Research Stage

Producer: Philippe Kruchten - University of British Columbia
Assistant: Yael Dubinsky - IBM Haifa Research Lab, Israel

The Agile Conference series has become the premier place for bringing to the international community the results of scientific research on agile software development processes and practices. The Agile 2008 conference invites researchers and practitioners to contribute their part to the advance of our knowledge and understanding agile methods & processes, and the tools and practices that support them. Our objectives are to enrich our collective body of knowledge, influence the line of thought in the field, encourage debate, and bring innovative ideas, while applying rigorous scientific approaches.

From the research perspective there are several challenges to overcome. Most notoriously, the research is seriously lagging behind the state-of-practice of agile software development. While the amount of anecdotal evidence has grown steadily over the past years, the amount of empirical research evidence is still growing too slowly. Individual agile practices have been studied to a certain extent but results have been quite diverse. Very few studies with proper scientific scrutiny have been published in conference proceedings and journals. While agile way of working is on the verge of becoming an industry de facto approach to software development, the knowledge and understanding about the theoretical groundings, applicability in large development settings and connections to established software engineering disciplines such as product lines engineering and component based software development remain mostly in the dark. The Agile 2008 Research Stage is designed to meet these challenges, and to bridge the gap between research and practice in a unique way.

We will have again two tracks at the 2008 conference:

• A full-day Research-in-progress workshop to present research starting or currently on-going and where the authors are expecting feedback from the community.
• and Full Research papers for research that has led to significant and validated results.

Full Research papers

Producer: Philippe Kruchten - University of British Columbia
Assistant: Yael Dubinsky - IBM Haifa Research Lab, Israel

These sessions are dedicated to original finished research published in the conference proceedings by the IEEE Computer Society.

Research-in-progress workshop

Pekka Abrahamsson, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland;
Tore Dybå, SINTEF, Norway

The workshop is organized in four 90 minute thematic sessions. The themes are influenced by the submitted research-in-progress papers. Each session will consist of 3-4 short paper presentations, which are followed by group work on the topical area. The papers, their topic of interest and contents are commented by a representative from research and industry. This is to ensure a strong feedback and multisided feedback for each participant and their research interest.

Timeslot	Session	Speakers	Room
Monday
9:00-10:30	Research-in-Progress session 1: Evaluating and adopting agile methods		Sheraton Hall A
	"Evaluating and adopting agile methods" Agile Software Development Methodologies’ Effectiveness at Various Lifecycle Stages	Moeen M. Darwiesh, Shahram Sarkani, Thomas A. Mazzuchi - The George Washington University, USA,
	Value-Driven Agile Adoption: Improving an Organization’s Software Development Approach	Ahmed Sidky - X2A Consulting, USA & James Arthur - Virginia Tech, USA
	Moving towards agility in a bureaucratic environment - RUP as a bridge between waterfall and agile processes	Caryna Pinheiro, Frank Maurer & Jonathan Sillito - University of Calgary, Canada
11:00-12:30	Research-in-Progress session 2: Qualitative studies of agile development		Sheraton Hall A
	Understanding Agile Team Leadership: An Ethnographically Informed Study	Nils Brede Moe - SINTEF ICT, Norway, Togeir Dingsøyr, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway & Øyvind Kvangardsnes - Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
	A Methodological Leg to Stand On: Discoveries Using Grounded Theory to Study Agile Software Development	Steve Adolph, Wendy Hall & Philippe Kruchten - University of British Columbia, Canada
	An Empirical Comparison of Two Agile Projects in the Same Organization	Noura Abbas, Andrew M Gravell & Gary B Wills - School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK
14:00-15:30	Research-in-Progress session 3: Automating agile tests		Sheraton Hall A
	The Application of Multi-modal Test Execution Using Fitclipse	Shelly Park & Frank Maurer - University of Calgary, Canada
	Extending Acceptance Test Driven Development: Defining FIT Tables through Digital Annotations	David Connolly & Frank Keenan - Software Technology Research Centre, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland
	The Requirements Abstraction in User Stories and Executable Acceptance Tests	Shelly Park & Frank Maurer - University of Calgary, Canada
	Interaction design and agile development: Reconciling iterative and incremental approaches	Jennifer Ferreira - The Open University, UK
16:00-17:30	Research-in-Progress session 4: Studies on collaboration in agile development		Sheraton Hall A
	Beyond the Comfort Zone of Scrum	Vladimir Blagojević, Wim Codenie, Jeroen Deleu & Olivier Biot - Sirris, Belgium
	Effectiveness of Agile Practices through Mediating Variables of Teamwork	Chaehan So & Wolfgang Scholl - Humboldt University, Department of Organizational Psychology, Germany
	A for Agile: Issues with Awareness and Adoption	Rashina Hoda, James Noble & Stuart Marshall - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
	Towards a Methodology for Building Collaborative Simulation-based Learning Environments for Scrum	Imran Zualkernan, Hanan Al Darmaki & Maha Shouman - American University of Sharjah, UAE
Tuesday
10:45-12:15	Full Research Papers session 1 chair: Philippe Kruchten		Wentworth
	Agile Orientation and Psychological Needs, Self-Efficacy, and Perceived Support: A Two Job-Level Comparison	Tali Seger, Orit Hazzan, Ronen Bar-Nahor
	Scrum in a Multiproject Environment	Artem Marchenko, Pekka Abrahamsson
	Automated Acceptance Testing: a Literature Review and an Industrial Case Study	Børge Haugset, Geir K. Hanssen
14:00-15:30	Full Research Papers session 2 chair: Yael Dubinsky		Wentworth
	Stories, Sketches, and Lists: Developers and Interaction Designers Interacting Through Artefacts	Judith Brown, Gitte Lindgaard, Robert Biddle
	Utilizing Digital Tabletops in Collocated Agile Planning Meetings	Xin Wang, Yaser Ghanam, Frank Maurer
	Agile Methods and User-Centered Design: How These Two Methodologies Are Being Successfully Integrated In Industry	David Fox, Frank Maurer, Jonathan Sillito
16:00-17:30	Full Research Papers session 3 chair: Robert Biddle		Wentworth
	Handling Uncertainty in Agile Requirement Prioritization and Scheduling Using Statistical Simulation	Kevin Logue, Kevin McDaid
	A Preliminary Roadmap for Research on Agile Software Development	Torgeir Dingsøyr, Tore Dybå, Pekka Abrahamsson
	Panel: Issues and opportunities in research on agile methods	Frank Maurer, Robert Biddle, Torgeir Dingsøyr, Tore Dybå, Pekka Abrahamsson, Yael Dubinsky. Moderator: Philippe Kruchten

Program Committee

• Pekka Abrahamsson - VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland
• Steve Adolph - WSA Consulting, Canada
• Paer Agerfalk - Uppsala University, Sweden
• Scott Ambler - IBM Rational, Canada
• Hubert Baumeister - Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
• Kent Beck - Three Rivers Institute, USA
• Robert Biddle - Carleton University, Canada
• Steffan Biffl - Technische Universität Wien, Austria
• Joseph Chao - Bowling Green State University, USA
• Jim Copelien - Nordija A/S, Denmark
• Alain Desilets - National Research Council of Canada, Canada
• Torgeir Dingsoyr - SINTEF ICT, Norway
• Yael Dubinsky - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
• Tore Dyba - SINTEF, Norway
• Chris Ebert - Vector Consulting, Germany
• Hakan Erdogmus, National Research Council, Canada
• Brian Hanks - Fort Lewis College, USA
• Orit Hazzan - Technion, Israel
• Martin Hoest - Lund University, Sweden
• Andreas Jedlitschka - Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software, Germany
• Petri Kettunen - Nokia Siemens Networks, Finland
• Philippe Kruchten - University of British Columbia, Canada
• Tom Kubit, Gene Codes Forensics, USA
• Kalle Lyytinen - Weatherhead School of Management, USA
• Angela Martin - Martin IT Consulting/Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
• Lars Mathiassen - Georgia State University, USA
• Frank Maurer - University of Calgary, Canada
• Grigori Melnik - Microsoft, USA
• Maurizio Morisio - Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• Matthias Mueller, Systeme Infrastruktur Support GmBH EnBW AG, Germany
• Frank Padberg - Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany
• Tom Poppendieck - Poppendieck LLC, USA
• Gary Pollice - Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA
• Tom Reichlmayr - Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
• Hugh Robinson - Open University, UK
• Per Runeson, Lund University, Sweden
• Barbara Russo - Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, Italy
• Outi Salo - VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland
• Carolyn Seaman - University of Maryland, USA
• Helen Sharp - Open University, UK
• Walter Tichy - Universitaet Karlsruhe, Germany
• Bas Vodde - Nokia Siemends Networks, China
• Don Wells - InStream Financial, USA
• Laurie Williams - North Carolina State University, USA