Agile
- 1. Mapping Agile Methods to ERP: Directions and Limitations Rogerio Atem de Carvalho Federal Fluminense Institute, Brazil Björn Johansson Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Rodrigo Soares Manhaes Federal Fluminense Institute, Brazil
- 2. Motivation Historically ERP systems have been developed in waterfall (or almost like) approach Although based on heavily planned and documented processes, still occurs a lot of “misfit”: Long delay between requirements elicitation and implementation (customization) Too many levels of documents between requirements and code Lack of a proper communication process
- 3. Motivation Development (customization) is a learning process: developers learn about the users’ business needs Big Design Up Front may facilitate planning however creates a long gap between requirements elicitation and the actual implementation of them Given the figures on ERP implementation failure, why not use Agile?????
- 4. Agile Principles Iteractive & Incremental Ubiquitous Language Test Driven Development Continuous Integration Emergent Design
- 5. Iteractive & Incremental Software is released frequently and in small pieces Provides constant communication between developers and users Limited by the “Late Integration Problem”: processes integration points are discovered late in the development Can be solved by flexible, low cost process integration techniques
- 6. Ubiquitous Language Very important for communication, feedback and close collaboration between a customers and developers Common language, covering the entire communication chain from customer and business analysis to the team’s internal conversations and coding Does not necessarily uses the exact customer jargon, but an unambiguous and contradiction- free version of the domain knowledge Is not built in a single step, but it is iteratively refined and improved
- 7. Test Driven Development Writing test cases for every programming task: feature creation or adaptation, improvements, bug corrections etc Design of the system can be continuously improved without falling into the famous Boehm's cost of change curve The presence of testing data is not enough, since ERP is both integrated software and an adaptable framework, regression testing is a must: it occurs when a given module is altered to meet a given customer’s specific needs
- 8. Continuous Integration “Integration hell”: incompatibility between modules, broken dependencies, out of date modules, lack of compliance to coding standards etc Continuous integration (CI) provides both agility and fast feedback, consisting of making at least daily project builds Every commit triggers a complete build with immediate feedback of errors Guarantees that software is always working properly
- 9. Emergent Design In an iterative and incremental, agile-style lifecycle, design is not performed up-front, but incrementally evolved as it meets the current iteration requirements Emergent design (ED): process of evolving systems in response to changing requirements, better understanding of existing requirements, and in response to new opportunities that arise from new technology, better ideas, and a changing world To be able to follow this principle, some disciplines must be applied: TDD, refactoring, expressive code and heavy use of design patterns
- 10. Limitations Cultural limitations: Predictive Planning mindset Contracts: Product (an ERP) X Service (an ERP customization) (Excessive) HR especialization (analyst, designer, programmer...) Communication based on many abstraction levels, with different artifacts Technical limitations: Legacy technologies Database centric techniques Determination of a sound Ubiquitous Language
- 11. Conclusions The statistics on unsuccessful ERP implementations urge for new ways of facing the misalignment problem Agile techniques can improve communication There exist cultural and contractual barriers Future directions: Agile techniques adoption levels for Proprietary, Free, and In-house Behavior Driven Development for ERP