Supplementing agile practices with decision support methods for military software development

Abstract

The literature shows that under certain conditions, traditional software development processes benefit from the adoption of structured decision support methods. Agile methods usually eschew this approach in favor of a collaborative decision-making structure. In the domain of defense software, however, a hierarchical structure is inherently present. Thus, the introduction of a more structured decision support method in agile development should lead to a higher level of comfort with the products built this way. This paper provides the foundation to adopting decision support methods as derived from past experiences at the University of Regina and grounds it in the defense software domain. The paper contains findings on insertion points for decision support methods and the methodology followed to evaluate which of these methods are the most appropriate. It also summarizes the lessons learned during the work conducted at the University of Regina and in selected industrial settings.