Using Mobile-D methodology in development of mobile applications: Challenges and issues (Presentation)

Using Mobile-D methodology
in development of mobile applications:
challenges and issues
Dario Supan*, Klaudia Teković*, Jelena Škalec*,
Zlatko Stapić
University of Zagreb
Faculty of Organization and Informatics
Pavlinska 2, 42000 Varaždin, Croatia
http://www.foi.unizg.hr/
CASE25 – Developers conference - 11.06.2013. – Zagreb, Croatia
* Students at University of Zagreb, FOI Varazdin

Agenda
Supan, Teković, Škalec, Stapić: Using Mobile-D methodology in development of… - CASE25, 11th June 20132
Introduction
Project example information
A glimpse view on Mobile-D methodology
Challenges and issues
Conclusion

Introduction 1/2
 to keep development costs down and ensure high-quality software,
mobile application vendors must approach software development
with a commitment to internal efficiencies
 transition to iterative and incremental delivery methods to keep up
with the rapid pace and constant change inherent in the industry
 agile methods
3
Mobile-D methodology

Introduction 2/2
 based on combination of eXtreme programming in terms of
practices, Crystal family of methodologies in terms of scalability
and Rational Unified Process in the terms of life-cycle coverage
Mobile-D methodology
eXtreme programming
RUPCrystal family

Project example information
Mobile application ePula was developed while we were taking
course “Software Analysis and Design” at Faculty of organization
and informatics.
The idea of this application is to help tourists who visit the city of
Pula so they can easily go sightseeing.

A glimpse view on Mobile-D methodology
6
1. Explore: The aim is to establish initial project as well as to prepare
foundation for future development.
2. Initialize: The purpose of this stage is to describe and prepare all
components of application, as well as to predict possible critical issues of
project.
3. Productionize:Includes implementation of required functionalities using
iterative and incremental development cycle.
4. Stabilize: The goal is to finalize the implementation, including integrating
subsystems if needed.
5. System test & fix: review whether the application is developed according
to requirements of clients and whether it contains all required functionalities.

Inputs and Outputs
7

Explore
8
Planning has direct impact on project success and represents
the major part of the mobile app development.
 establishing the stakeholder groups
 defining goals of the mobile app
 choosing members  team
 deadlines
 development environment
* Management Board

Initialize
9
• this stage places emphasis on exploring the requirements and
architecture of future mobile applications and the preparation of
technical and human resources.
...permits changes and adaptations to the project plan to its
requirements based on current knowledge.
• this stage can only start when the previous stage Explore is
finished.

Productionize 1/4
10
is the third stage and its aim is to implement the principal
functionality of the mobile application.

Productionize 2/4
11
Story Card
•Number/ID
•Difficulty
•Type
•Effort
•Priority
•Date and status

Productionize 3/4
Task Card

Productionize 4/4
13
Acceptance Test
Sheet
•Story
•Description
•Expected result:

Stabilize
14
• Finalize the implementation and the documentation of the
mobile application.
• Improve and ensure the quality of the mobile application
Finalize the software
architecture, design
and UI documents.
...100% of the required
functionality of the project
is working and is
corresponding with the
requirements of the
customer.

System test & fix
15
The last of the five stages is aimed to test the system
according to the documentation, provide information on the
possible shortcomings, allow the team to remove defects and
deliver the mobile application without errors if it is possible.
System test  system is tested as described in the System Test pattern.
Found defects are documented for the purpose of the Fix iteration.

Challenges and issues
Implementation
challenges:
• Lack of examples
• Predefined iterations
• Many documentation
artifacts
• Lack of standard diagrams
Documentation
challenges:
• Documentation alignment
• Naming
• Test definition challenge
Team Challenges:
• Team work
• Team size
• Communication
• Deadlines
General
methodology
challenges:
• Applicability
• Clarity
• Sequencing

Implementation challenges
• Lack of examples:
 Official web site describes Mobile-D, but does not say how to write
Story or Task cards
 There are not many examples of the usage of Mobile-D like for other
methodologies
 Inability to compare project documentation with similar projects
• Many documentation artifacts

• Predefined iterations:
 Mobile-D requires predefined iterations
 Hard to predict how many iterations are going to be needed for
completing mobile application

• Many documentation artifacts:
 Because of the large number of iterations, it’s
required to fill a lot of forms (Story/Task cards)
 It generates many documentation artifacts and
makes it hard to differentiate whether the artifact
is important or not

• Lack of standard diagrams:
 Mobile-D divides complex process into tasks
 If your programmers gotten used to write code based on diagrams
instead of user stories, that may represent a problem
Use case diagram
Sequence diagram
Activity diagram
vs.
Story / Task
card

Documentation challenges
• Documentation alignment:
 For every major mistake that programmers make should be created a
new task for the purpose of fixing that error
 In most cases, new task entails new acceptance test sheet, too
 It can make documentation look kind of messy
• Naming

• Naming:
 Many ways to identify story and task cards:
 Assign unique number  works fine if you don’t have many story
cards
 A word that corresponds to some part of the functionality

• Naming
• Test definition challenge:
 You should write acceptance test sheet along with its story card
 If you write test sheets when you’re ready for testing part of iteration
there is a high probability that you will forget to write test for some
part of the functionallity
TestingStory card Programming
Acceptance
Test Sheet

Team challenges
• Team work:
 Team members must have confidence at each other so they should be
in good relations
 Team members should be excited and committed to accomplish team
goal
• Team size
• Communication
• Deadlines

Team challenges
• Team work
• Team size:
 Mobile-D is more suitable for smaller teams (up to ten members)
• Communication
• Deadlines

Team challenges
• Team work
• Team size
• Communication:
 Frequent contact with customers is considered a peculiarity of this
methodology
 The problem may represent the clients, who are not communicative
and willing to assist the team
• Deadlines

Team challenges
• Team work
• Team size
• Communication
• Deadlines:
 Deadlines are representing one of the most common challenges, not
only in this methodology, but in general
 Because of the deadlines, sometimes can happen that you don’t follow
the recommended stgages such as planning day, working day or
release day

General methodology challenges
• Applicability:
 Mobile-D is designed to be aplicable on many areas such as for
financial, logistical and many other applications
 Each of the mentioned usage requires different adjustment
 It is often necessary to strip down the methodology and to keep only
those artifacts that are useful in the context of a specific application,
company and team
• Clarity
• Sequencing

• Applicability
• Clarity:
 Lack of examples and many artifacts can represent problems when
using Mobile-D
 When someone first get in touch with Mobile-D it is hard to
understand it
 Most of the programmers are used to write source code using UML or
other diagrams, but in Mobile-D they do it using Task card
• Sequencing

• Applicability
• Clarity
• Sequencing:
 It is very hard to predict number of iteration that are going to be
needed for each stage
 It is possible to predict less time than actually needed causing delay
of release day
 The reason of that is inexperience both in using Mobile-D and
developing mobile application

Conclusion
 Mobile-D methodology presented itself as a viable discipline in
mobile application development
 it brings its own advantages and disadvantages
 teams that are familiarized with
the methodology and are
prepared for mentioned
obstacles would find
many benefits in
its usage

Looking forward to your questions 
32 Supan, Teković, Škalec, Stapić: Using Mobile-D methodology in development of… - CASE25, 11th June 2013

[1] R. Holler, “Mobile Application Development: A Natural Fit with Agile Methodologies.”
VersionOne, LLC., 2006.
[2] P. Abrahamsson, A. Hanhineva, H. Hulkko, T. Ihme, J. Jäälinoja, M. Korkala, J.
Koskela, P. Kyllönen, and O. Salo, “Mobile-D: An Agile Approach for Mobile
Application Development,” in Proceedings of Object Oriented Programming Systems
Languages and Application, Vancouver, 2004, pp. 174–175.
[3] V. Rahimian and R. Ramsin, “Designing an agile methodology for mobile software
development: A hybrid method engineering approach,” in Research Challenges in
Information Science, 2008. RCIS 2008. Second International Conference on, 2008,
pp. 337–342.
[4] Y.-J. Jeong, J.-H. Lee, and G.-S. Shin, “Development Process of Mobile Application
SW Based on Agile Methodology,” in Proceedings of 10th International Conference
on Advanced Communication Technology, (ICACT 2008), Gangwon-Do, 2008, pp.
362–366.
[5] VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, “Mobile-D Online Presentation (Web
Application),” AGILE Software Technologies Research Programme, 2008. [Online].
Available: http://agile.vtt.fi/mobiled.html. [Accessed: 16-May-2012].
References

[6] CRaG Systems, “Incremental Development,” A UML Tutorial Introduction, 2010.
[Online]. Available:
http://www.cragsystems.co.uk/uml_tutorial/the04/08the04.htm. [Accessed: 05-
Aug-2013].
[7] P. Abrahamsson, A. Hanhineva, H. Hulkko, J. Jäälinoja, K. Komulainen, M. Korkala,
J. Koskela, P. Kyllönen, and O. Salo, “Agile Development of Embedded Systems:
Mobile-D,” ITEA, Agile Deliverable D.2.3, 2005.
References

Information on authors
Dario Supan, B.Sc.
dasupan@foi.hr
After finishing gymnasium, Dario Supan, because of his love towards computer science, decided to
go on Faculty of Organization and Informatics. In 2012 he becomes Bachelor of Science in
information technology. He continued his education on the same faculty on graduate study program
in informatics, Business Systems Organization. At the moment of writing this text, he was interested
in design and computer graphics. In general, he is fascinated by space and science fiction.
Klaudia Teković, B.Sc.
kltekovic@foi.hr
Klaudia Teković was born on November 21st 1990 in Pula, Republic of Croatia. She completed the
university undergraduate study program, Business systems on Faculty of Organization and
Informatics in 2012 and she continued her education on the same faculty on graduate study,
Business Systems Organization. She has interests in modeling business processes and data and
finding solution by applying ICT.

Jelena Škalec, B.Sc.
jeskalec@foi.hr
Jelena Škalec became Bachelor of Science in information technology on Faculty of
Organization and Informatics in 2012. Jelena continued her education on the same
faculty on graduate study, Information and Software Engineering. Currently, she is a
teaching fellow and she is interested in information systems development.
Zlatko Stapić, M.A.
zlatko.stapic@foi.hr
Faculty of Organization and Informatics
Pavlinska 2, 42000 Varaždin
tel: +385 42 390 820, fax: +385 42 213 413
Zlatko Stapić, M.A. works from 2006 as a Teaching assistant at the Information
Systems Development Department at Faculty of Organization and Informatics in
Varaždin, and attends two doctoral programs: Information sciences at the same Faculty
and Information and Knowledge Engineering at the Computer Science Department at
the University of Alcalá in Spain.

Recently, Zlatko is intensively engaged in developing applications for mobile devices,
which is also the subject of his research in the dissertation, and it is particularly
important to notice that he is developing for multiple mobile platforms, including
Android, Symbian, Windows Phone 7, Nokia Qt etc. Zlatko's more detailed resume, a
list of all papers, projects and awards, and other important information can be found
on his personal website: http://www.foi.unizg.hr/djelatnici/zlatko.stapic.

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