Communication Issues in Agile Software Development

Scrum framework is a growing trend in software industry to companies that are looking for development agile ways. In their early days, this methodology required that the working team members were established in a unique room, because it is necessary to have great communication and working together. However, it is a common increasingly practice that the teams are in geographically dispersed places, which means that it is necessary to adapt and/or look for the way that this methodology is suitable in these contexts. There are many experiences in the industry where we can see communication issues due to this kind work. In this paper we will briefly explain the Scrum framework definition, the Global Software Development (GSD) context, and the practices used in different case studies to solve the issues when applying Scrum in GSD.XIII Workshop Ingeniería de Software (WIS).Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Coordination in Distributed Agile Software Development: A Systematic Review

In order to decrease the consumer return transaction cost, e-commerce platform Alibaba invited an insurance company to develop a new type of insurance to compensate consumers for returns, which is called return-freight insurance. The new insurance has resulted in online return\u27s explosive growth. However, some online retailers still choose to offer complimentary return-freight insurance to signal their products\u27 quality. Using signaling theory, we build a conceptual economic model to explore what kind of online retailer should adopt this strategy under incomplete information. Based on the fact that each product\u27s return probability, profit, and insurance compensation are different, our main results show the separating equilibria, where only high-quality online retailers will offer complimentary return-freight insurance. Interestingly, return-freight insurance profit and compensation play different roles in the signal effect. The insurance premium plays a deep role while the compensation plays at the surface, because consumers could only observe the compensation when purchasing

Interpersonal Trust in Virtual Software Development Teams: A Systematic Mapping Study

Context: The progress of Information and Communication Technologies has greatly promoted the relationships among people of different geographical regions. Under this novel context, new settings of software development arise, known as virtual teams, a team of geographically dispersed developers. Objective: to assess the impact of virtual team’s interper-sonal trust on software development process. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study of peer-reviewed literature up to August 2016. Results: We reviewed 41 primary studies. Some highlights are that virtual team effectiveness is the most affected aspect by the lacking of interpersonal trust, while face-to-face meeting is the most mentioned work strategy to mitigate this problem. Conclusions: This study corroborates the impact of interpersonal trust on virtual software development teams. We identified some work strategies but few advanced tools to mitigate the problems derived from the lack of interpersonal trust.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Interpersonal Trust in Virtual Software Development Teams: A Systematic Mapping Study

Context: The progress of Information and Communication Technologies has greatly promoted the relationships among people of different geographical regions. Under this novel context, new settings of software development arise, known as virtual teams, a team of geographically dispersed developers. Objective: to assess the impact of virtual team’s interper-sonal trust on software development process. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study of peer-reviewed literature up to August 2016. Results: We reviewed 41 primary studies. Some highlights are that virtual team effectiveness is the most affected aspect by the lacking of interpersonal trust, while face-to-face meeting is the most mentioned work strategy to mitigate this problem. Conclusions: This study corroborates the impact of interpersonal trust on virtual software development teams. We identified some work strategies but few advanced tools to mitigate the problems derived from the lack of interpersonal trust.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Managing Inherent Conflicts in Agile Distributed Development: Evidence from Product Development

Increasingly, software is being developed following agile approaches in a distributed setup. An agile setting is typically characterized by flexibility, in order to meet customer demands for continuous delivery of business value. Distributed setting brings about multiple demands for stability, in terms of a push for clear specification of requirements and design, and a big picture product definition. Therefore, implementing agile projects in a distributed setting result in an inherent conflict that needs to be reconciled. We conducted two case studies of agile distributed product development projects to examine the nature of conflict as well as mitigating mechanisms followed by the software teams. Our findings reveal that the domain of agile engagement, as well as the specific distributed team configuration determines the flexibility and stability dimension of the conflict respectively. Furthermore, the software teams achieve a balance between them through the project context characterized by role specification and boundary spanning

Overcoming cultural barriers to being agile in distributed teams

Context: Agile methods in offshored projects have become increasingly popular. Yet, many companies have found that the use of agile methods in coordination with companies located outside the regions of early agile adopters remains challenging. India has received particular attention as the leading destination of offshoring contracts due to significant cultural differences between sides of such contracts. Alarming differences are primarily rooted in the hierarchical business culture of Indian organizations and related command-and-control management behavior styles. Objective: In this study, we attempt to understand whether cultural barriers persist in distributed projects in which Indian engineers work with a more empowering Swedish management, and if so, how to overcome them. The present work is an invited extension of a conference paper. Method: We performed a multiple-case study in a mature agile company located in Sweden and a more hierarchical Indian vendor. We collected data from five group interviews with a total of 34 participants and five workshops with 96 participants in five distributed DevOps teams, including 36 Indian members, whose preferred behavior in different situations we surveyed. Results: We identified twelve cultural barriers, six of which were classified as impediments to agile software development practices, and report on the manifestation of these barriers in five DevOps teams. Finally, we put forward recommendations to overcome the identified barriers and emphasize the importance of cultural training, especially when onboarding new team members. Conclusions: Our findings confirm previously reported behaviors rooted in cultural differences that impede the adoption of agile approaches in offshore collaborations, and identify new barriers not previously reported. In contrast to the existing opinion that cultural characteristics are rigid and unchanging, we found that some barriers present at the beginning of the studied collaboration disappeared over time. Many offshore members reported behaving similarly to their onshore colleagues.acceptedVersio

Interpersonal Trust in Virtual Software Development Teams: A Systematic Mapping Study

Context: The progress of Information and Communication Technologies has greatly promoted the relationships among people of different geographical regions. Under this novel context, new settings of software development arise, known as virtual teams, a team of geographically dispersed developers. Objective: to assess the impact of virtual team’s interper-sonal trust on software development process. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study of peer-reviewed literature up to August 2016. Results: We reviewed 41 primary studies. Some highlights are that virtual team effectiveness is the most affected aspect by the lacking of interpersonal trust, while face-to-face meeting is the most mentioned work strategy to mitigate this problem. Conclusions: This study corroborates the impact of interpersonal trust on virtual software development teams. We identified some work strategies but few advanced tools to mitigate the problems derived from the lack of interpersonal trust.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

From Offshore Outsourcing to Offshore Insourcing: Three Stories

Most large software companies are involved in offshore development of some sort, and now the trend is that small and medium sized companies are also going global. While empirical research suggests that offshoring are not always successful, evidence explaining the reasons for terminated collaborations is scarce, especially for small and medium sized companies. In this paper we explore the stories of three Scandinavian medium-sized software companies that have terminated their offshore outsourcing relationships and changed to offshore insourcing arrangements. The main reason for termination was disappointing low quality of the software delivered, being caused by insufficient domain knowledge, high turnover and a lack of motivation among the remote and external developers. We apply the theory of single-loop and double-loop learning in order to explain why the companies failed to correct the experienced problems, and the theory of escalating commitment to explain why the companies did not correct the failing course of action earlier. Finally we describe the change in the choice of the principle sourcing strategy from outsourcing to insourcing

Agile projektiportfolion hallinta : strategian johtaminen hajautetussa ympäristössä

Agilella projektiportfolion hallinnalla tarkoitetaan organisaation projektien joukon dynaamista hallintaa. Sen tavoitteena on portfolion arvon maksimointi, portfolion balansointi ja projektien linkittäminen strategiaan. Tämä tutkimus keskittyy strategian toteuttamiseen Agilen projektiportfolion avulla, sillä tämän aspektin tutkiminen on akateemisessa kirjallisuudessa jäänyt vähäiselle huomiolle. Myöskään hajautetun ympäristön vaikutuksia Agileen projektiportfolion hallintaan ei ole tutkittu aikaisemmin. Hajautetussa ympäristössä työskentelyllä tarkoitetaan useammassa kuin yhdessä paikassa työskentelyä. Tutkimus keskittyy siihen, miten Agilea projektiportfolion hallintaa voidaan hyödyntää hajautetussa työskentelyssä strategisesti. Tutkielma on laadullinen. Sen aineisto on kerätty Suomessa toimivilta keskisuurilta ja suurilta ohjelmistoalan yrityksiltä kahdeksalla semi-strukturoiduilla haastattelulla. Näihin haastatteluihin valikoitui projektiportfolion hallinnan ammattilaisia, joilla kaikilla oli useiden vuosien kokemus hajautetusta työskentelystä. Haastatteluiden tulokset avasivat hajautetun työskentelyn tuomia haasteita Agileen projektiportfolion hallintaan sekä toivat lisätietoja strategian toteuttamisesta Agilessa projektiportfolion hallinnassa. Hajautettu työskentely hidastaa toimintaa, vaatii aktiivisempaa työskentelyä ja lisää työkalujen käytön tarvetta. Lisäksi se tuottaa kommunikointivaikeuksia ja ongelmia luottamuksen syntymiseen. Agile projektiportfolio tarjoaa mahdollisuuden projektien linkittämiselle strategiaan, projektien priorisointiin ja valintaan sekä strategian jalkautukseen projekteille. Myös kilpailullisen edun hakeminen, liiketoiminnan suuntaaminen sekä strategiaan vaikuttaminen voidaan toteuttaa sen avulla. Haastattelujen analysoinnissa huomataan yritysten kärsivän hajautetun työskentelyn aiheuttamista ongelmista eri tavoilla. Hajautetun työskentelyn vaikutukset Agileen projektiportfolion hallintaan riippuvat sekä hajautuksen asteesta että hajautetun työskentelyn kypsyydestä. Globaalisti hajautettu portfolion hallinnan tiimi kärsii hajautetun työskentelyn vaikutuksista maan sisäisesti hajautettua tiimiä enemmän. Tähän liittyy erityisesti aikavyöhyke-erojen tuottamat hankaluudet, tiimiytymisen vaikeus ja työn teon hitaus globaalissa työskentelyssä. Mainittakoon vielä, että haastattelujen perusteella vaikuttaa siltä, että strategian toteuttaminen Agilen projektiportfolion hallinnan keinoin on vielä kehitysvaiheessa Suomessa toimivilla ohjelmistoalan yrityksillä. Huomiota pitäisi kiinnittää entistä enemmän etenkin projektien linkittämiseen strategiaan sekä projektien priorisointi- ja valitsemismallien kehittämiseen