Master Thesis presentation: "Refactoring in agile software development projects – A risk management perspective"
Date: October 19, 2009 (Monday) at 13:15
Jörgen Nilsson presents his Master Thesis "Refactoring in agile software development projects – A risk management perspective".
Abstract:
Agile software development has attracted a lot of attention in the software industry during the most recent years as part of a reaction against traditional, document-heavy methods that can be considered too slow, bureaucratic and inconsistent with the way developers actually perform effective work. One important practice common to agile methods is refactoring -the process of improving the design of existing code by changing it in such a way that it does not alter the external behaviour of the code, yet improves its internal structure. Refactoring can be seen as part of a strategy to manage risks in a software project, by taking control and
continuously monitor and improve the design of the code. On the other hand, the practice of changing working code to get design improvements, without adding new features or achieving short-term payoff, can also be viewed upon as a risk to a software development project.
This thesis examines how refactoring can be applied in an agile software development project to improve overall risk management, by synthesizing knowledge from previous software development research with other authors’ measurement data from the software industry. The results show that refactoring has the potential to help manage at least 24 listed risk factors.
This thesis also identifies 10 risk factors that could possibly be introduced or worsened by refactoring, and shows how they can be managed by following recommended guidelines for refactoring safely.
Room: E:2116
Last modified Dec 9, 2011 12:57 pm
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