Scrum refinement (stanch) (T-0667) (MFN 3111)

Abstract

It is a proven fact now that established software development approaches have atypical behavior in new emerging e-business environment which requires quick output and importantly with the quality level up to the maximum. Normally these traditional approaches become profound to meet the velocity required by current software market. Agile methodologies accepted the challenge offered by software market by presenting new development processes. The agile methods, such as Scrum and Extreme Programming, have been a subject of much debate in the software society for the last few years. Architects and campaigners of agile methodologies have solid case to convince the world about utmost need of using agile methods for software development in current market. Key arguments are, accepting changes in scope at any stage of development, better predictability about success or failure of the project at early stages and a shippable release in a quick turnaround time. However, due to volatile nature of requirements engineering and quality assurance mechanism in agile methodologies, their aptness and efficacy have always been questioned. This thesis presents a new process named as ―STANCH‖ to be integrated in SCRUM which is one among the famous agile methodologies. STANCH provides better requirements scripting techniques and suggests a team formation mechanism without muddling the core essence of SCRUM. It lays down three abstraction levels for each requirement due to which filtering out incomplete and inappropriate requirements at very early stage is ensured. STANCH enforces the inclusion of dedicated system analyst and professional testing team through which proper architecture of the application can be achieved along with proper testing of the application. Most importantly, STANCH form this team and implement its requirements abstraction technique without muddling core essence of SCRUM and any additional cost.