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Information and Software Technology is the international archival journal focusing on research and experience that contributes to the improvement of software development practices. The journal's scope includes methods and techniques to better engineer software and manage its development. Articles submitted for review should have a clear component of software engineering or address ways to improve the engineering and management of software development. Areas covered by the journal include: 

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Special Issue on Agile and Lean: How far did we come and what’s next?
Submission Date: 2024-10-11

Guest editors:
Eduardo Guerra, Free University of Bolzen-Bolzano, Italy
Darja Smite, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
Xiaofeng Wang, Free University of Bolzen-Bolzano, Italy

Special issue information:

As the XP conference series is celebrating 25 years, the agile manifesto is approaching the quarter of the century mark soon, and the concept of lean production has bypassed the 35 years barrier, it’s time to reflect on the progress in the field and envision what future research and practice is needed in the agile and lean community. In the past years, we have evidenced the rise of agile methods. The field has evolved from the niche of small teams to any size enterprise, with the effort of commercial frameworks and certification programs. As such, from a special type of environment, agile software development has become widespread and commonplace. Just a context, some might say. Some might even say the field is experiencing a crisis, lacking new ideas and progress. Yet, lean-agile thinking is much broader than the agile manifesto, a particular method or framework, and far more diverse than just the field of software engineering. This is why the special issue that would collect reflections and guidance for future research and practice is so timely.

The special issue calls for submissions addressing topics across the full spectrum of agile and lean software development, broadly on agile, and on specific issues of concern to researchers or practitioners (or both). Despite the broad interest in topics, we specifically solicit papers focusing on evaluating the trends and progress in the field. All studies shall have a section dedicated to the retrospective reflection on the changes in the research on the selected topic and a vision for the future of the research and practice of agile and lean software development.

Papers should focus on the following themes:

Empirical studies and evaluations of the progress in the field
Foundations and conceptual studies
Evaluation-based research agendas
Evolution of agile practices and agile culture

In the context of these themes, the topics of interest include:

Agile leadership and culture
Business agility and Startups
Engineering (software design, architecture, DevOps, automation)
Data-driven agility and transformations
Agile product design and requirements