We Don't Need Another Hero? The Impact of "Heroes" on Software Development

A software project has "Hero Developers" when 80% of contributions are delivered by 20% of the developers. Are such heroes a good idea? Are too many heroes bad for software quality? Is it better to have more/less heroes for different kinds of projects? To answer these questions, we studied 661 open source projects from Public open source software (OSS) Github and 171 projects from an Enterprise Github. We find that hero projects are very common. In fact, as projects grow in size, nearly all project become hero projects. These findings motivated us to look more closely at the effects of heroes on software development. Analysis shows that the frequency to close issues and bugs are not significantly affected by the presence of project type (Public or Enterprise). Similarly, the time needed to resolve an issue/bug/enhancement is not affected by heroes or project type. This is a surprising result since, before looking at the data, we expected that increasing heroes on a project will slow down howfast that project reacts to change. However, we do find a statistically significant association between heroes, project types, and enhancement resolution rates. Heroes do not affect enhancement resolution rates in Public projects. However, in Enterprise projects, the more heroes increase the rate at which project complete enhancements. In summary, our empirical results call for a revision of a long-held truism in software engineering. Software heroes are far more common and valuable than suggested by the literature, particularly for medium to large Enterprise developments. Organizations should reflect on better ways to find and retain more of these heroesComment: 8 pages + 1 references, Accepted to International conference on Software Engineering - Software Engineering in Practice, 201

A Human Factors Study of Risk Management of Complex Agile Scrum Projects in Large Enterprises

Agile Project Management methods have gained phenomenal success in the IT software world in managing projects of high complexity and uncertainty. However, Agile projects come with their unique set of risks. This paper seeks to explore the risks posed by human factors to complex Agile Scrum projects in large enterprises. Project Risk Management is crucial in determining the future performance of a complex project. Increasing project complexity makes it more and more difficult to anticipate potential events that could affect the project and to make effective decisions to reduce project risk exposure. This is even more true for Agile projects that promote immediate and frequent visibility of risk factors and distributed decision making in projects. A dominant reason for failure of complex Agile projects are the risks caused by human and organization factors. This paper will analyze the delivery risks posed by human factors and the traditionally hierarchical decision making in large enterprise systems

Agile Teaching and Learning in Information Systems Education: An Analysis and Categorization of Literature

In this paper, we analyze and categorize research related to Agile teaching and learning in Information Systems education using an existing conceptual framework. To this end, a systematic literature review beginning with 642 papers led to the identification of 30 relevant papers written in English and published through 2018 in academic IS outlets. Our analysis reveals three ways in which Information Systems educators incorporate Agile into their courses: 1) using Agile as a pedagogical approach to teach non-Agile content, 2) using Agile as a pedagogical approach to teach Agile content, and 3) using non-Agile pedagogical approaches to teach Agile content. The majority of relevant papers were published between 2016 and 2018. We present an analysis of the three instructional approaches to serve as a resource for interested individuals and recommend directions for future studies related to Agile teaching and learning in IS education

Software Development with Scrum: A Bibliometric Analysis and Profile

Introduction of the Scrum approach into software engineering has changed the way software is being developed. The Scrum approach emphasizes the active end-user involvement, embracing of change, and /iterative delivery of products. Our study showed that Scrum has different variants or is used in combination with different methods. Some tools not normally used in the conventional software approaches, like gamification, content analysis and grounded theory are also employed. However, Scrum like other software development approach focuses on improvement of software process, software quality, business value, performance, usability and efficiency and at the same time to reduce cost, risk and uncertainty. Contrary to some conventional approaches it also strives to boost soft factors like agility, trust, motivation, responsibility and transparency. The bibliometric synthetic scoping study revealed seven main research themes concerned with the Scrum research

A importância do uso das metodologias híbridas em gestão de projetos de desenvolvimento de software

Nos últimos anos, o setor de desenvolvimento de software apresentou grande crescimento em todo o mundo. Para gerenciar os projetos oriundos desta demanda crescente, mostraram-se necessários novos modelos de gestão, além do aprimoramento dos modelos existentes. Os modelos existentes, também conhecidos como tradicionais, se tornaram-se muito burocráticos para o acompanhamento dos projetos e suas mudanças repentinas. Para solucionar este problema, foram inseridos os modelos ágeis, especialmente o Scrum, XP (Extreme Programming) e Kanban, como modelos menos burocráticos de gerenciar os projetos, já que uma das razões mais fortes para a adoção dos modelos ágeis é a velocidade de entrega dos projetos. Porém, nenhum dos modelos se mostraram 100% eficazes e muitas empresas têm adotado os modelos híbridos, que consistem na junção de mais de um modelo de gestão de projetos (especialmente ScrumBan e Scrum/XP (Extreme Programming)). Apesar disso, estes modelos também revelam alguns pontos negativos como a documentação insatisfatória e o âmbito pouco definido. Com o intuito de solucionar problemas de gestão, modificação do âmbito e documentação ineficiente, foi criado o modelo híbrido VIPKS, que resultou da combinação entre os modelos ágeis Scrum, Kanban e o modelo clássico orientado pelo Guia PMBOK®, passível de ser aplicado em pequenas e médias empresas de desenvolvimento de software que desejam ter maior eficácia e agilidade na execução de seus projetos com constantes entregas e interação entre a equipe e o cliente, sem abdicar da gestão da mudança e documentação. O modelo híbrido VIPKS utiliza o seguinte ciclo de vida como base para sua gestão: Análise e especificação de requisitos; Desenvolvimento; Validação do software; Entrega e Implantação. A validação do modelo é feita através de um investigação-ação experimental em um caso real e com um questionário que foi respondido pela equipe em que se pôde constatar que o modelo híbrido VIPKS se revelou benéfico e adequado para o planejamento e execução de projetos de desenvolvimento de software