This special issue of the Software Quality Journal (SQJ), Springer calls for submissions on agile, lightweight and lean practices for designing software architectures.

Prospective authors are encouraged to informally express their interest to the guest editors.

The special issue details are also available at the SQJ website:
https://www.springer.com/journal/11219/updates/19383072


GUEST EDITORS

Hector Duran-Limon, University of Guadalajara, Mexico; hduran@cucea.udg.mx
Claude Y. Laporte, École de technologie supérieure, Canada; claude.laporte@etsmtl.ca
Orlando Karam, Amazon AWS, USA; karamo@amazon.com
Manuel Mora, Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, Mexico; jose.mora@edu.uaa.mx
Alok Mishra, Molde University College-Specialized University in Logistics, Norway and Atilim University, Turkey; alok.mishra@himolde.no and alok.mishra@atilim.edu.tr



SCOPE

Agile approaches have succeeded in having a more predictable product delivery, schedule, and costs. Agile processes are very dynamic and flexible and eliminate much of the bureaucratic documentation procedures of rigor-oriented (i.e. plan-driven) methodologies. Therefore, Agile development has gained large acceptance in Industry as a methodology to increase adaptability to changes as opposed to the rigidity of rigor-oriented methodologies. However, whereas a well-documented software architecture design activity is mandatory in plan-driven methodologies, this is not promoted by agile practices. This omission is considered a weakness of current agile approaches, given the introduction of the technical debt problem and because it is widely recognized that software architecture design practices help to avoid costly errors to be corrected in the subsequent software process development phases.

To alleviate software architecture design omissions in agile practices, lightweight and lean approaches have been suggested. Lightweight and lean are necessary but not sufficient attributes for agile practices, and thus lightweight and lean practices can be considered in the middle point between agile and plan-driven methods. The new ISO/IEC 29110 standard series for Very Small Entities and the Disciplined Agile Framework are interesting examples of lightweight and lean approaches, respectively. Furthermore, agile practices have been challenged to be used in large-scale projects, and the inclusion of lightweight and lean approaches are promoted. Hence, it remains an important challenge to incorporate software architecture procedures into current agile practices while maintaining similar levels of flexibility.

This special issue aims to highlight the importance and utilization enablers and inhibitors of software architecture design methods in the agile, lightweight, and lean approaches, and its impact on the six-pointed star model (cost, time, quality, scope, risk, and resource).


TOPICS OF INTEREST

Thus, this special issue calls for unpublished contributions of high scientific quality, as well as practical and industrial experience reports addressing the agile, lightweight, or lean software development, in any of the following areas, that include, but not limited to:

- Fundamental studies on the tenet of software architecture practices.

- Conceptual reviews of software architecture practices.

- Comparative studies against software architecture practices in the plan-driven approach.

- Conceptual frameworks on software architecture practices.

- Empirical survey with practitioners of software architecture practices.

- Experimental research comparing software architecture practices.

- Predictive and Explanatory simulation-based studies on software architecture practices.

- Industrial and academic case studies of software architecture practices.

- New methods of software architecture practices.

- Data Science studies on data collected from projects using software architecture practices.

- Utilization of software architecture practices combined with innovative practices like DevOps, microservices, SaaS, among others.

- Studies on the profiles of agile Software Architects.

- Agile software architecture practices in the cloud.



INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted through the Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/sqjo/default.aspx. Follow the submission instructions given on this site. All submitted papers should adhere to the general principles of the Software Quality Journal articles. The submitted papers must follow the format specified in the Guide for Authors https://www.springer.com/journal/11219/submission-guidelines.

IMPORTANT DATES
• First submission deadline: 31 March 2022
• First editorial notification: 31 July 2022
• Revised manuscript submission deadline: 30 September 2022
• Final editorial notification: 30 October 2022
• Camera-ready version submission deadline: 31 November 2022


ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For more information about this special issue or if you have any question, please contact the guest editors at: hduran@cucea.udg.mx, claude.laporte@etsmtl.ca, karamo@amazon.com, jose.mora@edu.uaa.mx, alok.mishra@himolde.no and alok.mishra@atilim.edu.tr; or visit the following website:
https://www.springer.com/journal/11219/updates/19383072

On behalf of the Guest Editors
Hector Duran-Limon

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Hector Duran-Limon
Departamento de Sistemas de Información, CUCEA
Profesor de la Universidad de Guadalajara, México
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