Suitability and Contribution of Agile Methods in Mobile Software Development

Published Online February 2014 in MECS DOI: 10.5815/ijmecs.2014.02.08

• I.    Introduction

  Rate of introduction of new kind of mobile phones in market is quite higher than the rate of advancement in techniques for developing applications for these mobile phones. Most of mobiles that are common in market are those smart phones that have very high computation power. But these smart phones required specialized applications due to internal characteristics of mobile phones which make requirements for applications quite specified [1]. Mobile app market is expanding exponentially. Gartner studies forecast that over 185 billion applications will have been downloaded from mobile app stores by the end of 2014, since the first one was launched in July 2008[2]. Another Gartner study [2] exemplifies that 428 million mobile devices were sold worldwide in 2011 Q1, a 19 % increase from the previous year.

These statistical study shows that mobile phone is a fundamental necessity of our lives. Nowadays almost everyone owes his/her personal phone not only for messaging and calling purpose but also for entertainment, communication over the web, complex business transaction, instant accessibility of required information and much more.

Mobile computing is everywhere. It is enabling insurance, trading, banking, retail in B2C, empowering field employees, improving supply chain and business information in B2E and B2B. While in M2M it facilitates exchange of information between machines and businesses. But for developing all these types of mobile apps, development teams are facing numerous challenges like increasing mobile app complexity, changing hardware, multiple platforms, security, network communication, easy to use UI, managing requirement from multiple stakeholders and managing activities from entire development lifecycle.

Mobile platforms support network resources usage in mobile phones extensively so it made mobiles a good choice as compared to personal computers and their software. Software which is developed for mobile applications have their own characteristics and constraints which are applied to almost all lifecycle stages. For mobile application, software development process is quite different from traditional methodologies [3]. Most important features which made mobile applications different from traditional applications are identified. These include a large number of competitors, difficult to find requirements, and time constriction on delivery of developed software. Mobile application developer also face changing environment in which customer requirements change frequently [4]. Technical limitations in mobile applications development are limited physical resources, frequently changing requirement, a large number of different devices having different operating system and their own hardware specifications [5]. Other limitations in mobile devices are security, bandwidth, screen size, memory capacity, operational power, small keyboard size, coverage, limited battery time and different input methods. Some of these are inherent characteristics of mobile device and others are due to change in technology. These inherent constraints should be resolved in mobile application development [6]. Mobile application developers has to keep cost of developing process of mobile application less and they also strike for developing the application which has attributes which make it internally efficient [7].

Talking about software development history agile application development is newer in it. Traditionally water fall and other extension of it were used for software development. Agile methodology is based on principles of Lean Methodology and agile methodology for manufacturing, whose bases were on idea of adaptability of enterprise to a changing development environment. Agile methodology has unique features like in agile methodology individuals and their interactions are more valuable than tools and techniques used, software to develop is important than all the documentation of its development process, changes are welcomed than to strictly following defined requirement based on signed contract, and collaborating with end user is given preference on talking about contract terms [8].

When some technique is introduced it receives both negative and positive comments same is the case for agile development methodology. Most important view against agile is no defined validation method for activities and practices used in agile methodology. Another issue is that it is difficult to integrate other old practices with agile practices but it is possible that developer may want to use mix of these methodologies. Mix of both methodologies is used in some projects and a balance is achieved between these methodologies [9]. It is also difficult to find difference between agile and ad-hoc programming techniques mainly agile methods provide a structured development technique but ad-hoc programing do not follow any proper development method or approach [10].

On the positive side usage of agile development method made development of good quality software in less time. Agile methodologies improved pervious methodologies as it encourage change in requirement during development process. So while developing through agile it is not required to follow the rule of freeze requirements on the other hand requirement changes during development process [11]. There are many approaches in agile methodology these all approaches share some characteristics which are prototyping, iterative development, and less documentation more coding [12].