Knowledge Mobilization in Agile Information Systems Projects: A Literature Analysis

This study focuses on how knowledge is mobilized in agile information systems (IS) projects. One crucial success factor of those projects is to mobilize knowledge through different knowledge management processes. It is vital to establish efficient knowledge management (KM) processes to generate a knowledge culture based on transparency and communication. Communication channels, digital tools, and platforms are essential for establishing a KM infrastructure supporting the knowledge work of the project organization. Thus, each IS implementation team should maintain a knowledge base and a knowledge potential at some level. However, this is not always the case. We conducted a literature review to survey the extant research on the role of KM in agile system development projects. The agile approach is often associated with the networking model and tacit knowledge. The findings indicate that the agile approach is supposed to promote KM. While tacit knowledge is rooted in the analogue process of continuous actions and informal communication, explicit knowledge is captured in digital records of documentation and databases. In KM, the personalization model (behavioural, networking) and the codification (technocratic, repository) model is central. The choice of system development method (agile versus plan-driven) influences how knowledge is mobilized in the project organization. An agile approach heavily relies on informal communication, tacit knowledge sharing, and light documentation. In contrast, the plan-driven methods such as the waterfall approach generate more explicit knowledge through documentation. Communities of practice are important structures for transforming from plan-driven to agile approaches. We present a framework showing specific challenges the literature identifies concerning the efficient mobilization of knowledge in the agile context. For large-scale agile projects, informal coordination mechanisms were important. This study identifies several measures for overcoming barriers and risks for knowledge sharing in the agile context.Knowledge Mobilization in Agile Information Systems Projects: A Literature AnalysispublishedVersio

Coordinating Knowledge Work in Multi-Team Programs: Findings from a Large-Scale Agile Development Program

Software development projects have undergone remarkable changes with the arrival of agile development methods. While intended for small, self-managing teams, these methods are increasingly used also for large development programs. A major challenge in programs is to coordinate the work of many teams, due to high uncertainty in tasks, a high degree of interdependence between tasks and because of the large number of people involved. This revelatory case study focuses on how knowledge work is coordinated in large-scale agile development programs by providing a rich description of the coordination practices used and how these practices change over time in a four year development program with 12 development teams. The main findings highlight the role of coordination modes based on feedback, the use of a number of mechanisms far beyond what is described in practitioner advice, and finally how coordination practices change over time. The findings are important to improve the outcome of large knowledge-based development programs by tailoring coordination practices to needs and ensuring adjustment over time.Comment: To appear in Project Management Journa

Using developmental evaluation methods with communities of practice

Purpose This research explored the use of developmental evaluation methods with community of practice programmes experiencing change or transition to better understand how to target support resources. Design / methodology / approach The practical use of a number of developmental evaluation methods was explored in three organisations over a nine month period using an action research design. The research was a collaborative process involving all the company participants and the academic (the author) with the intention of developing the practices of the participants as well as contributing to scholarship. Findings The developmental evaluation activities achieved the objectives of the knowledge managers concerned: they developed a better understanding of the contribution and performance of their communities of practice, allowing support resources to be better targeted. Three methods (fundamental evaluative thinking, actual-ideal comparative method and focus on strengths and assets) were found to be useful. Cross-case analysis led to the proposition that developmental evaluation methods act as a structural mechanism that develops the discourse of the organisation in ways that enhance the climate for learning, potentially helping develop a learning organization. Practical implications Developmental evaluation methods add to the options available to evaluate community of practice programmes. These supplement the commonly used activity indicators and impact story methods. 2 Originality / value Developmental evaluation methods are often used in social change initiatives, informing public policy and funding decisions. The contribution here is to extend their use to organisational community of practice programmes

Regression Analysis on Experience Based Factory Model for Software Development Process

Software organizations are still struggling to reuse the best of their knowledge and experiences in future projects. Often, when there are changes on employee re-assignment, a lot of time and effort are spent for knowledge transfer activities. This however may not assure that all knowledge and experiences are well transferred and shared; some could be missing or misplaced. In this study, a model has been proposed for managing knowledge and experiences based on experience factory approach to provide a more efficient and effective experience management for software development community. Experience Factory is an infrastructure that aims for reuse of products, processes and experiences gained during a system life cycle. A set of components have been identified as the predictors of the model which eventually forms the two main organizations: project organization and experience factory organization. This study further has gone through a correlational survey research to verify the relationship between the identified predictors towards the experience factory goals. Reliability analysis has been conducted to validate the measures, while correlation and regression analyses have been carried out to examine the relationship between the constructs and the goals. Results reveal that reliability of the model is high and construct validity is satisfactory. Experience factory organization is found having more positively significant towards experience goals as compared to project organization; however, there is no significant impact towards the model due to inexistence of causal relation

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

Leadership in Agile Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Effective leadership is deemed essential for successful projects and teams. However, leadership in agile software development projects and teams is a challenge in practice, and the research literature provides no general agreement on what constitutes effective leadership in this environment. To address this issue and give the agile community a comprehensive overview of the research on agile leadership we report the results of a systematic literature review (SLR). The SLR identified 33 studies in the Scopus database published from 2000-2019 that contribute to agile leadership knowledge. The results indicate that whilst some studies apply leadership theories to explore and explain the role of agile leadership other studies propose alternative approaches to leadership within agile software teams and projects. The results suggest that agile leadership research needs further attention and that more empirical studies are needed to better understand agile leadership in general and in the various agile information systems development environments

Beyond the border: A comparative literature review on communication practices for agile global outsourced software development projects

Software development is increasingly heading in the direction of combining agile software development practices and outsourcingsoftware development to external vendors worldwide. The resultingagile global outsourced software development (AGOSD) projects are characterized by applying agile methods to distributed environments, whichresults in several problems for collaboration and coordination. Specifically, communication between the project participantshas been found to be a major challenge in distributed environment. Therefore, our study investigates the problem of improving communication in distributed settings by identifying suitable communication practicesfor usage within AGOSD projects.Based on an extensive literature review,our study (1) provides an overview of adequate practices for usage in AGOSD and (2) points out differences to traditional communication practices ofagile software development(ASD)projects used in collocated, non-distributed environments

Inter-team Coordination in Large-Scale Agile Development: A Case Study of Three Enabling Mechanisms

Agile methods are increasingly used in large development projects, with multiple development teams. A central question is then what is needed to coordinate feature teams efficiently. This study exam- ines three mechanisms for coordination: Shared mental models, commu- nication and trust in a large-scale development project with 12 feature teams running over a four-year period. We analyse the findings in rela- tion to suggested frameworks for large-scale agile development and a theory on coordination, and provide new recommendations for practice and theory.Inter-team Coordination in Large-Scale Agile Development: A Case Study of Three Enabling MechanismspublishedVersio

Everyone’s Going to be an Architect: Design Principles for Architectural Thinking in Agile Organizations

Organizational agility is a prominent aim for companies to thrive in today’s volatile business environments. One common building block of agility are (semi-) autonomous teams for continuously fulfilling and surpassing customers’ needs. However, these teams still need to see the enterprise’s ‘big picture’ of strategic objectives, business processes, and IT landscape to prevent organizational inertia or technical debt. This requires architectural thinking to inform these ‘non’-architects’ decision-making. To aid companies towards achieving sustainable agility, we propose six design principles as underlying logic on how to realize architectural thinking in agile organizations. The results are based on insights from interviews with sixteen employees and consultants with expertise on architecture management and organizational agility across several industries. Our work closes a gap in the agility literature, which so far mainly focused on non-generalizable blueprints for agile setups without showing their underlying logics, or approaches and role set-ups for enterprise-level architecture management

Oppimassa käytäntöyhteisöjen rajoilla: matkailututkimuksen yliopisto-opiskelijoiden kokemuksia ammattikorkeakoulun kanssa yhdessä toteutetusta opintojaksosta

Learning at the boundaries of communities of practice: university level tourism students’ experiences of a common course with a university of applied sciences   The Multidimensional Tourism Institute (MTI) in Rovaniemi seeks to combine three levels of tourism education. In this article, I study what kind of learning a common course of two levels of tourism education produces and what the learning presupposes. My interest is to find tools to develop the course format further by understanding what it is all about. I approach the two levels of tourism education, university and university of applied sciences, as separate communities of practice drawing on Wenger’s theory of social learning. The data consist of course feedback written by the students and course materials produced by the teachers. I focus on the university students’ point of view. The results indicate that learning at the boundaries of the communities of practice did happen, but it was severely handicapped by problems of scheduling and an obligation to use two languages in the teaching. The students seemed to see the competence of the other community of practice as valuable and be ready for much deeper communality than the teachers made possible. I suggest that the students should be included in course planning and the model of combining several levels of education in the same organisation should be adopted in other educational organisations as well.The Multidimensional Tourism Institute (MTI) in Rovaniemi seeks to combine three levels of tourism education. In this article, I study what kind of learning a common course of two levels of tourism education produces and what the learning presupposes. My interest is to find tools to develop the course format further by understanding what it is all about. I approach the two levels of tourism education, university and university of applied sciences, as separate communities of practice drawing on Wenger’s theory of social learning. The data consist of course feedback written by the students and course materials produced by the teachers. I focus on the university students’ point of view. The results indicate that learning at the boundaries of the communities of practice did happen, but it was severely handicapped by problems of scheduling and an obligation to use two languages in the teaching. The students seemed to see the competence of the other community of practice as valuable and be ready for much deeper communality than the teachers made possible. I suggest that the students should be included in course planning and the model of combining several levels of education in the same organisation should be adopted in other educational organisations as well.     &nbsp