Agile Software Engineering and Systems Engineering at SKA Scale

TL;DR

This paper discusses the application of agile and traditional systems engineering approaches in the development of the SKA telescope, highlighting challenges and adaptations for large-scale software-intensive projects.

Contribution

It provides an overview of SE processes in SKA1 and explores the integration of agile methods within large-scale systems engineering.

Findings

Classical SE approaches are less effective for software-intensive projects.

Agile methods can address changing requirements and stakeholder needs.

The SKA project demonstrates the need for hybrid SE strategies.

Abstract

Systems Engineering (SE) is the set of processes and documentation required for successfully realising large-scale engineering projects, but the classical approach is not a good fit for software-intensive projects, especially when the needs of the different stakeholders are not fully known from the beginning, and requirement priorities might change. The SKA is the ultimate software-enabled telescope, with enormous amounts of computing hardware and software required to perform its data reduction. We give an overview of the system and software engineering processes in the SKA1 development, and the tension between classical and agile SE.