Collaborative Environment and Agile Development

Abstract

Over time, information and communications technology development has made a direct impact on human activity in the individual context as well as familial, economic and social. This has laid the premise for adoption of new and modern paradigms in individual and organizational activity management. The evolutionary climax of the social universe is called nowadays knowledge society. The knowledge society succeeds the information society, emphasizing the development of the opportunities brought by collaborative work environment and agile approach. In this paper we will highlight the use of collaborative environment in agile software development, as an instrument for managing organizations in knowledge society. Thus, we will emphasize the paradigms of agile testing, validation and verification in collaborative environment.Keywords: Collaborative Environment, Knowledge Society, Agile Development, Testing, Validation, Verification, Management, Information and Communication Technology1 General ContextF rom historic perspective, the human society has evolved from agrarian society to craftsman, industrial, capitalist and information society, reaching today the stage of knowledge society. If we were to say what comes next, it would probably be a society of artificial intelligence, limited natural resources consumption or a robot society. We cannot know for sure, but theoretical speculations have been proposed. On the other hand, we can invoke the current context of the knowledge society as a foundation of organizational development on three pillars: collaborative environment, agile approach and modern management based on information and communications technology (ICT).Unlike the old society, today we work and live in a particular technological context, characterized by the global internet network as support for any kind of activity. We can see changes in the nature of work, from traditional office work to telework in virtual offices or telecommuting. These aspects are premises for increasing the exploitation of individual skills and abilities in organizational context and transferring them with the purpose of achieving the business goals. The modern business moves to the sphere of electronic business, strongly relying on technology and internet.Still, the management activity or the management as an activity does not change in the same radical way. Traditional concepts, methods and techniques are re- wrapped, terminologically beautified and launched on the market in a process specific to marketing. Thus, while Phillip Kotler speaks about marketing management in information society [9] (as the Bible of business men), why can't we speak about management marketing in knowledge society? The so called modern paradigms of contemporary management can be identified terminologically in expressions like fractal model, anthropocentric model, holonic model, cloud model, chaotic model etc. Let's not forget that the term fractal was introduced by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975, the term holon (as organizational structure) was introduced by Arthur Koestler in 1967 and so on.What is new in modern management is the way these fundamental concepts from various sciences (mathematics, philosophy, psychology, structuralism, semiotics, cybernetics etc.) are adopted and adapted the management practice. In this sense of exposure, characterized by ICT and internet and modern management paradigms we invoke the general context of collaborative environment and agile software development (see also the collaborative paradigm of intelligence). The link between the two subjects of current cognitive development is the fact that both collaborative environment and agile development involve the shared participation of several factors of human nature as well as material, financial and temporal. Economic organizations in current society market must be able to adapt quickly to changes on the market. They must have the ability to exploit any new opportunity in their field or related fields. …