LASD@SAC'24

Motivation

The evolution of software development methods is driven by the perennial quest on how to organize projects for better productivity. Plan-driven methods recommend spending much effort and resources to comprehensively capture all requirements and elaborate a big up-front design. Although they succeeded in projects where all properties of the software system could be specified in detail, they were unable to meet the dynamism, unpredictability and changing conditions that characterize today's competitive business environment. Thereby, traditional methods were superseded by lightweight methods based on iterative and incremental software development, frequent feedback from the customer, and an agile mindset. Agile methods have not only acknowledged that business requirements change, but also that customers are unable to definitively express their needs up front. Accordingly, agile teams start with a small set of core requirements to initiate the project and develop a working product. This working product becomes the basis for further discussions with the customer and new features are incrementally deliver on top of it. Later on, the software industry also started to adopt practices from lean manufacturing as a means of further waste elimination by removing all non-value-adding activities.

While agile and lean software development has already become mainstream in industry and a strong community has crystallized around the new way of thinking, making the transition to the new mindset is still challenging for many project managers. Besides, as the vast majority of software development projects are unique, agile methods often need to be tailored to accommodate specific situations. However, method tailoring is not trivial and poses serious challenges for practitioners. Indeed, one of the most distinctive features of Scrum is that its practices are not independent, but instead are very tightly coupled and synergistic.

Furthermore, Scrum, XP, and Kanban were originally designed for small, single teams and do not provide guidance on dealing with scaling issues, while the last decade has seen the spread of agile into large-scale and distributed projects. To help companies in large-scale transformations, several agile scaling frameworks including LeSS, S@S, Nexus and SAFe have been proposed. These off-the-shelf solutions incorporate predefined workflow patterns to deal with issues related to large number of teams, inter-team coordination, and lack of up-front architecture. Nevertheless, numerous challenges while adopting off-the-shelf frameworks have been reported, including mismatch between framework and organization, changes in management structure, changes in company's policies, and the impossibility of fully implementing the whole framework at once.

On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced co-located teams, who relied on face-to-face communication for work coordination, to transition into a remote work environment. Since agile methods lack guidelines for remote work, it falls upon the agile community to develop systematic solutions for remote agile teams.

Currently, we are witnessing a pervasive hype surrounding generative AI coding tools that leverage Large Language Models (LLMs). These tools enable developers to accelerate coding, testing, debugging, refactoring, and documentation processes. Additionally, fine-tuned LLMs hold potential for enhancing non-programming tasks like user story refinement, estimation, and prioritization. These remarkable advancements not only evoke excitement but also open up new research directions to further explore and optimize the integration of generative AI tools within the realm of Agile Software Development.

Topics of Interest

Submissions

Research papers and experience reports related to the above topics are solicited. Papers should be submitted in the PDF format using the ACM-SAC proceedings format via the START submission system. Full papers are limited to 8 pages with the option (at an extra charge) to add 2 more pages.

Each submission will be reviewed by at least three program committee members. To facilitate the double-blind reviewing, authors are kindly requested to provide the paper WITHOUT any reference to any of the authors, including the authors' personal details, the acknowledgments section of the paper and any other reference that may disclose the authors' identity.

Papers that receives positive reviews but are not accepted due to space limitation are invited for the poster session. The length of poster papers is 2 pages (included in the registration) + 1 page (at an extra charge).

Upon paper acceptance, prospective authors must provide a camera-ready version which takes into account the review comments. The conference proceedings will be published by ACM and also available online through the ACM Digital Library.

Paper registration is required, allowing the inclusion of the paper/poster in the conference proceedings. An author or a proxy must present the paper. This is a requirement for the paper/poster to be included in the ACM digital library. Authors who cannot make on-site presentations due to travel or health restrictions may request to present their materials online. No-presentation of registered papers and posters will result in excluding them from the ACM digital libray.

Student Research Competition (SRC)

Students are invited to submit research abstracts (maximum of 2 pages in ACM camera-ready format) following the instructions published at the SAC 2024 website.

Authors of selected abstracts will have the opportunity to give poster and oral presentations of their work and compete for three top-winning places. The SRC committee will evaluate and select First, Second, and Third place winners. The winners will receive medals and cash awards. Winners will be announced during the conference banquet. Invited students receive SRC travel support (US$500) and are eligible to apply to the SIGAPP Student Travel Award Program (STAP) for additional travel support.

Important Dates

Program

Track Chair

• Przybyłek, Adam
  Poland, Gdańsk University of Technology, adam.przybylek@gmail.com

Program Commitee

• Ahmad, Muhammad Ovais
  Sweden, Karlstad University

• Almeida, Fernando
  Portugal, University of Porto & INESC TEC

• Alshayeb, Mohammad
  Saudi Arabia, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

• Andrade, Wilkerson
  Brazil, Federal University of Campina Grande

• Aziz Butt, Shariq
  Pakistan, University of Lahore

• Bagnato, Alessandra
  France, SOFTEAM R&D Department

• Barata, João
  Portugal, University of Coimbra

• Bastarrica, María Cecilia
  Chile, University of Chile

• Baumeister, Hubert
  Denmark, Technical University of Denmark

• Behutiye, Woubshet
  Finland, University of Oulu

• Bernhart, Mario
  Austria, Vienna University of Technology

• Borg, Markus
  Sweden, Lund University & CodeScene

• Brada, Premek
  Czech Republic, University of West Bohemia

• Buchalcevova, Alena
  Czech Republic, Prague University of Economics and Business

• Cruzes, Daniela
  Norway, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

• Datta, Soma
  USA, University of Houston-Clear Lake

• Derezinska, Anna
  Poland, Warsaw University of Technology

• Dutta, Arpita
  Singapore, National University of Singapore

• Escalona Cuaresma, Maria Jose
  Spain, Universidad de Sevilla

• Ferreira de Souza, Érica
  Brazil, Federal University of Technology – Parana

• Francillette, Yannick
  Canada, University of Quebec at Chicoutimi

• García-Mireles, Gabriel Alberto
  Mexico, Universidad de Sonora

• Gilson, Fabian
  New Zealand, University of Canterbury

• Gomes Rocha, Fábio
  Brazil, Universidade Tiradentes

• Gregory, Peggy
  UK, University of Central Lancashire

• Guerra, Eduardo
  Italy, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

• Hanslo, Ridewaan
  South Africa, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

• Heng, Samedi
  Belgium, Smals and Université catholique de Louvain

• Herold, Sebastian
  Sweden, Karlstad University

• Hohenstein, Uwe
  Germany, Siemens AG

• Janes, Andrea
  Italy, Free University of Bolzano

• Jarzębowicz, Aleksander
  Poland, Gdańsk University of Technology

• Kakarontzas, George
  Greece, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

• Kaloyanova, Kalinka
  Bulgaria, Sofia University

• Kapitsaki, Georgia
  Cyprus, University of Cyprus

• Katić, Marija
  UK, University of London

• Khan, Arif Ali
  Finland, University of Oulu

• Kopczyńska, Sylwia
  Poland, Poznań University of Technology

• Kropp, Martin
  Switzerland, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

• Lano, Kevin
  UK, King’s College London

• Luković, Ivan
  Serbia, University of Belgrade

• Madeyski, Lech
  Poland, Wroclaw University of Technology

• Mahnič, Viljan
  Slovenia, University of Ljubljana

• Mangalaraj, George
  USA, Western Illinois University

• Marcinkowski, Bartosz
  Poland, University of Gdańsk

• Maślankowski, Jacek
  Poland, University of Gdańsk

• Matthies, Christoph
  Germany, Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam

• Mazzara, Manuel
  Russia, Innopolis University

• Melegati, Jorge
  Italy, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

• Mesquida Calafat, Antoni-Lluís
  Spain, University of the Balearic Islands

• Miler, Jakub
  Poland, Gdańsk University of Technology

• Miller, Gloria
  Germany, Maxmetrics

• Mira da Silva, Miguel
  Portugal, University of Lisbon

• Mishra, Alok
  Norway, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

• Mohapatra, Durga Prasad
  India, NIT Rourkela

• Morales Trujillo, Miguel Ehecatl
  New Zealand, University of Canterbury

• Morandini, Marcelo
  Brazil, University of São Paulo

• Münch, Jürgen
  Germany, Reutlingen University

• Muszyńska, Karolina
  Poland, University of Szczecin

• Nawrocki, Jerzy
  Poland, Poznań University of Technology

• Neumann, Michael
  Germany, Hochschule Hannover

• Ng, Yen Ying
  Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus University

• Nguyen, Phuong Thanh
  Italy, University of L'Aquila

• Nguyen-Duc, Anh
  Norway, University of South Eastern Norway

• Noyer, Arne
  Germany, Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences

• Özcan-Top, Özden
  Turkey, Middle East Technical University

• Özkan, Necmettin
  Turkey, Kuveyt Türk Participation Bank

• Pereira, Rui Humberto R.
  Portugal, Instituto Politécnico do Porto - ISCAP

• Petrillo, Fábio
  Canada, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS)

• Pohl, Matthias
  Germany, Otto von Guericke University

• Polignano, Marco
  Italy, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

• Poniszewska-Maranda, Aneta
  Poland, Lodz University of Technology

• Poth, Alexander
  Germany, Volkswagen AG

• Przybyłek, Michał
  Poland, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology

• Ramsin, Raman
  Iran, Sharif University of Technology

• Riel, Andreas
  France, Grenoble Alpes University

• Ristić, Sonja
  Serbia, University of Novi Sad

• Rodrigues da Silva, Alberto
  Portugal, University of Lisbon

• Rossi, Bruno
  Czech Republic, Masaryk University

• Russo , Daniel
  Denmark, Aalborg University - Copenhagen

• Rybola, Zdenek
  Czech Republic, FIT CTU in Prague

• Saari, Mika
  Finland, Tampere University

• Sánchez-Gordón, Mary
  Norway, Østfold University College

• Schön, Eva-Maria
  Germany, University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer

• Selviandro, Nungki
  Indonesia, Telkom University

• Senapathi, Mali
  New Zealand, Auckland University of Technology

• Soares, Pedro Filipe
  Portugal, Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS

• Spichkova, Maria
  Australia, RMIT University

• Stettina, Christoph Johann
  The Netherlands, Leiden University

• Strode, Diane
  New Zealand, Whitireia Polytechnic

• Suri, Bharti
  India, GGS Indraprastha University

• Taweel, Adel
  UK, University of Manchester

• Theobald, Sven
  Germany, Fraunhofer IESE

• Thomaschewski, Jörg
  Germany, University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer

• Torrecilla Salinas, Carlos
  Spain, University of Seville

• Tsilionis, Konstantinos
  The Netherlands, Eindhoven University of Technology

• Tuncel, Doruk
  Germany, Siemens AG

• Vranić, Valentino
  Slovakia, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava

• Winter, Dominique
  Germany, University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer

• Zhang, Zheying
  Finland, Tampere University

• Ziadi, Tewfik
  France, Sorbonne Université