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This paper emphasizes on software effort estimation and knowledge management of practicing Scrum methodology that are challenging tasks in agile context. Proposed approach improves software effort estimation and knowledge management of software projects by focusing on Scrum process and practices using ontology model in a multiagent estimation system. It also motivates project key stakeholders to regularly save significant tacit knowledge of unique situations in the form of lessons learnt during the project development. Various agents of the estimation system access the existing knowledge base and autonomously perform their inferencing activities using description logic as per requirements specified by the scrum master and respond with suitable estimate to him/her in the form of time, resources, and lessons learnt for the success of future projects. To validate our approach, an experiment, based on twelve web projects, was conducted using proposed approach, delphi and planning poker estimation methods. The obtained results by applying MMRE, PRED(x) evaluation measures reveals that proposed approach delivers more accurate estimates as compared with delphi and planning poker methods.

User centered design (UCD) provides principles and activities for improving usability. However, traditional UCD methods lack considering the context of users in low income, culturally diverse settings and where Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development is at its infant stage. Software development in low and medium income countries like Ethiopia is characterized by big difference in education and livelihood. Heterogeneous cultures both between different ethnic groups and between rural and urban contexts is another challenge for Ethiopian software development. The paper addresses how to adapt UCD methods and agile development to bridge these heterogeneities. To this end, a multi-case study was implemented, researching two projects in an Ethiopian software company. An action research approach has been complemented by a survey and interviews with other companies. It has resulted in contextualization of UCD practices: personas mediated between rural and urban users and developers. Personas helped also customer representatives as well as product owners to understand users and their requirements and allowed to test releases against persona requirements before deployment. Personas were updated throughout the project based on usability testing and experience from early deployment. Besides personas local IT personnel mediated between the rural users and software developers. Pairwise usability testing is an example for cultural adaptation for discount usability evaluation method that has been tried out. Releasing early version to support personnel and members of the company who are closer to the intended users helped to provide a more adapted version from the start.

Distributed software engineering and agility are strongly pushing on today's software industry. Due to inherent incompatibilities, for years, studying Scrum and its application in distributed setups has been subject to theoretical and applied research, and an increasing body of knowledge reports insights into this combination. Through a systematic literature review, this paper contributes a collection of experiences on the application of Scrum to global software engineering (GSE). In total, we identified 40 challenges in 19 categories practitioners face when using Scrum in GSE. Among the challenges, scaling Scrum to GSE and adopting practices accordingly are the most frequently named. Our findings also show that most solution proposals aim at modifying elements of the Scrum core processes. We thus conclude that, even though Scrum allows for extensive modification, Scrum itself represents a barrier for global software engineering, and development teams have to customize Scrum properly to benefit from agile software development in GSE.

This manuscript describes a technique and its tool support to perform comparisons on agile methods, based on a set of relevant features and attributes. This set includes attributes related to four IEEE's Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) Knowledge Areas (KAs) and to the agile principles defined in the Agile Manifesto. With this set of attributes, by analysing the practices proposed by each method, we are able to assess (1) the coverage degree for the considered KAs and (2) the agility degree. In this manuscript, the application of the technique is exemplified in comparing extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum.

To motivate and engage students and, consequently, improve the quality of learning, some researchers suggest new ways of teaching, including the use of serious games in the classroom. This paper describes PlayScrum, a new card game devised to allow university-level students to learn Scrum, an agile software development method. We present the card game, its rules, and how it supports the main concepts of the Scrum method. We also discuss how PlayScrum was validated, based on questionnaires filled in by master students who have played it., (undefined)