Oliver Linssen

Hybrid software and system development in practice: waterfall, scrum, and beyond

Software and system development faces numerous challenges of rapidly changing markets. To address such challenges, companies and projects design and adopt specific development approaches by combining well-structured comprehensive methods and flexible agile practices. Yet, the number of methods and practices is large, and available studies argue that the actual process composition is carried out in a fairly ad-hoc manner. The present paper reports on a survey on hybrid software development approaches. We study which approaches are used in practice, how different approaches are combined, and what contextual factors influence the use and combination of hybrid software development approaches. Our results from 69 study participants show a variety of development approaches used and combined in practice. We show that most combinations follow a pattern in which a traditional process model serves as framework in which several fine-grained (agile) practices are plugged in. We further show that hybrid software development approaches are independent from the company size and external triggers. We conclude that such approaches are the results of a natural process evolution, which is mainly driven by experience, learning, and pragmatism.

Hybrid Software Development Approaches in Practice: A European Perspective

The surveyed companies applied hybrid development approaches to specific projects even when company-wide policies for process usage existed. These approaches emerged from the evolution of different work practices and were consistently used regardless of company size or industry sector.

HELENA Study: Reasons for Combining Agile and Traditional Software Development Approaches in German Companies

Many software development teams face the problem of selecting a suitable development approach fitting to their specific context. According to them, the combination of agile and traditional approaches seems to be the solution to handle this problem. However, the current state of practice with respect to hybrid approaches is not sufficiently examined. Most studies focus either on traditional or on agile methods, but the combination of both is not well investigated yet. The “Hybrid dEveLopmENt Approaches in software systems development” (HELENA) study performs a large-scale international survey in order to gain insights into the distribution of hybrid approaches. So far, the study indicates several reasons why companies combine agile and traditional approaches. The hybrid approaches aim at improving the frequency of delivery to customers, the adaptability and the flexibility of the process to react to change. Furthermore, it is the aim to increase the productivity. In this publication, we present the current state of the German results and outline the next steps.