There are multiple issues/challenges that must be addressed for making agile more suitable for safety-critical systems. In this paper we will address the issues relevant to team formation, communication and testing. Up-front testing goes well in line with agile principles, this is the reason we choose it for our proposed approach. Safety-critical systems are defined as those systems whose failure can cause harm. The system is considered safety-critical if its failure can lead to unacceptable circumstances such as loss of human lives or damage to the environment. Development of these systems in an agile way can be very beneficial in terms of time and cost. The basic principles of agile say that there should be rapid development, strong communication among all stake holders and changes should be welcome at any stage of development. As there is a lot of focus on people so every individual in team should be motivated and must be given suitable environment and support to perform their jobs. Hence team building and communication is an important aspect for this approach. To build a successfully functioning team It is extremely necessary that whole team is on board regarding safety aspects of the system. Agile teams provide room for requirement changes during the development process. In case of safety-critical systems this needs to be handled with great care. Agile has major focus on team collaborations and interaction among all stakeholders and promotes self organizing and cross functional teams. Along with team formation and communication testing is another crucial aspect of safety-critical systems. It poses many challenges to incorporate rigorous testing in short time span and within budget limits.

Full text: USA_PLop_Patterns-ver-3.4.pdf