Empirical Investigation of Practitioners' Perceptions of Agile Testing Coordination in Medical Information Systems Development

Salihu, Yazidu B; Bass, Julian M; Iyawa, Gloria E

Abstract

Despite adopting agile practices during large-scale agile software development testing, practitioners developing medical information systems face critical challenges coordinating agile software testing. The lack of collaboration and coordination among practitioners developing medical software testing may result in delays in preventing software bugs early and throughout the development process, the cost of rework, and the risk of software failure. To enhance the quality of medical software products, there is a need to prioritise agile software testing in the medical software process. The study explores various agile testing practices practitioners employ to develop medical information systems. The empirical data about software testing was collected through semi-structured interviews involving ten selected practitioners with experience developing standalone and embedded agile medical software in the United Kingdom (UK) and India. A snowballing approach was used to identify these practitioners. An approach to data analysis informed by grounded theory, including open coding, constant comparison, memoing and theoretical saturation, was used to analyse the data. We discovered heterogeneous ongoing test automation practices involving unit testing, integration testing, functional regression testing, and clinical testing conducted in the automated or manual testing bay. We classified the practice as roles, ceremonies, and artefacts. The findings also revealed the lack of ceremonies that allow practitioners to interact and discuss with one another and further coordinate, collaborate, and effectively communicate testing strategies in agile medical information systems development. This lack of ceremonies forms the main contribution of this research.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: 20th European Mediterranean & Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems
• Start Date: Dec 11, 2023
• End Date: Dec 12, 2023
• Acceptance Date: Nov 3, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Mar 30, 2024
• Publication Date: Mar 30, 2024
• Deposit Date: Dec 25, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 1, 2107
• Publisher: Springer
• Keywords: Agile Software Testing; Medical Information Systems Development; Practitioners; Tailored Agile; Automation Scripts Agile Concepts
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-56481-9_15