Principles of Agility Used in Modern Software Development (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject Computer Science - Software, grade: 2.0, International University of Applied Sciences, language: English, abstract: The rapid pace of digitalisation is not only affecting our everyday lives, but also the world of work. The advantage of digitalization in the industry is seen as the fourth industrial revolution and called "Industry 4.0". This industrial revolution started at the end of the 20th century and facilitated the intelligent monitoring and decision processes and is still evolving. With the great benefits for companies, it does also bring major restructuring and challenges. The industrial processes develop increasingly agile and complex. To manage such complex structures, new methods were needed. The new demands on project management were speed, flexibility, dynamism, and customer proximity. With rising software demands these projects were very difficult to manage with the hitherto prevailing plan-driven management methods, due to the complexity and uncertainty during these project processes. To still be able to handle such complex and uncertain projects, different agile project management methods were developed. The approaches are classified if they meet specific requirements.

The term agile management is an umbrella term for different approaches that meet specific requirements like the values and principles of the agile manifesto. One of the agile approaches is the scrum method, developed by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland in the 80s. This method has its name origin in the sport of rugby. Scrum in rugby is a situation, which is formed, when the forwards of both teams are in a tight formation and try to dominate the possession of the ball. To win the ball possession, the forwards of a team must work agile and, in a team, to get their goal. The process of scrum project management is used as a framework, in which the team has to functions self-organized to reach their goal. This framework is characteristic for its iterative process making it suitable for projects in which many unforeseen changes may occur.

The goal of this case study is to explain the scrum method and plan-driven method more in detail and analyse the importance and advantages of the agile management method with the help of an exemplary project and lastly compare the agile method with a plan-driven management method.