Agile 2006 Research Papers

In 2006, the Agile Conference series maintains its international leadership in research on agile software development methods, techniques, and tools. This year, 41 papers were submitted – nearly twice as many as in 2005. After an intensive review and discussion process, the research track program committee accepted 17% of the papers as long papers and an additional 10% percent of the submissions as short papers. Long papers report on finished research and underwent a scientifically rigorous review process. Short papers are reporting on work on progress and innovative ideas and were evaluated based on their novelty and their potential future impact. The competitive review process resulted in an excellent selection of reports on advanced agile methods research. The accepted papers are covering a wide variety of topics, ranging from investigations of earned value reporting in agile project management, over testbased specifications and refactoring to cognitive aspects and reflections on agile approaches. Overall, this year’s submissions were showing that the research community is starting to have a more indepth look on agile approaches. The research presented evaluates agile techniques more rigorously than in the past and, thus, allows making more qualified statements about what works, what does not, and why. Research on agile approaches helps to distinguish the hype from reality and is instrumental in moving the software industry towards a sound body of knowledge. A research program is only as good as the experts on the committee who review and evaluate submissions. Without their valuable input, no research conference can make a contribution. Thus, we want to thank all our international program committee members for their support and hard work: Pekka Abrahamsson (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Finland), Hubert Baumeister (Institut für Informatik, Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversität, Germany), Robert Biddle (Carleton University, Canada), Jim Coplien (DAFCA, Inc./Bell Labs/University of Manchester, UK), Alain Desilets (National Research Council Canada, Canada), Hakan Erdogmus (National Research Council Canada, Canada), Michael Feathers (Object Mentor, Inc., USA), Orit Hazzan (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel), Kenji Hiranabe (Eiwa System Management, Inc., Japan), Ron Jeffries, (Xprogramming.com, USA), Cem Kaner (Florida Institute of Technology, USA), Bill Kleb (NASA, USA), Fabio Kon (University of São Paulo, Brazil), Philippe Kruchten (University of British Columbia, Canada), Brian Marick (Testing Foundations/Agile Alliance/Better Software Magazine, USA), Michele Marchesi (University of Cagliari, Italy), Rick Mugridge (Rimu Research Ltd, New Zealand), Mary Poppendieck (Poppendieck LLC, USA), Hugh Robinson (The Open University, UK), Helen Sharp (The Open University, UK), Jim Tomayko (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), Don Wells (InStream Financial), and Laurie Williams (North Carolina State University, USA). The work of the program committee was also supported by external reviewers. We want to thank Steve Adolph, Walt Bastow, Michael Gegick, Alfredo Goldman, Neil Harrison, Chih-wei Ho, Yvonne Hsieh, Lucas Layman, Larix Lee, Eve MacGregor, David Mak, Tom Poppendieck, Mark Sherriff, Sarah Smith, and Jiang Zheng for their contribution to the research track of Agile 2006.