Customising software products in distributed software development a model for allocating customisation requirements across organisational boundaries

Requirements engineering plays a vital role in the software development process. While it is difficult to manage those requirements locally, it is even more difficult to communicate those requirements over organisational boundaries and to convey them to multiple distribution customers. This paper discusses the requirements of multiple distribution customers empirically in the context of customised software products. The main purpose is to understand the challenges of communicating and allocating customisation requirements across distributed organisational boundaries. We conducted an empirical survey with 19 practitioners, which confirmed that communicating customisation requirements in a DSD context is a significant challenge. We therefore propose a model for allocating customisation requirements between a local, customer-based agile team and a distributed development team that uses a traditional development approach. Our conjecture is that the model would reduce the challenge of communicating requirements across organisational boundaries, address customers’ requirements and provide a focus for future empirical studies

Is there such a thing as agile IT program management?

This paper presents early evidence of agile methods in IT enabled transformational programs of high strategic significance and substantial complexity in large organisations. Based on interviews of top management, and program and project managers, we discuss the key drivers that lead to agile IT enabled programs and some of the barriers encountered while managing IT enabled programs in an agile manner. In addition to the need for fast response to environmental changes, strong IT-business collaboration, and efficient resource use by minimising governance burden, we found that organisations are adopting agile practices in program management as transitory step towards achieving enterprise agility. In doing so agile and non-agile projects co-exist within a program thus creating new coordination challenges. Programs with high degree of agile methods adoption face similar challenges in coordinating with the rest of the organisation which operates in non-agile manner. The paper aims to contribute to fostering scholarly discussion on implementation of agile practices in major projects and programs, an emerging area of research with scarce academic literature

Misaligned Values in Software Engineering Organizations

The values of software organizations are crucial for achieving high performance; in particular, agile development approaches emphasize their importance. Researchers have thus far often assumed that a specific set of values, compatible with the development methodologies, must be adopted homogeneously throughout the company. It is not clear, however, to what extent such assumptions are accurate. Preliminary findings have highlighted the misalignment of values between groups as a source of problems when engineers discuss their challenges. Therefore, in this study, we examine how discrepancies in values between groups affect software companies' performance. To meet our objectives, we chose a mixed method research design. First, we collected qualitative data by interviewing fourteen (\textit{N} = 14) employees working in four different organizations and processed it using thematic analysis. We then surveyed seven organizations (\textit{N} = 184). Our analysis indicated that value misalignment between groups is related to organizational performance. The aligned companies were more effective, more satisfied, had higher trust, and fewer conflicts. Our efforts provide encouraging findings in a critical software engineering research area. They can help to explain why some companies are more efficient than others and, thus, point the way to interventions to address organizational challenges.Comment: accepted for publication in Journal of Software: Evolution and Proces

Boundary Objects and their Use in Agile Systems Engineering

Agile methods are increasingly introduced in automotive companies in the attempt to become more efficient and flexible in the system development. The adoption of agile practices influences communication between stakeholders, but also makes companies rethink the management of artifacts and documentation like requirements, safety compliance documents, and architecture models. Practitioners aim to reduce irrelevant documentation, but face a lack of guidance to determine what artifacts are needed and how they should be managed. This paper presents artifacts, challenges, guidelines, and practices for the continuous management of systems engineering artifacts in automotive based on a theoretical and empirical understanding of the topic. In collaboration with 53 practitioners from six automotive companies, we conducted a design-science study involving interviews, a questionnaire, focus groups, and practical data analysis of a systems engineering tool. The guidelines suggest the distinction between artifacts that are shared among different actors in a company (boundary objects) and those that are used within a team (locally relevant artifacts). We propose an analysis approach to identify boundary objects and three practices to manage systems engineering artifacts in industry

Challenges In Transitioning From Waterfall To Scrum

In today\u27s fast-paced, fiercely competitive world; speed and flexibility are essential. Companies are increasingly realizing that the sequential approach to developing new product simply will not get the job done. The goal of this thesis is to investigate critical issues and challenges that occur during the transition from a traditional software development methodology such as Waterfall to Scrum. During the last decade, Scrum has gained a vast success in software development due to its lightweight character and efficient way of handling the challenges of increased market speed, change and product complexity. This thesis is based on a sequential exploratory mixed methods research model, which uses both qualitative as well as quantitative research methods to investigate the problem. The rationale for this is that neither method is sufficient by itself to capture the trends and details of situations. When used in combination, both quantitative and qualitative methods complement each other and provide a more complete picture of the research problem. There are six main results from this thesis. First the main challenges are identified. Second, they are ranked based on their frequency of occurrence and thirdly, based on their importance. Fourth, the correlation between the frequency of occurrence of challenge and their importance is measured. This thesis also examines the varied perspectives of Scrum Coaches and Scrum Practitioners regarding the frequency of challenges as the fifth result and regarding the importance of challenges as the sixth result