Agile development model in multi-project environment

Abstract. Agile software development has slowly but steadily become a part of modern software industry. Older development models, such as waterfall, are seen obsolete and less flexible in today’s software development environment. But how do current agile methods fare in place where there are multiple ongoing projects and sprint goals can suddenly change? This thesis observes current agile models in multi-project software development environment and tries to improve current model the evaluated team has. The target team is a small, remote branch of medium sized organization consisting of nine members. The team utilized Scrumban — Scrum with Kanban — but it faced some problems. Rather than having one or two big projects, the branch did many smaller scale projects, and current model did not fit in such environment as good as it was thought. The team had some difficulties on communication between different projects, there was a noticeable amount of “ad hoc work” (issues that were not logged anywhere and were done independently) and metering the progress of the project was hard sometimes. A better model for the team was in need. First, the evaluation team is briefly introduced and some more info on Scrumban, the Sprint cycle and what kind of projects the team usually has is given. Data gathering plans — surveys and interviews — is also described. After examining the survey and interview results, quality measurement, work cycle, resource allocation and learning were the topics that were widely discussed. Four goals were made: streamlining the work cycle, a way to measure progress, making learning easier during the work cycle and way to monitor the ad hoc tasks. After some analysis, the decision was to take values and principles from Kanban, such as workflow visualization and limiting Work In Progress (WIP). The evaluation period lasted through two Sprints. The evaluation period was during COVID-19 pandemic but fortunately that did not affect that much to it. After the evaluation, feedback session and discussion about the new model was had. The overall impressions on better Jira board visualisation (personal swimlanes) were overwhelmingly positive and team decided to keep them after the evaluation ended. On other features, the team felt that they were good idea but needed some more time on execution. Overall, the team felt like the new model improved their ability to work agile but there was still some field on improvement, particularly on the learning field. To sum up the thesis, the four principles that might help the team to choose and agile method are introduced: find what team is good at and what is lacking, do not be afraid of experimenting, think what parts you could automate and reflect on your changes.Ketterän kehittämisen malli moniprojektiympäristössä. Tiivistelmä. Ketterä ohjelmistokehitys on hiljalleen mutta tasaisisesti tullut osaksi nykyistä ohjelmistoteollisuutta. Vanhemmat kehitysmallit, kuten vesiputous, nähdään vanhentuneina ja vähemmän joustavina nykypäivän ohjelmistokehitysympäristössä. Mutta miten nykyiset agile-menetelmät pärjäävät paikassa, missä on useampi projekti meneillänsä ja sprintin tavoitteet voivat muuttua yhtäkkiä? Tämä tutkielma havainnoi nykyisiä agile-malleja moniprojektisessa ohjelmistokehitysympäristössä ja yrittää parantaa arvioidun tiimin nykyistä mallia. Kohdetiimi on pieni yhdeksän ihmisen etäinen haara keskisuuressa yrityksessä. Tiimi käytti Scrumbania (Scrum Kanbanilla), mutta heillä on ollut ongelmia. Yhden tai kahden suuren projektin sijaan haaralla on paljon pieniä projekteja, ja nykyinen malli ei toiminut kyseisessä ympäristössä niin hyvin, kuin ajateltiin. Tiimillä on ollut vaikeuksia tiedonvälityksen kanssa projektien välillä, huomattava osa työstä tehtiin ”ad hoc työnä” (työ, jota ei kirjattu minnekään ja tehty itsenäisesti) ja projektin kehityksen mittaaminen on vaikeaa välillä. On aika paremmalle mallille. Ensiksi kohdetiimi on esitelty lyhyesti ja enemmän tietoa Scrumbanista, Sprint-jaksosta ja minkälaisia projekteja tiimillä yleensä on annettu. Tiedon keruu menetelmät (kyselyt ja haastattelut) on myös kuvattu. Kyselyn ja haastattelun tulosten tutkimisen jälkeen kävi ilmi, että laadunmittaus, työjakso, resurssien allokoiminen ja oppiminen olivat eniten keskustelua herättäviä aiheita. Tehtiin neljä tavoitetta: työjakson virtaviivaistus, tapa mitata kehitystä, oppiminen työjaksolla helpommaksi ja ad hoc tekemisen valvonta. Pienen analyysin jälkeen päätös on ottaa arvoja ja periaatteita Kanbanista, kuten esimerkiksi työnkulun visualisointi ja keskeneräisen työn (Work in Progress, WIP) rajoitteet. Arvioinnin ajanjakso kesti kahden Sprintin verran. Arvioiminen oli COVID-19 pandemian aikaan, mutta se ei onneksi vaikuttanut juuri paljoakaan siihen. Arvioinnin jälkeen oli palautesessio sekä keskustelua uudesta mallista. Vaikutelmat Jira-taulun visualisointiin (henkilökohtaiset työjakaumat) olivat yleisesti ylivoimaisen positiivisia ja tiimi päätti pitää ne arvioinnin loppumisen jälkeen. Tiimin mielestä muut toiminnot olivat hyvä lisä, mutta tarvitsivat lisää aikaa toteutukseen. Yleisesti tiimistä tuntui, että uusi malli paransi heidän kykyänsä tehdä ketterästi, mutta olisi vielä muutamassa kohtaa parantamista, etenkin oppimisen kannalta. Lopputyön summaamiseksi, neljä periaatetta, jotka saattavat auttaa tiimiä valitsemaan ketterän menetelmän esitellään: löydä se, missä tiimisi on hyvä ja mitä puuttuu; älä pelkää kokeilla; mieti, mitä kohtia voit automatisoida; ja pohdiskele muutoksiasi

Applying Agile Lean to Global Software Development

Although challenges of Global Software Development (GSD) are well known in the industry, practitioners and the organizations look for ways to improve results and overcome challenges. Companies have tried to implement many workable solutions possible to solve issues like poor communication, lack of trust, low morale and many other such issues prevalent in the distributed setting. With the success of agile, the methodology gained interest in leveraging its benefits to alleviate some of these challenges. Similarly, lean was also implemented in distributed software development to resolve issues. While each methodology provided some improvement in the results achieved in global software development, many issues persisted and the desired growth/results were not received. Recent years have seen an increased interest of applying a combination of agile and lean software development paradigms to resolve current industry issues in the area and meet the needs of rapid changing environment. This study aims to study the current practices of the combination of agile lean existing in the industry and how it can be utilized in the global software development. The study focuses on challenges faced to implement agile lean and successful sustainable implementation of agile lean in an environment of global software development

Exploring the link between leadership and Devops practice and principle adoption

Our research focuses in software-intensive organizations and highlights the challenges that surface as a result of the transitioning process of highly-structured to DevOps practices and principles adoption. The approach collected data via a series of thirty (30) interviews, with practitioners from the EMEA region (Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Georgia, Greece, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, UAE, UK), working in nine (9) different industry domains and ten (10) different countries. A set of agile, lean and DevOps practices and principles were identified, which organizations select as part of DevOps-oriented adoption. The most frequently adopted ITIL® service management practices, contributing to DevOps practice and principle adoption success, indicate that DevOps-oriented organizations benefit from the existence of change management, release and deployment management, service level management, incident management and service catalog management. We also uncover that the DevOps adoption leadership role is required in a DevOps team setting and that it should, initially, be an individual role

Challenges of adopting agile methods in a public organization

Agile development methods are widely used among business enterprises. Since the introduction of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, several agile methods have been implemented, first in single-team set-ups and later in larger multi-team set-ups for complex Information Technology (IT) system development. However, the adoption of agile methods has been slow in the public sector. This is also reflected in the academic literature, as there are only a few studies discussing agile adoption in public organizations. This paper contributes to research on the use of agile practices specifically in the context of public organizations, and sheds light on the challenges a public organization may face while adopting these practices. The aim of this paper is to identify and categorize the challenges that may hinder efficient adoption and use of agile methods in public IT projects that include private software vendors. This research is based on a case study of a large governmental office. As a result, this paper presents several categories of identified challenges, the root causes of these challenges, and a discussion of the characteristics of these challenges for the public sector

Improving the Software Development Process in a Software Development Team - a Case Study

Changes in the context in which software engineering practices are carried out also initiate the need to change in the practices to effectively work as a development team while delivering the software product with the highest possible values. While the thesis was initiated to improve the continuous integration and delivery practices in the case company, the context and the need for the changes in the practices highlighted the need for enhancing the Scrum practices within the software development team. With the design science research methodology approach, the problems in the software development team were drawn during the current state analysis phase followed by a workshop to discuss the findings and select the challenges to tackle as part of the thesis work - both from the case company and development team members’ perspective. The results from the current state analysis highlight five core problem areas from which problem area ’Process and Tools’ was selected for solving in this project after the discussion with the development team. Despite already utilizing some practices of Scrum, the development team decided to evolve the Scrum adoption with the utmost goal of solving concrete problems in the problem area captured during the current state analysis phase. Semi-structured interviews and surveys were utilized to collect the data, and the findings reveal the potential of the process while suggesting further improvements. Scrum is easier to understand but challenging to master. The process exposes the potential, offers the possibility to respond to the challenges in an agile way while emphasizing the importance of context in shaping the practices and tools which is utilized for software construction

Leading Devops practice and principle adoption

This research, undertaken in highly structured software-intensive organizations, outlines challenges associated to agile, lean and DevOps practices and principles adoption. The approach collected data via a series of thirty (30) interviews, with practitioners from the EMEA region (Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Georgia, Greece, The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, UAE, UK), working in nine (9) different industry domains and ten (10) different countries. A set of agile, lean and DevOps practices and principles, which organizations choose to include in their DevOps adoption journeys were identified. The most frequently adopted structured service management practices, contributing to DevOps practice adoption success, indicate that those with software development and operation roles in DevOps-oriented organizations benefit from existence of highly structured service management approaches such as ITIL®

Challenges of adopting agile methods in a public organization

Agile development methods are widely used among business enterprises. Since the introduction of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, several agile methods have been implemented, first in single-team set-ups and later in larger multi-team set-ups for complex Information Technology (IT) system development. However, the adoption of agile methods has been slow in the public sector. This is also reflected in the academic literature, as there are only a few studies discussing agile adoption in public organizations. This paper contributes to research on the use of agile practices specifically in the context of public organizations, and sheds light on the challenges a public organization may face while adopting these practices. The aim of this paper is to identify and categorize the challenges that may hinder efficient adoption and use of agile methods in public IT projects that include private software vendors. This research is based on a case study of a large governmental office. As a result, this paper presents several categories of identified challenges, the root causes of these challenges, and a discussion of the characteristics of these challenges for the public sector

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