Swinburne INF60010 Essay: Agile System for Virtual Child Park System

This essay explores the effectiveness of agile system development approaches, particularly in the context of developing a Park Management System for Virtual Child International (VCI). It highlights the growing popularity of agile methodologies due to their iterative nature, stakeholder involvement, and adaptability to changing requirements. The essay discusses various agile methodologies such as Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), and Crystal, evaluating their suitability for the VCI park system. While each methodology offers unique benefits, the essay concludes that Extreme Programming is particularly well-suited for the VCI project due to its emphasis on requirements identification, flexibility, and ability to accommodate changes, making it more effective than Crystal and Scrum in this specific context. The essay emphasizes the importance of agile approaches in delivering high-quality software through short release cycles and continuous improvement.

“Agile system development approach is considered as the most
effective and suitable approach in the development of the new Park
Management System for Virtual Child International”
1

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Body...........................................................................................................................................3
Types of agile methodologies.................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8
2

Introduction
The concept of agile has developed a lot of interest between the various practitioners. Agile
denotes handiness in motion. Agile software development methods are putting efforts to offer
the business community with faster and lighter software development processes. The demand
of the agile methods has increased highly in the internet software industry. The agile methods
emphasize on productivity and values in place of heavy weight process. For producing
software, iterative mechanism is promoted by agile methods. The iterative nature of software
lifecycle is further increased through tightening the loop of the design code test once a day
opposed to one time per iteration. Agile software development has become mainstream
development methodology among the software developers due to the effectiveness of
development approach (Schmidt, 2016). In the essay, the effectiveness of the different agile
methodologies for Park Management System for Virtual Child International is presented. The
essay will also indicate how each of the agile methodology stated can be useful in VCI park
system.
Body
Agile system development approach has become popular software development techniques.
This approach is used commonly now a days because it includes regular short run release
cycles and it also allows the involvement of the stakeholders and the customers in the process
of software development (Edeki, 2015). It promotes higher quality product as a final product
and involves identification of all the requirements of the customers. The stakeholders can
prioritize the tasks in the process of software development which makes it flexible. Hence it
can be said that it is one of the effective approach as it is one of the flexible approach of
software development (Szalvay, 2004).
3

Types of agile methodologies
For the development of the software, there are different agile methodologies such as scrum,
crystal methodologies, dynamic software development method, feature driven development,
lean software development and extreme programming. These methodologies can be used for
VCI park system development. The use of the agile methodologies can help developing the
software for VCI park system of light weight process and productive system. Here, three of
the agile methodologies are discussed that can be used for VCI park system.
Scrum is one of the agile development methods that emphasize mainly upon managing the
tasks within an environment of team based development. Scrum basically believes in
advocating the work in small teams and empowering development team. It includes three
roles: scum master, product owner and scrum team. Scrum master is accountable for setting
up team, run meeting and eliminate the obstacles for achieving the progress. Product owner
develops product backlog, prioritizes backlog as well as accountable for delivery of
functionality in every iteration (Abrahamsson et al., 2002). Scrum team manages the work
and also organizes work for completing the cycle. The process of scrum methodologies starts
with sprint (each iteration of scrum), during every sprint, the top items of the product backlog
(it is a list with all the details to obtain end product) are chosen and transformed into sprint
backlog. The team work on definite sprint backlog and the team checks the work regularly. In
the end of sprint, the team delivers the product. Scrum agile methodology can be
implemented in VCI park system. It allows the teams to self-organize and collaborate and
communicate with each other. This method focuses on enhancing the ability of the team to
develop and deliver the final product quickly. This method will allow to develop the software
as quickly as possible and the VCI park system can transform the pending status of the
4

guardians and the members into active and the members can visit the services.
Source: (Guru99, 2018)
The extreme programming method gained so much of attention. Extreme programming is a
technique in which the demands keep changing in order to meet the requirements of the
customers and the team is not sure about the system. This type of method helps in delivering
the product in short development cycles and improves system’s productivity and introduces
checkpoint to implement the requirements of the customers. Extreme programming develops
the software considering customer. The requirements are collected in the form of stories and
these stories are stored in parking lot. Iterations in this methodology are of 14 days and every
iteration involves coding, system testing and unit testing. This method includes six phases
that are planning, analysis, design, execution, wrapping and closure (VersionOne, Inc., 2018).
The extreme programming method can be used in the VCI park system as all the functions of
the park system can be changed and development as per the need and the change in the
demand of the guardian for the children. The changes in the software are possible through
adopting this methodology. This will also help in bringing the changes in the park system
5

when the higher management finds that some of the functions need to be changed in order to
increase the effectiveness. The quality of the software for VCI Park can be enhanced time to
time.
Source: (Guru99, 2018)
Crystal methodologies incorporate three concepts that is chartering, cycle delivery and wrap
up. In chartering phase, different activities are included that are developing a development
team, initiating preliminary feasibility analysis, creating initial plan and modification of the
development methodology. Cyclic delivery phase includes the two or more delivery cycles in
which team modifies and updates release plan, implement subset of requirements by one or
more than one program test combine iterations. After this, the integrated product is delivered
to users. The review of project plan and the development methodology is performed. In the
wrap up phase, the activities of this phase are implemented in the environment of user, the
review after the implementation and the reflections are carried out (Despa, 2014). This
methodology can be used in VCI park system as it focuses on people and their interactions.
The communication among the team can help in developing effective software for VCI Park.
The final VCI park system through this methodology can be developed through the
coordinate which reduce the chances of the mistakes in the software.
6

All these agile methodologies have its own important and all the methodologies can be used
for Park Management System for Virtual Child International. But, the one of the
methodology that can be used for Park Management System for Virtual Child International in
an effective manner is Extreme programming as it considers requirements identification and
the analysis. The changes can be implemented and the productivity of the system can be
improved through the change in an easier manner as this system is flexible (Schmidt, 2016).
The crystal methodology will not allow bringing the changes later in the plan as the team
works as per the initial plan. The scrum methodology mainly focuses on enhancing the ability
of the team to deliver the final product quickly and do not consider the change in the demand
of the customers. Hence, for the development of Park Management System for Virtual Child
International, extreme programming can be used as it is more effective in comparison to
crystal and scrum agile methodologies.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that agile software development approaches are effective for the
development of the software as the short cycle of product release is followed in this approach
of software development. There are different types of agile methodologies that are used by
the organization. It has been found that extreme programming is one of the famous and
mostly used approaches as it includes different approaches and it is flexible. The scrum can
be used as it can help in obtaining the required outcomes can be obtained by the efforts of
scrum team. The use of this approach can help in managing processes of VCI park system.
The crystal methodologies focus on people and their interactions hence the effective software
can be developed for VCI park system. For Park Management System for Virtual Child
International, the extreme programming is the best agile methodology as it will provide with
the ease to bring changes to meet the requirements.
7

References
Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J. & Warsta, J. (2002) Agile Software Development
Methods: Review and Analysis. Espoo, Finland: VTT publication.
Despa, M.L. (2014) Comparative study on software development methodologies. Database
Systems Journal , 5(3), p.56.
Edeki, C. (2015) Agile Software Development Methodology. European Journal of
Mathematics and Computer Science, 2(1), pp.22-27.
Guru99 (2018) Agile Model & Methodology: Guide for Developers and Testers [online].
Available from: https://www.guru99.com/agile-scrum-extreme-testing.html [Accessed 22
May 2018].
Schmidt, C. (2016) Agile Software Development. In Agile Software Development Teams,
Progress in IS. Switzerland : Springer International Publishing.
Szalvay, V. (2004) An Introduction to Agile Software Development [online]. Available from:
http://www.danube.com/docs/Intro_to_Agile.pdf [Accessed 22 May 2018].
VersionOne, Inc. (2018) What Is Agile Methodology? [online]. Available from:
https://www.versionone.com/agile-101/agile-methodologies/[Accessed 22 May 2018].
8