Agility and Architecture—Oil and Water?
Submission Deadline: 17 August 2009
Publication: March/April 2010
Agile software development approaches have had significant impact on industrial software development practices. However, despite becoming widely popular, there is an increasing perplexity about the role and importance of a system's software architecture in agile approaches. Advocates of the vital role of architecture in achieving quality goals of large scale software intensive systems are skeptics of the scalability of any development approach that does not pay sufficient attention to architectural aspects of developing large-scale software-intensive systems, especially in domains like automotive, telecommunication, finance, and medical devices. But the proponents of agile approaches usually perceive the upfront design and evaluation of architecture as being of little value to the customers of a system. There is a growing interest in separating the facts from myths about the necessity, importance, advantages and disadvantages of co-existence of agile and architectural approaches.
This special issue of IEEE Software will focus on agility and architecture. Possible topics include
- Approaches, applications, and tools for addressing architectural issues in agile software development approaches
- Case studies on success and/or failure in integrating architectural approaches in agile software development approaches
- Practical guidelines and frameworks for successfully implementing and incorporating architectural principles and objectives into agile approaches
- Best practices and lesson learned while dealing with architectural challenges for agile software development teams
- How software developers, teams, and managers can optimally combine agile and architectural principles
Manuscripts must not exceed 5,400 words including figures and tables, which count for 200 words each. Submissions in excess of these limits may be rejected without refereeing. The articles we deem within the theme and scope will be peer-reviewed and are subject to editing for magazine style, clarity, organization, and space. We reserve the right to edit the title of all submissions. Be sure to include the name of the theme or special issue you are submitting for.
Articles should have a practical orientation and be written in a style accessible to practitioners. Overly complex, purely research-oriented or theoretical treatments are not appropriate. Articles should be novel. IEEE Software does not republish material published previously in other venues, including other periodicals and formal conference/workshop proceedings, whether previous publication was in print or in electronic form.
Questions?
For more information about the focus, contact the Guest Editors:
- Pekka Abrahamsson, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
- M. Ali Babar,
- Philippe Kruchten, University of British Columbia, Canada
For general author guidelines: www.computer.org/software/author.htm
For submission details: software@computer.org