the integration of User-Centered Design (UCD), are applied with the aim to deliver competitive products with a suitable User Experience (UX). Therefore, stakeholder and user involvement during Requirements Engineering (RE) are essential in order to establish a collaborative environment with constant feedback loops. The aim of this study is to capture the current state of the art of the literature related to Agile RE with focus on stakeholder and user involvement. In particular, we investigate what approaches exist to involve stakeholder in the process, which methodologies are commonly used to present the user perspective and how requirements management is been carried out. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included studies. We identified 27 relevant papers. After analyzing them in detail, we derive deep insights to the following aspects of Agile RE: stakeholder and user involvement, data gathering, user perspective, integrated methodologies, shared understanding, artifacts, documentation and Non-Functional Requirements (NFR). Agile RE is a complex research field with cross-functional influences. This study will contribute to the software development body of knowledge by assessing the involvement of stakeholder and user in Agile RE, providing methodologies that make ASD more human-centric and giving an overview of requirements management in ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global software development (GSD) is gaining ever more relevance. Although communication is key in the exchange of information between team members, multi-site software development has introduced additional obstacles (different time-zones and cultures, IT infrastructure, etc.) and delays into the act of communication, which is already problematic. Communication is even more critical in the case of Agile Global Software Development (AGSD) in which communication plays a primary role. This paper reports an exploratory study of the effects of tools supporting communication in AGSD. More precisely, this paper analyses the perception of team members about communication infrastructures in AGSD. The research question to which this study responds concerns how development teams perceive the communication infrastructure while developing products using agile methodologies. Most previous studies have dealt with communication support from a highly technological media tool perspective. In this research work, instead, observations were obtained from three perspectives: communication among team members, communication of the status of the development process, and communication of the status of the progress of the product under development. It has been possible to show that team members perceive advantages to using media tools that make them feel in practice that teams are co-located, such as smartboards supported by efficient video-tools, and combining media tools with centralized repository tools, with information from the process development and product characteristics, that allow distributed teams to effectively share information about the status of the project/process/product during the development process in order to overcome some of the still existing problems in communication in AGSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Demand response is one of the core applications of the smart grid. • A process assessment model provides for implementation, evaluation and improvement of customer's demand response processes. • Demand response process assessment model (DRPAM) was developed using ISO/IEC 33,004 standard, the second maturity level of "Customer" domain in SGMM and expert opinions gathered by Delphi study technique. • DRPAM was evaluated with an exploratory case study. • DRPAM is the first detailed model intended to reduce time and energy loss for demand response implementations. • DRPAM provides roadmap for the identification of capabilities of demand response processes and for their improvement. Demand response is a new study area and many countries intend to create roadmaps to activate their implementations. Smart Grid Maturity Model (SGMM) defines the characteristics and targets related to customer, but it does not adequately elaborate and provide a guiding perspective for demand response. In addressing the gap mentioned, this article presents a Demand Response Process Assessment Model (DRPAM) as a fundamental proposal towards evaluating, implementing, and improving capabilities of customers' demand response processes. The standard of ISO/IEC 33004 and the second maturity level of "Customer" domain in SGMM were referenced to develop the DRPAM. Literature studies and technical reports were examined to determine the key processes of the model, while Waterfall and Agile software development models and Action Workflow Loop were used to identify process practices. The set of key processes was defined, updated and verified using expert opinions gathered by Delphi study technique applied in five rounds. It was then used for an exploratory case study assessment in an organization that conducts research and development activities in this field. Eight processes were identified with purpose, outcomes, base practices, work products (as inputs and outputs), and responsible roles of implementation. DRPAM is the first detailed model intended to reduce time and energy loss for demand response pilot studies of customers. The results of the case study assessment indicated that DRPAM was found satisfactory in identifying capabilities of demand response processes and of providing a roadmap for their improvement. As future work, the model will be validated by conducting multiple case studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The results of this paper help to create a roadmap for agile organizations transitioning from CMMI-DEV V1.3 to CMMI-DEV V2.0 or adopting CMMI-DEV V2.0 from scratch. • Content analysis was applied to identify 31 agile artifacts to support the alignment with CMMI-DEV V2.0, passing from 0% to 41% coverage at practice level at maturity levels 2 and 3. • Special effort is required for contextualizing the governance (GOV), implementation infrastructure (II), and organizational training (OT) practices areas to Agile, as it has not been possible to enrich them with agile artifacts using the content analysis performed in this paper. Agile-CMMI alignment is becoming increasingly popular. The literature abounds with research and experience reports associating these two approaches. A new model, CMMI V2.0, and in particular CMMI-DEV V2.0, was published recently. This latest model only provides partial alignment guidelines with Agile, and the experiences reported in previous literature (referred to CMMI-DEV V1.3) are not directly applicable to CMMI-DEV V2.0. Therefore, agile organizations that want to align with CMMI-DEV 2.0, either from scratch or as a transition from CMMI-DEV 1.3, face a major challenge. In this paper, we apply the content analysis method to several CMMI Institute sources to bring to the light the Agile artifacts related to CMMI-DEV V2.0 Practices. As a result, we identify 31 Agile artifacts to address alignment with CMMI-DEV V2.0, passing from 0% to 41% coverage for Practices at Maturity Levels 2 and 3. These Agile artifacts can help to materialize the business value of CMMI-DEV V2.0 Practices and provide a starting point for agile organizations to define their roadmap. Consequently, the contribution of this paper is to present a detailed practice-level mapping based on which to design an Agile-CMMI V2.0 roadmap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Our approach is agnostic to programming languages, location, or development practices. • Moderate correlation was found between software and process cyclomatic complexity. • Refactoring practices were predicted with an accuracy up to 92.95%. • Using process metrics, software complexity was predicted with an accuracy of 94.36%. • Our method can be used to find non efficient software teams in generic software tasks. Context : Software comprehension and maintenance activities, such as refactoring, are said to be negatively impacted by software complexity. The methods used to measure software product and processes complexity have been thoroughly debated in the literature. However, the discernment about the possible links between these two dimensions, particularly on the benefits of using the process perspective, has a long journey ahead. Objective : To improve the understanding of the liaison of developers' activities and software complexity within a refactoring task, namely by evaluating if process metrics gathered from the IDE, using process mining methods and tools, are suitable to accurately classify different refactoring practices and the resulting software complexity. Method : We mined source code metrics from a software product after a quality improvement task was given in parallel to (117) software developers, organized in (71) teams. Simultaneously, we collected events from their IDE work sessions (320) and used process mining to model their processes and extract the correspondent metrics. Results : Most teams using a plugin for refactoring (JDeodorant) reduced software complexity more effectively and with simpler processes than the ones that performed refactoring using only Eclipse native features. We were able to find moderate correlations (≈ 43%) between software cyclomatic complexity and process cyclomatic complexity. Using only process driven metrics, we computed ≈ 30,000 models aiming to predict the type of refactoring method (automatic or manual) teams had used and the expected level of software cyclomatic complexity reduction after their work sessions. The best models found for the refactoring method and cyclomatic complexity level predictions, had an accuracy of 92.95% and 94.36% , respectively. Conclusions : We have demonstrated the feasibility of an approach that allows building cross-cutting analytical models in software projects, such as the one we used for detecting manual or automatic refactoring practices. Events from the development tools and support activities can be collected, transformed, aggregated, and analyzed with fewer privacy concerns or technical constraints than source code-driven metrics. This makes our approach agnostic to programming languages, geographic location, or development practices, making it suitable for challenging contexts, such as, in modern global software development where many projects adopt agile methodologies, and low/no code platforms. Initial findings are encouraging, and lead us to suggest practitioners may use our method in other development tasks, such as, defect analysis and unit or integration tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper presents a review of 45 studies related to software risk in the context of the software life cycle. • A large number of studies reviewed involve other knowledge areas to support decision-making in the risk management activities. • A few proposals for risk management use internationally recognised standards or de facto models to its definition. • It is especially important to define a framework and model for risk management in the software life cycle using an agile approach. • It is important that agile approaches include risk management practices which are in line with the already accepted ones in traditional approaches. Risk management (RM) plays a key role in project management, as it allows identification and prompt management of threats that may arise during project execution. Furthermore, project management within the software industry is evolving rapidly nowadays, a fact that implies new challenges, because the emergence and use of fresh approaches has brought a greater degree of complexity to the RM process. The objective of this paper is to carry out a systematic literature review (SLR) in the field of software risk, in an attempt to characterize and present the state of the art of this field, identifying gaps and opportunities for further research. From the analysis of the results of this SLR it could be observed that interest on the part of the scientific community has turned away from the definition of research work that addressed an integrated risk management process, to pay attention to work that concentrates on specific activities of this process. It was also possible to see that there is a clear lack of scientific rigour as regards the process of validation in the different studies, and a deficiency in the use of standards or of de facto models to define these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Agile mature companies can be also conformant with ISO process reference models. • Conformance with five ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 Technical Management processes is analysed. • Conformance with two ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2 Project Management process activities is analysed. • Agile approaches propose different metrics for monitoring team performance. • Agile approaches are not faced with traditional process models. Agile approaches are well perceived in software development companies. These approaches are not faced with traditional process models. This research analyses how by defining and monitoring a set of Agile metrics, Agile mature companies can be also conformant with the best practices proposed by the targeted ISO process reference models. Conformance has been identified with five Technical Management processes of the ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 standard and with two activities of the Project Management process of the ISO/IEC TR 29110-5-1-2 standard. The findings may be of the interest of those Agile settings that need to work according to the process model established in the company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]