Challenges in Transitioning to an Agile Way of Working

This longitudinal study examined how an information systems development team transitioned to an agile way of working. We describe the main events of a large, inter-organizational project, where agile methods and practices were applied for the first time. The organizations involved had a long tradition in heavy, waterfall style projects, and many of those past projects had severe challenges. We examine how the agile way of working was understood by particular groups (project team, management and suppliers), as well as how these understandings changed over time. The lack of experience with agile development, no common view on ‘agility’ and its key principles and practices were obvious challenges for the transition. Our study suggests that complex agile projects need to have very clear goals and management has to be able to communicate these, while preserving the autonomy of teams and individual team members

The Influence of Hybrid Working in the Context of Agile Software Development within the Dutch Financial Sector

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated remote working and working at the office. This hybrid working is an indispensable part of today\u27s life even within Agile Software Development (ASD) teams. Before COVID-19 ASD teams were working closely together in an Agile way at the office. The Agile Manifesto describes 12 principles to make agile working successful. These principles are about working closely together, face-to-face contact and continuously responding to changes. To what extent does hybrid working influence these agile principles that have been indispensable in today\u27s software development since its creation in 2001? Based on a quantitative study within 22 Dutch financial institutions and 106 respondents, the relationship between hybrid working and ASD is investigated. The results of this research show that human factors, such as team spirit, feeling responsible and the ability to learn from each other, are the most decisive for the success of ASD. In addition, the research shows that hybrid working creates a distance between the business organization and the IT department. The findings are valuable for Managers, HR professionals and employees working in the field of ASD as emphasizing and fostering Team Spirit, Learning Ability, and a Sense of Responsibility among team members can bolster the Speed of ASD

Social and Communication Challenges for Agile Software Teams

Agile methods are being widely used in industry and government projects as a way of delivering IT software projects. We report results from a survey about agile team work and a follow-up interview study. Themes emerging from the interviews were team tension, method adaptation and cultural change. We discuss the implications of practitioners’ experiences and views, and highlight some of the social and ethical challenges for IT developers working in organisations that adopt agile methods. We take as the focus of our work, a view that cultural shifts are essential to agile working, and that these require an intensive commitment from individuals, teams and organisations

DYNAMICS OF INTER-TEAM COORDINATION ROUTINES IN LARGE-SCALE AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Software development organizations are adopting values, principles, and frameworks to implement agile ways of working today. But the agile methods were initially designed for use in small, single-team projects and routines for coordination between several teams have not been adopted in the same way as routines for coordination within the team. The Scaled Agile Framework has become the most common way to implement organizational routines for inter-team coordination, but critiques claim it to be too strict and formal, without leeway for adaption. This study investigates the dynamics of inter-team coordination routines at three organizations and provides thick descriptions of tailoring. Data collection was performed by 379 hours of observations and 28 interviews. The main findings highlight the variety in ostensive and performative aspects of coordination routines and how they change over time. Contrary to earlier findings, the ostensive and performative aspects in this study do not have opposing varieties. This indicates that the empirical relationship between ostensive and performative aspects might not be as atypical as previous results suggest. An important practical contribution is the described possible tailoring options when scaling up agile ways of working which contradict the view of the framework being too rigid

Waterfall and Agile information system project success rates—a South African perspective

Abstract: Even though software projects do add value to the organisation, studies reveal that some software projects are still failing at an alarming rate and do not always provide the anticipated value to the organisation. This has been the case for the last couple of decades. Software projects use predominantly Waterfall as a methodology. This raises the question whether new ways of working can be introduced to improve the success rate. One such new way is Agile as an approach to developing software. A survey was done to determine whether Agile projects are more successful than Waterfall projects, thus contrasting the old and the new ways of working. Some 617 software projects were evaluated to determine the success rate based on the methodology used. Success was measured on a continuum of five levels and not just the triple constraint. The results imply that Agile projects are more successful than Waterfall projects to some extent, but that there are still concerns that need to be addressed

Agile or Fragile? - The Depleting Effects of Agile Methodologies for Software Developers

Despite the increasing diffusion of agile software development methodologies (ASDM) in firms, aca-demic studies in this field – though rising in number – are largely missing out on the implications for the individual software developer. The application of agile methodologies in software development projects has significant impact on the individual developer’s way of working. While some empirical research evaluated the advantages of ASDM for individuals, potential negative consequences for de-velopers, who have to cope with multiple draining demands in their daily work, remains largely unex-plored. Using resource depletion theory as a lens, we develop a research model to examine how the use of ASDM potentially decreases individual job satisfaction and increases turnover intention. We suggest that the effect is mediated by developers’ level of depletion expressed by psychological strain. In addition, we aim to determine who is more or less affected by depletion in an agile context intro-ducing the capacity for self-control as a moderator. To test our model, we plan to conduct a cross-sectional field survey among software developers working in agile teams. Drawing attention to under-represented negative implications on an individual level, we want to contribute to a more balanced picture of ASDM use in theory and practice

Challenges and Paradoxes of Teaching Project Management the Agile Way

This paper discusses challenges and paradoxes for teaching project management (PM) in an Agile way outside of a software development context. Based on a critical analysis of two PM course iterations in a professional masters program, the paper identifies several areas with tensions between established processes, norms, values, and expectations in higher education and the Agile PM course design. Ultimately, the paper finds that fulfilling the professional masters program’s mission (to educate workforce-ready graduates for today’s Agile / hybrid working environments) would require subverting numerous norms, values, and expectations on the course design, the students’, and the lecturers’ sides. Teachers and program directors in higher education can draw on this paper’s findings to identify and manage pitfalls and paradoxes in their own PM course designs, in order to have them convey Agile PM’s principles, values, and techniques effectively while retaining a positive student experience

Utilising web analytics in the agile development of e-commerce sites : a software developer’s perspective

E-commerces have gained popularity exponentially since the dawn of the world wide web. To stay competitive, increase revenue and make their e-commerce site as good as possible, organisations have begun to utilise web analytics to make the development of the site data driven. Agile software development has often been the desired way of building software in the last decades. Organisations are in increasing numbers trying to move to a more agile way of working in order to build better software. In this thesis we examine how the web analytics of an e-commerce site can be utilised as well as possible in agile software development teams. We examine this web analytics process especially from the point of view of software developers in these teams. The research around this topic was conducted as qualitative research by interviewing four different software developers each having experience in developing e-commerces. Drawing from their experiences and opinions, we formulate some observations and guidelines for how organisations can potentially improve their efficiency in utilising web analytics as a part of their development process

Project Manager’s Perception of Agile Methods Success

Since it’s inception in 1970, the Waterfall model has been widely accepted and proven to be quite effective in the software technology development. As years have passed, there has been a rise in the number of technology companies and such rapid expansion in the software industry has called for frequent changes and swift delivery. To cope up with the increasing expectations, companies started to adopt new development processes and as a result, businesses witnessed several different process and Agile development methodologies like Scrum, Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development, to name a few. Companies were able to effectively work with change requirements while working on successive iterations. This paper would throw light on the existing software development trends and whether agile methodologies are merely a fad or an absolute necessity for the software industry. This paper is a competitive study of three companies analyzing transition of projects before and after Agile measured through customer acceptance and other indicators. The paper would also drill down on the type of resources and involvement of Agile system demands and whether or not there is a possibility of Agile methodologies been overthrown by any potent successor in the near future. The paper would talk about different styles of leadership techniques adopted in Agile and which type would be best suited for any Agile project. Once singled out the core advantages of Agile, a plan will be created to shift from Waterfall to Agile and learn the core Agile concepts and what should be right way to transform a project into Agile

Agile software development one year into the COVID-19 pandemic

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many agile practitioners had to transition into a remote work environment. Despite remote work not being a new concept for agile software practitioners, the forced or recommended nature of remote work is new. This study investigates how the involuntary shift to remote work and how social restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic have affected agile software development (ASD), and how agile practitioners have been affected in terms of ways of working. An explanatory sequential mixed methods study was performed. Data were collected one year into the COVID-19 pandemic through a questionnaire with 96 respondents and in-depth semi-structured interviews with seven practitioners from seven different companies. Data were analyzed through Bayesian analysis and thematic analysis. The results show, in general, that the aspects of ASD that have been the most affected is communication and social interactions, while technical work aspects have not experienced the same changes. Moreover, feeling forced to work remotely has a significant impact on different aspects of ASD, e.g., productivity and communication, and industry practitioners’ employment of agile development and ways of working have primarily been affected by the lack of social interaction and the shift to digital communication. The results also suggest that there may be a group maturing debt when teams do go back into office, as digital communication and the lack of psychological safety stand in the way for practitioners’ ability to have sensitive discussions and progress as a team in a remote setting