SOA, agile, and QA in the same case study: a dissertation documents where three cultures actually meet
James Taylor Faria Chaves defended at UnB’s PPCA a dissertation analyzing, through a case study, the encounter between Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), agile development methods, and Quality Assurance practices.
Brasília, July 17, 2019
Each of the three terms — SOA, agile, QA — has its own community, jargon, and vanity. Putting them together in a real team produces frictions no tutorial preserves. The dissertation defended in July 2019 by James Taylor Faria Chaves at UnB’s PPCA documents that encounter in an empirical case study, under the advising of Prof. Dr. Sergio Antônio Andrade de Freitas .
The work does not aim to prescribe the ideal recipe for wedding SOA with agile methods and QA — it aims to describe honestly what happens in practice. What remains: points where the three cultures reinforce each other (service contracts make automated testing more robust, agile practices shorten defect discovery cycles), and points where they clash (SOA governance weighs on agile rhythm; formal QA must adapt to frequent releases).
By articulating software architecture with software quality , the work contributes evidence to a discussion usually conducted through manifestos: which concessions must be negotiated when these three cultures occupy the same team.
The dissertation is linked to two publications by James with CEDIS: A Systematic Literature Review for Service-oriented Architecture and Agile Development, published at ICCSA 2019, and NatVi - A Framework for Agile Software Development, Service-oriented Architecture and Quality Assurance, published at ICCSA 2020. Together, they cover the review base and the framework proposal consolidated in the dissertation.
The defense took place on July 17, 2019 in Brasília. The examining committee was chaired by the advisor, Prof. Dr. Sergio Antônio Andrade de Freitas (CIC/UnB), and composed of Prof. Dr. Monalessa Perini Barcellos (Informatics Department/UFES) and Prof. Dr. Edna Dias Canedo (CIC/UnB). Prof. Dr. Aletéia Patrícia Favacho de Araújo, PPCA program coordinator, also attended the session.
The full text is available at the UnB Institutional Repository.
About CEDIS: The Center for Studies, Development, and Innovation in Software (CEDIS), linked to the University of Brasília, researches and develops innovative software solutions.