Backlog Composition in an Agile Context
Context
The main idea of agile-driven development (independently of methods such as SCRUM, Kanban, XP) is to continuously deliver value to the end-user. To perform such a task and specify the product to be developed, software developers (SDs) and product owners (POs) classically rely on the definition of user stories, organized in a product backlog.
In this project, we want to leverage backlogs (e.g., product backlog, sprint backlogs) to provide feedback to both SDs and POs for a given project. Natural language processing tools can be used to extract information from user stories (e.g., Visual Narrator). Based on the extracted data, it is possible to infer a domain model (similar to an UML class diagram) for each story. this domain can be exploited to give useful information to SDs and POs, for example:
- What happens if I decide to postpone this story to another one?
- Why are all the stories related to this persona not addressed yet?
- How does this sprint will cover the whole product?
The project follows the development of a proof of concept that binds together VisualNarrator (an NLP tool to analyze stories) and Neo4J (a graph database). We want to go deeper in the analysis of the backlogs, by digging into realistic ones and leverage POs knowledge.
Skills and Background
- loving to craft software;
- knowing how to use Git, and the meaning of the MVP acronym;
- fluency in object-oriented programming (e.g., Java);
- good knowledge in object-oriented software design;
- knowing software development good practices (i.e, Clean Code by Uncle Bob is on your night table).
Required role of the student
- contribution to a research project;
- contribution to the development of prototypes;
- discovering state-of-the-art literature;
- communicating about the work done in the lab (technical report, article).
References
- Requirements data sets (user stories). Fabiano Dalpiaz, 2018.
- Extracting conceptual models from user stories with Visual Narrator. Garm Lucassen, Marcel Robeer, Fabiano Dalpiaz, Jan Martijn E. M. van der Werf, Sjaak Brinkkemper. Requirement Enggineerig (RE) 2017.
- Service-Oriented Architecture Modeling: Bridging the Gap between Structure and Behavior. Mickaël Clavreul, Sébastien Mosser, Mireille Blay-Fornarino, and Robert B. France. 14th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering, Languages and Systems (MODELS), 2011.
Supervision
