Do Agile Scaling Approaches Make A Difference? An Empirical Comparison of Team Effectiveness Across Popular Scaling Approaches

In the era of Agile methodologies, organizations are exploring strategies to scale development across teams. Various scaling strategies have emerged, from "SAFe" to "LeSS", with some organizations creating their own methods. Despite numerous studies on organizational challenges with these approaches, none have empirically compared their impact on Agile team effectiveness. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Agile teams using different scaling methods, focusing on factors like responsiveness, stakeholder satisfaction, and management approach. We surveyed 15,078 Agile team members and 1,841 stakeholders, followed by statistical analyses. The results showed minor differences in effectiveness across scaling strategies. In essence, the choice of scaling strategy does not significantly impact team effectiveness, and organizations should select based on their culture and management style

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, which was held virtually during June 14-18, 2021. XP is the premier agile software development conference combining research and practice. It is a unique forum where agile researchers, practitioners, thought leaders, coaches, and trainers get together to present and discuss their most recent innovations, research results, experiences, concerns, challenges, and trends.  XP conferences provide an informal environment to learn and trigger discussions and welcome both people new to agile and seasoned agile practitioners. This year’s conference was held with the theme “Agile Turns Twenty While the World Goes Online”. The 11 full and 2 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 38 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: agile practices; process assessment; large-scale agile; and short contributions

The Contradiction of Agile Measures: Customer as Focus, but Process as Measured?

Performance measures are being used in the agile approach as a powerful tool to understand the customer\u27s impact of a software delivery. However, it is common to find measures related to the process instead of the customer, which would cause the team to forget the customer value delivery. This research study adopts a systematic mapping process to understand which agile approach is related to performance measures, what kind of measures are being used, and if the papers are focused on product measures or process measures. The analyzed articles showed that Scrum is the most frequently referenced agile approach that mentions measures. However, the review shows that the focus was on process measurements, while, despite the rhetoric about customer focus and agility, product measurements appear less important. This result opens the way for future research to explore the consequences of adopting performance measures that are related to this high emphasis on the process

Adopting Agile Methods in Large-scale Organizations using Scaling Frameworks

Agile methods were originally developed for small and co-located teams. The popularity and success of agile methods in small teams led to growing interest on agile adoption across large organizations as well. However, there are several challenges while adopting agile to large, e.g., coordination between large number of teams and integration of other nondevelopment units e.g., HR, and marketing. Scaling frameworks, e.g. Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and Large ScaleScrum (LeSS) to support scaling agile to large have become popular in the recent past. Despite of popularity, there is very little scientific research on usage of the scaling frameworks. The primary goal of the thesis is to investigate the adoption and usage of scaling frameworks in practice. The goal is divided into two parts: a) scaling frameworks usage and adoption and b) SAFe usage and adoption. In the first part, we conducted two surveys. The first survey aimed to explore why the frameworks were developed, and how they were evolved, their benefits and challenges directly from the practitioners who developed them. Later, in second survey, we collected data from 204 software practitioners using scaling frameworks to understand the reasons, expected benefits and satisfaction of using them. In the second part, we conducted a multivocal literature review (MLR) due to the lack of scientific evidence on SAFe, to understand the benefits and challenges of SAFe adoption. Next, we conducted an indepth case study to explore the reasons, transformation process, benefits and challenges of SAFe. To get a wider overview of the benefits and challenges of SAFe we conducted a survey, to explore the benefits and challenges of SAFe. Our results for the first part show that majority of the frameworks were designed to improve agility, collaboration, coordination,and synchronization between agile teams. The most common reasons for their adoption were to scale more people and deal with existing challenges and pain points. The benefits of adopting these frameworks were categorized intoto business, product, organizational, and culture and the challenges were categorized to implementation, organizational,and scope. Our results for the second part show that reasons for SAFe adoption are related to organizational, business,and framework-specific. SAFe transformation activities typically map with the SAFe roadmap activities. The most common benefits of SAFe adoption are improved transparency, collaboration and faster time to market. The most significant challenges of SAFe adoption are identifying value streams and forming ARTs, change resistance, and inculcating an agile mindset. More in-depth research on scaling frameworks is needed to establish the effectiveness oftheir usage in practice. We encourage researchers to conduct in-depth case studies on their usage and adoption

Analyzing SAFe Practices with Respect to Quality Requirements:Findings from a Qualitative Study

Quality Requirements (QRs) pose challenges in many agile large-scale distributed projects. Often, project organizations counter these challenges by borrowing some heavyweight practices, e.g. adding more documentation. At the same time, agile methodologists proposed a few scaled agile frameworks to specifically serve agile organizations working on large and distributed systems. Little is known about the extent to which these proposals address QRs and the specific ways in which this happens. Moreover, evidence regarding the practical implementation of these frameworks with respect to QRs is scarce. Our paper makes a step towards narrowing this gap of knowledge. Using an exploratory research process, we analyze one well-documented framework, namely the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). We first analyzed the elements of SAFe as they were described in the methodological book of SAFe to identify the possible remedies to the QRs challenges reported in previous work. We then conducted a qualitative interview-based study to understand the practices that SAFe practitioners actually use to mitigate those QRs challenges. Our documentary analysis of SAFe resulted in identifying 25 SAFe elements that could (at least partially) mitigate one or more of the reported QRs challenges. Nine of those SAFe elements were reported in our interview-based study by SAFe practitioners as remedy for some of the reported QRs challenges. While practitioners attempted to use the recommended SAFe strategies for QRs, they often changed them in their own ways, or altogether resorted to heavyweight practices that the case study organizations knew from previously done non-SAFe projects.</p

Benefitting from the Grey Literature in Software Engineering Research

Researchers generally place the most trust in peer-reviewed, published information, such as journals and conference papers. By contrast, software engineering (SE) practitioners typically do not have the time, access or expertise to review and benefit from such publications. As a result, practitioners are more likely to turn to other sources of information that they trust, e.g., trade magazines, online blog-posts, survey results or technical reports, collectively referred to as Grey Literature (GL). Furthermore, practitioners also share their ideas and experiences as GL, which can serve as a valuable data source for research. While GL itself is not a new topic in SE, using, benefitting and synthesizing knowledge from the GL in SE is a contemporary topic in empirical SE research and we are seeing that researchers are increasingly benefitting from the knowledge available within GL. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview to GL in SE, together with insights on how SE researchers can effectively use and benefit from the knowledge and evidence available in the vast amount of GL

Large-Scale Agile Frameworks: A Comparative Review

This study aims to identify and systematically compare the main large-scale agile frameworks that companies can adopt to manage the work of large-scale and distributed teams. Through this, companies can more consciously perform a better-informed decision on the choice of the framework that best fits the practices and challenges of their organizations. This work employs a qualitative approach supported by an exploratory analysis that identifies and explores the processes of migration to a large-scale agile. In the first phase, fifteen assessment criteria for scaling agile are discussed. In a second phase, these criteria are used to perform a comparative analysis of six large-scale agile frameworks (i.e., DAD, LeSS, Nexus, SAFe, Scrum at Scale, and Spotify). The findings reveal there isn't a dominant large-scale agile framework in all dimensions. However, it is possible to identify frameworks like Nexus and Spotify that target smaller teams and offer low technical complexity. These frameworks easily accommodate changes, while there are other frameworks like SAFe and DAD that offer high levels of scalability but require more demanding and deep efforts in changing work processes in an organization

Scaled Agile Framework Meets Traditional Management – A Case of a Financial Services Provider

Inspired by the success of agile practices in small teams, organizations seek to achieve agility at scale, leading to large-scale agile transformations. Several frameworks have been developed to guide organizations through this process. While multiple challenges for adopting scaled agile frameworks have already been identified, research on the interplay between traditional management approaches and scaled agile frameworks is scarce. We conduct an in-depth exploratory case study with a German financial services provider to identify tensions that arise when applying a scaled agile framework in a non-agile environment. As a result, we derive 13 tensions along with three areas: goal-setting, planning, and reporting. Thereby, we advance the understanding of tensions within large-scale agile transformations and provide a foundation for future research on scaled agile practices in traditional organizations. Further, we provide insights for managers to ensure the successful application of scaled agile frameworks

Do the scaled agile practices from s@s help with quality requirements challenges and if so, how do they do it?

Quality Requirements (QRs) pose challenges in many agile large-scale distributed enterprise systems. Often, enterprises counter such challenges by borrowing some heavyweight practices, e.g. adding more documentation. At the same time, agile methodologists proposed several scaled agile frameworks to specifically serve agile enterprises working on large and distributed systems. Little is known about the extent to which the proposed scaled frameworks address QRs and the specific ways in which this happens. Moreover, do these frameworks approach the QRs challenges in ways consistent with the Agile Manifesto? This paper treats these questions by analyzing one well-documented scaled framework, namely Scrum@Scale. We evaluated the alignment of Scrum@Scale with the Agile Manifesto, by means of the 4-Dimentional Analytical Tool proposed by other researchers. We then analyzed the practices of Scrum@Scale from the perspective of practitioners responsible for the QRs in a project, in order to understand how the Scrum@Scale practices mitigate those QRs challenges reported in previous work. Our analysis indicated that Scrum@Scale supports the agile values defined by the Agile Manifesto. Plus, we identified 12 Scrum@Scale practices that could (partially) mitigate one or more of the reported QRs challenges. Four of the reported QRs challenges got no remedy offered by Scrum@Scale.</p