Real-Time Agility (PDF)

Real-time and embedded systems face the same challenges as traditional software development: shrinking budgets and shorter timeframes. However, these systems can be even more difficult to successfully develop due to additional requirements for timeliness, safety, high reliability, minimal resource usage, and, in some cases, the need to support rigorous industry standards.

In Real-Time Agility, leading embedded-systems consultant Bruce Powel Douglass reveals how to leverage the best practices of agile development to address all these challenges. Douglass introduces the Harmony process: a proven, start-to-finish approach to software development that can reduce costs, save time, and eliminate potential defects.

Replete with examples, this book provides an ideal tutorial in agile methods for real-time and embedded-systems developers. It also serves as an invaluable reference guide "in the heat of battle" for developers working to advance projects, both large and small.

Coverage includes

• How Model-Driven Development (MDD) and agile methods work synergistically
• The Harmony process, including roles, workflows, tasks, and work products
• Phases in the Harmony microcycle and their implementation
• Initiating a real-time agile project, including the artifacts you may (or may not) need
• Agile analysis, including the iteration plan, clarifying requirements, and validation
• The three levels of agile design-architectural, mechanistic, and detailed
• Continuous integration strategies and end-of-the-microcycle validation testing
• How Harmony's agile process self-optimizes by identifying and managing issues related to schedule, architecture, risks, workflows, and the process itself