An Agile Approach for Lifecycle Integration in Personal Rapid Transit Systems Engineering

Dependable systems pose particular challenges to system developers who try to implement agile approaches to tackle the problem of requirements scope creep. However, legislation compliance, safety case development, and other strong contextual influences may be seen to inhibit the implementation of any approaches other than the traditional linear life cycles, even though agility may be able to improve the development process in parts. This article discusses key success factors when integrating agile with structured systems development life cycle approaches. The authors adopt an empirical approach and analyse a historical case study of a personal rapid transit (PRT) system, reflecting on key factors and relating those to the relevant literature. Based on these experiences, a model for the integration of agile with structured systems lifecycle models in dependable systems is developed. This model addresses the challenge of integrating multiple lifecycles of potentially conflicting objectives within a single programme.