Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Computers and Artificial Intelligence - Department of Software Engineering

There has been a common assumption that the unconventional methods like Agile culture and process cannot be adopted in the development of critical systems. It has been believed that adopting such methods leads to a higher risk of failure for critical systems, which can lead to loss of life, mission or business. Adopting Agile development life cycle to develop critical systems has been investigated in previous researches. Agile is found applicable to be adopted in different critical system types like safety critical systems and mission critical systems. However, effectiveness of the Agile development process was not systematically assessed in the development of critical systems. Previous research tackled the measurement of Agile culture by applying different proposed frameworks to assess the Agile maturity of the process using Agile Maturity Models. The effectiveness of the Agile process adopted was also measured using previously proposed frameworks.Taking into consideration that the criticality of the system was not a solid factor in those measurement approaches. In this research, a measurement framework is proposed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Agile software development process and culture when adopted to develop a critical system.The framework is divided into 3 main axes: first axis, assessing the criticality level of the system under development.The second axis is assessing the agility of the adopted process, by measuring the achievement of the four Agile values published in the Agile manifesto, in order to prove the applicability of the Agile culture for critical systems.The third axis is assessing the effectiveness of the adopted process in the matter of product quality, project success and achieving organizational goals

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