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Complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory characterizes the role of emergence in the world of frequent and continuous change. In the context of information systems (IS) CAS can help conceptualize the phenomenon of IS emergence. In this domain agile development methods were introduced to address speed and the problems of change in IS development. The paper provides a review of agile development practices and their interpretation from a CAS perspective. It is concluded that IS emergence can be realized by engaging development teams through agile practices that are found to support CAS concepts. It is also found that some CAS principles have not been fully realized in current agile methods highlighting possible areas of improvement. Based on this analysis a detailed framework is derived to outline emergence mechanisms in IS development in general. The framework as grounded in CAS theory provides cornerstone elements towards a generic IS emergence theory we refer to as Complex Adaptive Information Systems (CAIS).

INTRODUCTION

The turbulent nature of modern business environments requires organizations to react quickly and creatively to make the most of new opportunities and busi-ness models. State-of-the-art IT projects based on service-oriented architecture

(SOA) that extends features of client-server architecture, have shown evidence of sys-tem and process agility where agile practices have been adopted in design, devel-opment and maintenance of such applications (Ren & Lyytinen, 2008; Baskerville et al., 2005). This is because in modern environments new economic realities, such as rapid development of technology and increased global competitiveness make orga-nizations less stable, fast-changing and emergent (Truex et al., 1999). Turbulent envi-ronments make businesses unpredictable and hence unplannable in the traditional sense of control and optimization (Riehle, 2000). For this reason agile development

Re-Conceptualizing Agile Information Systems Development using Complex Adaptive Systems TheoryE:CO Issue Vol. 15 No. 3 2013 pp. 1-23

Applied

RE-CONCEPTUALIZING AGILE INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT USING COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS THEORYGhada Alaa1 & Guy Fitzgerald2

1. The Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC), EGY2. School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, ENG

2 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

methods adopt concepts of emergence, such as customer focus, participative de-sign, time-boxed project management, continuous software development and others (Highsmith, 2002). According to VersionOne (2011) that undertook an agile adoption survey; agile practices of common use are daily stand-up meetings, iteration plan-ning, release planning, burn down charts, retrospectives and continuous integration. SCRUM is the most used agile development methodology, adopted among over 50% of survey respondents. SCRUM practices are daily stand-up meetings, sprints that cover release planning, burn down charts to tackle remaining tasks and deviations from schedules, and retrospectives that are feedback, review meetings to assess the sprint to be released and plan for the next one.

Agile development methods were designed to overcome the problems posed by fast-changing environments. Their major benefits include the ability to tackle chang-ing requirements, project visibility and transparency, increased productivity, acceler-ated time to market and cost reduction (VersionOne, 2011). In spite of such benefits there are still concerns about their suitability in various contexts such as adoption within distributed teams and agile rigor and robustness (Ambler, 2002b; Conboy & Fitzgerald, 2004; VersionOne, 2011). The reason for such concerns is partly because the principles of agile development lack grounding in theory and philosophy.

Complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory specifies emergence mechanisms and characteristics that make a CAS react quickly and creatively to changing necessities. According to Augustine and Woodcock (2003), CAS theory in social and management contexts views organizations as actors with the intrinsic ability to deal with change, in-teracting with each other and with the business environment. Similarly, IS emergence can be interpreted using complexity concepts. In this paper we apply CAS concepts to agile development and provide interpretation of IS emergence phenomenon.

COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS (CAS) THEORY

Complexity science seeks to explain the process of emergence of new properties and the spontaneous creation of order after change. CAS theory originated in the natural sciences and articulates how interacting agents such as organisms

adapt and coevolve over time in spontaneous ways (Dooley, 1997). Holland (1995) defines CAS as a system composed of interacting agents, which undergo constant change, both autonomously and in interaction with their environment. He explains that heterogeneous agents exhibit various agent behaviors that can be defined in terms of “simple rules” where they adapt and evolve through their interactions and by changing their rules through learning as experience accumulates. Therefore the

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behavior of CAS is typically unpredictable, but yet exhibits various forms of order and regulation (see Figure 1).

Complexity principles emphasize that emergence of properties and creation of new orders are not explicable from a purely reductionist viewpoint, but that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts (Kaufman, 1993). This means the focus of atten-tion shifts from understanding the parts or entities of which the whole was composed to the interaction of subsystems (agents) to form a system. Organizations therefore should not be seen as parts adding to a whole but rather as a corporation in which the interactions between its employees are of primary importance where forms of be-havior are determined by the tendency to achieve a certain goal (Stacey et al., 2000).

How do complex non-linear systems with their vast numbers of interacting agents function to produce orderly patterns of behavior? The field of complex adaptive sys-tems seeks rules and principles to interpret this phenomenon. Different authors pro-vided characteristics and/or principles of CAS as summarized in Table 1, along with a brief description on meaning & implications of such principles to emergence in social contexts. According to Middleton-Kelly (2003) many of the identified characteristics are well known in previous theoretical frameworks; for example, the concepts of con-nectivity, interdependence, feedback and adjustments are familiar from systems dy-namics theory. However, complexity theory extends these theories and adds new con-cepts such as coevolution, self-organization, edge of chaos and historicity and time dependence, which enrich these systems thinking concepts.

Global Pattern

Interactions

Feedback

Feedback

Environment

Agents

Figure 1 CAS Emergence Process

4 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

RESEARCH APPROACH

Agile development methods excel in fast-changing environments with the pri-mary evidence based on practical experiences, but there is little theoretical proof that agile methods facilitate change in emergent environments (Ambler,

2002b; Dybå & Dingsøyr, 2008) Claims of the benefits of the agile approach lie mainly in its focus on building systems in short time periods and being flexible enough to respond to change without descending into chaos (Boehm, 2002). As a result, there are many methods currently in use in the market branded as agile but still they remain vague in their theoretical underpinning and their rigor and reliability.

In order to address this lack of provenance this research aims to interpret agile development by building on complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory with the aim of providing better theoretical grounding for agile development. It also aims to highlight areas in agile development where CAS principles are not fully accommodated.

The paper presents theoretical/conceptual research where the IS emergence phe-nomenon represented in agile development will be interpreted and conceptualized using complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Providing theoretical proof to the agile methods that have wide practical acceptance provides triangulation (Yin, 1984) and will hopefully help increase the credibility of agile development.

This paper will tackle theoretical evidence to address the following research ques-tions:

• Can emergent IS development be conceptualized as a complex adaptive system (CAS)?

• Does agile development reflect characteristics of a CAS?• Are the various principles of CAS fully adopted in agile development?

In order to provide evidence for these propositions, the paper examines agile de-velopment principles and practices and then maps them to CAS principles. The re-search will cover the following steps:

1. Review of CAS principles and their meaning and implications for emergence as shown in the previous section

2. Review of agile development principles and practices3. Mapping and interpretation of agile principles and practices from CAS

perspective

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CAS

Prin

ciple

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6 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

CAS

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ple r

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Tabl

e 1

CAS

Prin

ciple

s

E:CO Vol. 15 No. 3 2013 pp. 1-23 | 7

4. Reflection on CAS to identify whether all its principles have been fully adopted in agile development, or whether there are missing emergence attributes that could be utilized to improve emergence characteristics of agile development

PRINCIPLES OF AGILE DEVELOPMENT

Agile development refers to a development life cycle designed for a series of methods that have been characterized as “light-weight” methods. These were introduced to replace traditional/heavy-weight development methods in order

to cope with change and the need for speed in modern development environments (Highsmith & Cockburn, 2001). The degree of adoption of agile methods is a subject of some debate but in 2005 a Forrester survey suggested that in North America and Europe the figure was around 14% (Schwaber & Fichera, 2005) by 2010 this appeared to have risen to 35% although it is not clear that these figures are directly compa-rable. Nevertheless, Forrester described this as agile becoming ‘mainstream’ (Krill, 2010). The state of agile development survey VersionOne (2011) with around 6,000 respondents from 80 countries reports a high percentage of agile method adoption in systems development with more than 80% of respondents having adopted agile de-velopment practices. Around half of the sample have at least 2 years experience with agile projects and more than a third have up to 5 years experience with agile, indicat-ing some depth of understanding of agile in organizations. In the same survey even large software development projects with over 250 employees showed significant ag-ile adoption rates. Of course it should be recognized that the samples in such surveys by agile product and service providers may well be skewed to those with an interest in agile but nevertheless it is clear that agile is of significant and growing importance in information systems development.

Although the agile manifesto represents an advancement in counteracting the cri-tique of how agile methods work, it is important to note that there is still no universal-ly accepted definition of an agile method (Conboy & Fitzgerald, 2004). For example, Highsmith (2002) defines agility as “the ability of an organization to both create and respond to change in order to profit in a turbulent business environment”. Perhaps the best known interpretation of agile is provided by the manifesto of agile software development (Agile Alliance, 2001), a group statement of 15 representatives of agile methods, which defined twelve principles of agile development as follows:

• Early and continuous delivery of working software;• Embracing change in requirements;• Shorter development cycles;

8 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

• Collaboration between business people and developers throughout the project;• Motivated individuals and empowered teams;• Face-to-face conversation;• Working software is the primary measure of progress;• Sustainable development: sponsors, developers, and users should be able to

maintain a constant pace indefinitely;• Good design & technical excellence;• Simplicity: the art of maximizing the amount of work not done;• Self-organizing teams: best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from

self-organizing teams, and;• Reflections & adjustments: at regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become

more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

It is important to distinguish between flexibility in requirements or in other words the embracing of changes to requirements, as compared to flexibility in software archi-tectures, that covers reusability of architectural building blocks, etc. In light of this dis-cussion and analysis agile principles are distilled and summarized as shown in Table 2.

INTERPRETING AGILE DEVELOPMENT FROM CAS PERSPECTIVE

Agile development methods, such as SCRUM, Extreme Programming (XP), SCRUM/XP Hybrid, and other light-weight methods share similar agile prac-tices that are argued to realize agile principles (Table 2). If we are to view agile

development from a complexity perspective, it is necessary to examine the principles and practices that these agile approaches adopt and identify if they have the same characteristics and rationales as CAS principles (Table 1). This should help better un-derstand agile principles (see Table 2) and to identify the complexity concepts in ac-tion behind these approaches. For example, extreme Programming (XP) adopts prac-tices, such as onsite customer for better communication, small and frequent releases, simple designs, pair programming, time-boxing, continuous integration, code-reuse and re-factoring (Beck, 2000). These practices potentially realize agile principles such as interactions & collaboration, embrace change in requirements, flexibility, quick de-livery of working software, etc. that we argue have a resonance from a CAS perspec-tive. Similarly, Adaptive Software Development uses JAD (Joint Application Design workshops), incremental prototyping, time boxing, iterative development and other

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People-Oriented/ Empowered & Self-organizing Teams(motivated individuals, empowered teams, sustainable development, self-organizing teams, etc.)

Communication, Interactions & Collaboration(collaboration between stakeholders, face-face conversation, interactions, etc.)

Focus on Working Software

Shorter Development Cycles

Embrace Change in Requirements

Frequent Delivery of Products (Releases)

Continuous Reflection & Adjustment/Iterative Development

Flexibility of Software Architecture

Simplicity

Technical ExcellenceTable 2 Agile Development Principles

agile practices (Highsmith, 2000). The widely-used agile practices and their inter-re-lations to CAS principles will be provided in the following analysis. This is done based on the identified principles of agile practices of Table 2. The outcome of this analysis is provided in Table 3.

People-Oriented/Empowered, Self-organizing Teams

The effective use of people achieves maneuverability, innovation and adaptation, which supports the principle of “self-organization”. Employees and customers in agile organizations need to be knowledgeable, empowered and self-motivated (Highsmith & Cockburn, 2001). Agile practices that operationalize these concepts cover delegato-ry management (Fowler, 2005) that give team members space to react independently, in contrast to traditional methods. Beck (2000) introduces the concept of collective ownership, 40hour/week and open work area he argues will raise individual commit-ment to the collective benefit and team working (Martin & Martin, 2006). Task boards, Kanban boards (brainstorming boards with user stories and requirements) and Burn-down charts (timeline of development activities) (Cohn, 2004) (VersioneOne, 2011) are agile tools that will support self-organizing teams in steering their activities.

Communication, Interactions & Collaboration

According to Truex et al. (1999) IS emergence is driven by constant social nego-tiation and communication. In this way decision processes and outcomes emerge through interaction with the problem context and with stakeholders. This implies

10 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

that agile development provides elements of social construction that facilitate the CAS principle of “interaction”. For example, agile practices support communica-tion and collaboration represented in agile modeling sessions (Ambler, 2002a), user participation, onsite customers, focus groups, prototyping and pair programming (Beck, 2000), and others.

Focus on Working Software

Highsmith (2002) and Baskerville & Pries-Heje (2004) emphasize the use of compo-nents and the use of integrated CASE tools as a way to focus on the quick delivery of working software. This can be explained in complexity terms where emergence of order happens through integration and reinforcement of local arrangements and structures to form global structures and the stability of their mutual reproduction (Küppers, 1999). In fact, the break down of the software into working components will speed up the development process so that it is more responsive to change (“unpredictability” principle), as well as facilitating the “coevolution” of the different parts of the system towards maximizing the benefits or profit of the organization, and in that way the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts (“non-linearity” principle).

Shorter Development Cycles

Short-cycle time systems development is achieved through shorter development cy-cles and release-oriented parallel development (Baskerville & Pries-Heje, 2004). This assures fast movement, small scale orientation and thus quick response. This is im-portant as due to the “unpredictability” principle of CAS, future conditions cannot be predicted and therefore it is important to respond quickly to current situations and address imperatives before they become obsolete.

Embrace Change in Requirements & Frequent Delivery of Products

Baskerville et al. (1992) suggest fast movement based on small releases and short-term planning for short-term needs. This refers to the “unpredictability”, “feedback” and “learning” principles in CAS terminology. For this reason planning games that are based on identifying short-term plans is proposed (Beck, 2000), as well as Sprint Back logs and Sprint Planning meetings that cover planning over 30 consecutive calendar days (Martin & Martin, 2006). These plans will evolve and become adjusted with time to the particu-lar context, which maps to the “adaptation as fit to environment” principle of CAS.

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Continuous Reflection & Adjustment/Iterative Development

Feedback and adjustment are important elements of agile development, for example Schwaber (2002) suggests iterative development and Highsmith (2000) suggests learn-ing loops. From a complexity lens this supports the “feedback” and “learning” principle. Through frequent delivery of products (frequent releases) developers know when devia-tion from the goal has occurred and thus make any necessary corrections, which maps to the “edge of chaos” principle. Highsmith (2000) suggests development to follow “spec-ulate-collaborate-learn” that he refers to as an adaptive cycle, with the aim to adapt to ever-changing environments (”adaptation as fit to environment” CAS principle).

Flexibility of S/W Architecture

Component-based development and code re-factoring are suggested to facilitate flexibility of software code and architecture (MacCormack, 2001; Highsmith, 2002; Beck, 2000). This in turn decreases the degree of “connectivity and interdependence” within systems components. In CAS agents’ interactions result in networks that will then morph into high-level arrangements that will enable complex structures and pro-cesses to coevolve (Lichtenstein & McKelvey, 2004). This facilitates adaptive behavior as supported by CAS principles.

Simplicity

The Agile Alliance (2001) argues for simplicity that they define as the art of maximiz-ing the amount of work not done, which is essential for rapid response and adapta-tion. Highsmith (2002) identifies three facets of simplicity, simplicity as minimalism e.g., minimal documentation, remove redundancy, e.g., cleaned-up sketches etc., sim-plicity in design, e.g., simple designs, feature-based designs, abstractions and sim-plicity in strategy e.g., mission-focused plans, etc. This supports the CAS principle of “simple rules”. This can also be explained as simplicity enhances diversity that creates more possibilities to react flexibly as agent networks combine the most different vari-ants, characters and functions (Webb et al., 2004).

Technical Excellence

Highsmith (2002) argues that good discipline is still required in order to be flexible without descent into anarchy, which represents the CAS concept of “edge of chaos”. Cockburn (2000) suggests quality controls; these can be realized by quality reviews and testing. Baskerville et al. (2002) identify practices to balance quality and agility;

12 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

including frequent peer and customer reviews and frequent unit, integration & regres-sion testing. Boehm (2002) argues that agile methods need to be applied with care, this implies that minimal use of development methods or generative development rules are still required (Cockburn, 2000, Highsmith & Cockburn, 2001).

A mapping of the literature that covers agile development and their inter-relation to CAS principles as identified in this section is provided in Table 3.

CONCEPTUALIZING AGILE DEVELOPMENT AS A COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEM

Practices of agile development have been found to be the operationalization of the complexity concepts as discussed in the previous section. For example, ac-cording to CAS principles, interactions and social construction are critical intan-

gible drivers for change and adaptation, as supported by agile practices like JAD (Joint Application Design) workshops, agile modeling sessions, prototyping, pair program-ming and others. This is beside development practices that support short-term ori-entation, speed in development and flexibility, such as short-term plans, time-boxing, shorter development cycles, focus on working software, etc. that operationalize CAS principles of unpredictability, non-linearity, connectivity & interdependence and co-evolution. The concept of edge of chaos is also particularly highlighted as it ensures reliability and rigor of agile development such that it will not lead to chaotic situa-tions. Edge of chaos represents the balance between strict adherence to structure and absolute freedom, and from the above analysis it relates to continuous reflection, adjustments, and technical excellence principles. These are represented in iterations, learning loops, frequent-releases, as well as testing techniques, customer reviews and minimal generative rule-type methods.

Thus, via this analysis it is argued that the identification of the CAS principles that have been adopted in agile IS development (Table 3) provides theoretical support to agile development. Next, this is built upon to achieve a generic representation of complex adaptive information systems referred to as CAIS (Complex Adaptive Infor-mation Systems). This provides a theoretical representation of CAIS (Figure 2) showing the means and detail by which modern IS development methods like agile implicitly utilize the complexity concepts to enable emergence and cope with change.

CAS theory implies that agents that form the system continuously interact with each other and with the global environment to form stable, global patterns that suit the current settings in the system and the environment as depicted in Figure 1. The

E:CO Vol. 15 No. 3 2013 pp. 1-23 | 13

emergence process is governed by CAS principles; unpredictability, non-linearity, di-versity, interactions, edge of chaos, adaptation as fit to environment, system inter-connectivity, feedback, learning and pattern recognition, historicity and path depen-dence, self-organization, coevolution and simple rules. Similarly, agile information systems development can be conceptualized using CAS where agents that represent project stakeholders, development team, users and software system components con-tinuously undergo interactions to adapt to changing requirements. The mapping of CAS principles to agile development practices shows that all reviewed agile practices surveyed from literature support CAS, but it was found that some CAS principles are less well developed in agile and are not fully addressed in agile practice. Figure 2 provides an interpretation of agile development as a CAS as it shows CAS principles and agile practices that support them (attached with the principle). The CAS principles that are not fully addressed in agile are highlighted in bold and they have vague ag-ile practices attached to them, for example empowered teams, flexibility of software architecture, embrace change in requirements, etc., or no attached practices. In the following we will suggest how to introduce new agile practices to support not well spelled out CAS principles. Furthermore, as shown in Figure 2, CAS principles can be classified as related to environment, like unpredictability and adaptation as fit to en-vironment, as related to agent properties, like diversity, non-linearity, connectivity and simple rules, as related to selection like self-organization, coevolution and edge of chaos, and as related to iterations and feedback, learning and pattern recognition, etc. In future studies we will investigate how such grouping could provide a further high-level abstraction of CAIS theory and underlying agile practices.

The not spelled out CAS principles are; diversity, inter-connectivity, self-organi-zation, adaptation as fit to the environment, pattern recognition, and historicity and path dependence, and are now discussed in further detail:

• The principle of diversity needs to be further addressed in agile development, as currently it is just represented in the simplicity approach. Diverse interest and knowledge will stimulate agents to explore different regions in the system’s state space (Heylighen, 2001). This can happen through variant skill development within agile teams and supportive training workshops.

• According to Axelrod and Cohen (1999) adaptability is the outcome of a selection process that leads to an improvement according to some measure of success where current events heavily influence the probabilities of later events (historicity & path dependence). Pattern recognition implies that learning is an essential part of adaptive development. Thus, it is important to utilize previous experiences and

14 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

Agile

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ing,

empo

were

d te

ams

Mot

ivate

d, em

powe

red

team

s, co

llecti

ve o

wner

ship

, de

legat

ory m

anag

emen

t, 40

hou

r/wee

kOp

en w

ork a

rea

Task

boa

rd, K

anba

n Bo

ard,

Burn

down

char

ts

High

smith

& C

ockb

urn

(200

1) Fo

wler

(200

3)Be

ck (2

000)

Mar

tin &

Mar

tin (2

006)

Versi

onOn

e Sur

vey (

2008

) (2

011)

Cohn

(200

4)

Self-

orga

nizat

ion

(P11

)Se

lf-or

ganiz

atio

n pr

incip

le im

plies

the

empo

werm

ent o

f peo

ple/

deve

lope

rs. Th

is ac

hieve

s m

anoe

uvra

bility

and

innov

atio

n so

that

crea

tive

actio

ns an

d de

signs

evol

ve as

resp

onse

to th

e pr

oblem

situ

atio

n, no

t dict

ated

bef

oreh

and.

Com

mun

icatio

n, In

tera

ction

s &

Colla

bora

tion

User

par

ticipa

tion,

Onsit

e cu

stom

ers

Daily

stan

d up

mee

tings

Focu

s gro

ups

JAD

(Joint

App

licat

ion

Desig

n)Ag

ile m

odell

ing se

ssio

nsRe

trosp

ectiv

esPa

ir pr

ogra

mm

ingPr

otot

yping

Truex

et a

l. (19

99)

Mar

tin (1

991)

Versi

onOn

e Sur

vey (

2011

)Be

ck (2

000)

Hi

ghsm

ith (2

002)

Ambl

er (2

002a

)M

artin

& M

artin

(200

6)

Inte

racti

ons (

P4)

Agile

prin

ciples

that

emph

asize

com

mun

icatio

n &

colla

bora

tion

are g

roun

ded

in th

e CAS

prin

ciple

of “I

nter

actio

ns b

etwe

en ag

ents”

. This

pro

vides

th

e evid

ence

why

pra

ctice

s like

use

r par

ticipa

tion,

parti

cipat

ive d

esig

n, pa

ir pr

ogra

mm

ing, e

tc.,

facilit

ate a

mea

n of

inte

racti

ons a

nd co

ordi

natio

n, an

d th

us le

vera

ge em

erge

nt re

spon

se.

Focu

s on

work

ing

S/W

Custo

miza

tion,

Reus

abilit

yCo

mpo

nent

sIn

tegr

ated

CAS

E too

ls

High

smith

(200

2)Ba

sker

ville

& Pr

ies-H

eje

(200

4)

Unpr

edict

abilit

y (P

1)

Nonli

near

ity (

P2)

Coev

olut

ion

(P12

)

Brea

k dow

n of

the s

oftw

are i

nto

work

ing

com

pone

nts w

ill sp

eed

up th

e dev

elopm

ent p

roce

ss

so th

at it

bec

omes

mor

e res

pons

ive to

chan

ge

(“unp

redi

ctabi

lity” p

rincip

le), a

s well

as fa

cilita

te th

e “co

evol

utio

n” o

f the

diff

eren

t par

ts of

the s

yste

m

and

in th

at w

ay th

e who

le wi

ll be g

reat

er th

an th

e su

m o

f its

parts

(“no

n-lin

earit

y” p

rincip

le).

E:CO Vol. 15 No. 3 2013 pp. 1-23 | 15

Tabl

e 3

Agile

Prin

ciple

s, Re

late

d Ag

ile P

ract

ices &

Sup

porti

ve C

AS P

rincip

les

Agile

Prin

ciple

sAg

ile P

ract

ices

Supp

ortiv

e IT

Liter

atur

e Su

ppor

tive C

AS

Prin

ciple

sIn

terp

reta

tion

from

CAS

Per

spec

tive

Shor

ter

deve

lopm

ent

cycle

s/Spe

ed in

de

velo

pmen

t

Shor

t cyc

lesPa

ralle

l/con

curre

nt

deve

lopm

ent

Time b

oxing

Prot

otyp

ingAu

tom

ated

Buil

dsVe

locit

y

Bask

ervil

le &

Pries

-Heje

(2

004)

High

smith

(200

0)

Mar

tin (1

991)

Ve

rsion

One S

urve

y (20

11)

Unpr

edict

abilit

y (P

1)Un

pred

ictab

ility o

f tur

bulen

t env

ironm

ents

can

be ad

dres

sed

in so

ftwar

e dev

elopm

ent b

y sho

rter

deve

lopm

ent c

ycles

. This

assu

res f

ast m

ovem

ent

and

thus

quic

k res

pons

e and

adjus

tmen

t to

unpr

edict

able/

fast-c

hang

ing co

ntex

ts.

Embr

ace C

hang

e in

Requ

irem

ents

Shor

t-ter

m p

lannin

g,Pla

nning

gam

eSp

rint B

ack l

ogs

Bask

ervil

le et

al. (

1992

) Be

ck (2

000)

Mar

tin &

Mar

tin (2

006)

Unpr

edict

abilit

y (P

1)Ad

apta

tion

as fi

t to

envir

onm

ent

(P6)

Embr

ace c

hang

e in

requ

irem

ents

as re

flecte

d in

shor

t-ter

m p

lannin

g wi

ll im

prov

e ada

ptat

ion

and

adjus

tmen

t to

fast c

hang

ing en

viron

men

ts. Th

is is

in co

ntra

st to

follo

wing

a pr

e-pl

an w

ith w

ell d

efine

d lo

ng-te

rm as

sum

ptio

ns th

at co

uld o

bsol

ete s

oon.

Frequ

ent D

elive

ry

of P

rodu

ctsSm

all re

lease

s, In

crem

ents

Cont

inuou

s int

egra

tion

High

smith

(200

0)M

artin

& M

artin

(200

6)Un

pred

ictab

ility

(P1)

Feed

back

(P8

)Le

arnin

g (P

9)Ad

apta

tion

as fi

t to

envir

onm

ent

(P6)

Thro

ugh f

requ

ent d

elive

ry of

softw

are re

pres

ente

d in

small

relea

ses &

incre

men

ts th

e dev

elopm

ent

team

can a

ssur

e quic

k and

gra

dual

resp

onse

. This

wi

ll fac

ilitate

feed

back

, lear

ning,

and

adjus

tmen

t to

unpr

edict

able

requ

irem

ents.

Cont

inuou

s re

flecti

on &

ad

justm

ent /

Itera

tive

deve

lopm

ent

Itera

tions

, Lea

rning

loop

, Ad

aptiv

e cyc

le ,

Itera

tion

plan

ning

Daily

Stan

d up

mee

tings

Frequ

ent-r

eleas

esLe

arnin

g en

viron

men

t (pi

lot

proj

ects,

pro

totyp

ing, fo

cus

grou

ps)

Cont

inuou

s re-

deve

lopm

ent

Schw

aber

(200

2)Hi

ghsm

ith (2

000)

Be

ck (2

000)

Versi

onOn

e Sur

vey (

2008

) (2

011)

Feed

back

(P8

)Le

arnin

g (P

9)Ed

ge o

f cha

os (

P5)

Thro

ugh

itera

tive d

evelo

pmen

t & fr

eque

nt so

ftwar

e re

lease

s dev

elope

rs ad

just t

he p

rodu

ct at

the

end

of ea

ch it

erat

ion/

proj

ect c

ycle.

Bas

ed o

n th

is ne

xt, su

bseq

uent

iter

atio

ns o

r rele

ases

will

be

guid

ed. T

his su

ppor

ts “fe

edba

ck” a

nd “l

earn

ing”

princ

iples

. It al

so re

flects

“edg

e of c

haos

” con

cept

; i.e

. dev

iatio

ns fr

om th

e goa

l (rat

iona

le of

the s

yste

m)

can

be m

onito

red

and

nece

ssar

y cor

recti

ons c

an b

e ta

ken.

16 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

Agile

Prin

ciple

sAg

ile P

ract

ices

Supp

ortiv

e IT

Liter

atur

e Su

ppor

tive C

AS

Prin

ciple

sIn

terp

reta

tion

from

CAS

Per

spec

tive

Flexib

ility o

f S/W

Ar

chite

cture

Com

pone

nt-b

ased

de

velo

pmen

tRe

-usa

ble s

oftw

are

Code

Re-

facto

ring

Bask

ervil

le et

al. (

1992

) M

acCo

rmac

k (20

01)

High

smith

(200

2)Be

ck (2

000)

Conn

ectiv

ity &

int

erde

pend

ence

(P7)

Co-e

volut

ion

(P12

)

Softw

are fl

exib

ility r

epre

sent

ed in

com

pone

nt-b

ased

de

velo

pmen

t, re

usab

le so

ftwar

e etc.

dec

reas

es th

e de

gree

of “

conn

ectiv

ity an

d int

erde

pend

ence

” be

twee

n pr

oduc

t com

pone

nts a

nd in

that

way

fac

ilitat

e quic

k re-

arra

ngem

ents,

adjus

tmen

ts &

co-

evol

utio

n of

diff

eren

t sys

tem

par

ts.

Simpl

icity

Abstr

actio

ns, M

etap

hor

Simpl

e des

igns

Feat

ure-

base

d de

sign

Miss

ion-

focu

sed

plan

s M

inim

al do

cum

enta

tion

Agile

Man

ifesto

(200

1)Be

ck (2

000)

High

smith

(200

2)

Simpl

e rule

s (P1

3)Di

versi

ty (P

3)Sim

plifie

d re

pres

enta

tion

of so

ftwar

e atta

cks

com

plex

ity as

supp

orte

d by

the “

simpl

e rule

s” pr

incip

le, e.

g., si

mpl

e rep

rese

ntat

ions

of b

usine

ss

func

tions

will

mak

e com

plex

syste

ms m

ore

man

agea

ble t

han

com

plica

ted

desig

ns. S

impl

icity

indire

ctly i

nflue

nces

dive

rsity,

as it

enco

urag

es

deve

lope

rs to

com

bine

their

diff

eren

t com

pete

ncies

.

Tech

nical

exce

llenc

eTe

sting

(unit

, inte

grat

ion

& re

gres

sion

testi

ng)

Test-

drive

n de

velo

pmen

t (T

DD)

Revie

ws (p

eer &

custo

mer

re

views

)Qu

ality

revie

w/Q/

ACo

ding

Stan

dard

sM

inim

al m

etho

ds/

gene

rativ

e rule

s

High

smith

(200

0)

Bask

ervil

le et

al. (

2002

) Co

ckbu

rn (2

000)

Ve

rsion

One S

urve

y (20

11)

High

smith

& C

ockb

urn,

(200

1) B

oehm

(200

2)Ag

ile M

anife

sto (2

001)

Edge

of c

haos

(P5)

Disc

iplin

e is s

till re

quire

d to

guid

e and

cont

rol

the d

evelo

pmen

t pro

cess

, this

is to

ensu

re n

o de

scen

d int

o ch

aos w

hile f

acilit

ating

emer

genc

e and

ad

apta

tion.

This

repr

esen

ts th

e con

cept

of “

edge

of

chao

s”. D

iscip

line i

n so

ftwar

e dev

elopm

ent c

an

be re

flecte

d in

quali

ty co

ntro

ls, e.

g., fr

eque

nt p

eer

and

custo

mer

revie

ws, fr

eque

nt te

sting

, as w

ell as

fo

llowi

ng d

evelo

pmen

t guid

eline

s and

/or m

inim

al de

velo

pmen

t met

hods

.

Tabl

e 3

Agile

Prin

ciple

s, Re

late

d Ag

ile P

ract

ices &

Sup

porti

ve C

AS P

rincip

les (

cont

inue

d).

E:CO Vol. 15 No. 3 2013 pp. 1-23 | 17

accumulative knowledge as part of agile development and not let it happen by chance. In this regard, Dabrowski et al. (2011) suggest the codification of informal notes, brain storming ideas, instant messaging discussion topics and other tacit knowledge items as a way to trace events’ history and support agile decision making activities.

• The principle of adaptation as fit to environment needs to be further harnessed in agile development as currently it is just represented spontaneously in planning games and sprint planning. Contextual analysis techniques need to be included in agile requirements specification beside business process modeling techniques that focus on data and process modeling. A global requirements exploration tool was introduced by Alaa, et al. (2006) to help outline high-level requirements that a typical e-business project could encounter. This guided analysts in adapting to various project contexts.

• It is noted in the literature that agile development often faces personal barriers, represented in shortage of mid-level management capable of playing the role of agile champions. Traditional high-level management typically feels a loss of control in delegating decisions, and traditional developers will resist taking extra responsibilities associated with hybrid teams and collective ownership (VesionOne, 2011; Karekar et al., 2011). In this regard it is suggested that training workshops are used to leverage collaboration and delegatory management skills by improving collaboration, pattern recognition and thus self-organization capabilities.

• Emphasis on inter-connectivity of system components and flexibility of architecture has attracted attention in some agile literature. For example, Faber (2010) introduces the concept of skeletal design where system architects quickly decide on system sub-components with their interfaces and messaging to ensure architecture loose coupling. These techniques have not yet been formally adopted into agile methods, as they might conflict with agile principles that focus on coding and the quick delivery of working software that might hinder the extensive design of software architecture (Abrahamsson et al., 2010).

CONCLUSIONS

The research presented in this paper sits in the mainstream of theoretical and explanatory Information Systems (IS) change models. IS emergence phenom-ena was conceptualized by building on a profound theoretical framework, that

of complex adaptive systems theory (CAS). This analysis identified IS emergence characteristics that would make information systems development more responsive to change. It is argued that the derived framework (Table 3) represents a theoreti-

18 | Alaa & Fitzgerald

cal foundation for agile IS development, based on CAS principles, that are found to facilitate fast response and emergence. This is a significant improvement on most development methods that in practice simply hope that certain beneficial emergent properties will happen, without providing a theoretical basis or evidence. Based on this analysis a Complex Adaptive Information System (CAIS) model is suggested that can help analyze emergence attributes in complex software projects, as it identifies generic IS emergence mechanisms supported by CAS (Figure 2). This provides a basis for reliable guidelines to help various software projects realize emergence and agility.

The framework also highlights areas that might usefully be improved by the agile community based on better utilization of CAS principles (attributes in bold in Figure 2). These emergence characteristics are currently missing in the practice or not spelled out clearly. In particular the research identifies possible agile development improve-ments based on:

• Diversity building techniques and workshops• Skill development for delegatory management and self-organization• Global contextual analysis techniques• Coarse-grained software architecture design techniques• Codification of unstructured tacit knowledge, represented in notes, instant

messaging feedback and opinions, etc. that would support pattern recognition, historicity and path dependence.

These additions we argue are of particular importance as agile development is increasingly widely adopted, even in large-scale global software development projects (VersionOne, 2011). This research is ongoing and future work will focus on refining and validating the generic CAIS framework.

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E:CO Vol. 15 No. 3 2013 pp. 1-23 | 19

FeedbackRegularities

Feedback

Global Pattern

InteractionsPattern recognition

Historicity & Path dependence

Learning

Continuous reflection & adjustment

People-oriented/self-organizing, empowered teams Self-organization Unpredictability

Shorter development cycles

Focus on working software

Embrace change in requirements

Frequent delivery of products

Adaptation as Fit to Environment

Frequent delivery of products

Embrace change in requirements

Co-evolution

Focus on working software

Flexibility of S/W architecture

Edge of chaos

Iterative development

Technical excellence/Quality controls

Communication, Interactions & Collaboration Interactions

Agile agents • Project stakeholders

• Development team

• Users

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Non-linearity

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Simple rules

Simplicity

Connectivity

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Diversity

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Ghada Alaa is currently full-time Software Architecture Specialist at the Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support centre. Prior to that she held posts as Assistant Professor at the School of Informatics and Computer Science, the British University in Egypt (2008-2011) and R&D Manager at the Information Technology Institute, the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Egypt (2007-2008). She holds a Ph.D. in Web-based Systems Development & Evolution, Brunel University, UK (2006). Her research interests lie in the area of Web development methodologies in particular agile, and software engineering design frameworks, evolution processes and metrics for modern Web applications to include Web 2.0, Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and cloud computing.

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Guy Fitzgerald is Professor of Information Systems in the School of Business and Economics at Loughborough University, UK. He has also worked at Brunel University, Birkbeck College, University of London, Oxford University and Warwick. His research interests are concerned with the effective management and development of information systems and he has published widely in these areas. He has undertaken a number of cases studies in organizations that have used information systems to enable significant organizational transformation. He has also undertaken research in relation to strategy, executive information systems, outsourcing, and flexibility. He is founder and coeditor of the Information Systems Journal (ISJ) from Blackwell/Wiley. He is also author (with David Avison) of a major text from McGraw-Hill entitled Information Systems Development: Methodologies, Techniques and Tools, now in its Fourth Edition. He has been President of UKAIS and Vice-President (Research) of AIS (the Association for Information Systems).