Team Performance in Large-Scale Agile Software Development

Agile ways of working are nowadays used in many software development departments in larger organizations. When scaling up agile ways of working, new practices for coordinating teams become necessary, and many organizations are implementing the Scaled Agile Framework. The added practices for coordinating teams could have an impact on team performance, but they have not been much studied. In this study, data were obtained by means of a survey questionnaire that was answered by 201 employees from three organizations: one from the automotive industry, one government agency, and a business bank. The study suggests that efficient inter-team coordination does not have a positive relationship to team performance, which is contrary to previous studies. However, results suggests that a high level of psychological safety has a significant positive correlation to team performance

Team performance and large scale agile software development

Software development is a team work and largely dependent on open social interaction and continuous learning of individuals. Drawing on well established theoretical concepts proposed by social psychology and organizational science disciplines, we develop a theoretical framework proposing that team climate has a significant influence on team learning and ultimately affects team performance. Our study consists of two goals. First to understand the preconditions of team learning and second to investigate the relationship between team learning, psychological safety, and team performance in large scale agile software development projects. We plan to conduct a survey with software professionals in Sweden from three companies partners in pur large-scale agile research project.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, conference, ESEM, Register Repor

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

Critical Success Factors in Large-Scale Agile Software Development

This study delves into the burgeoning trend of deploying agile software development (ASD) on large-scale software projects, aiming to establish critical success factors (CSFs) to tackle associated implementation challenges. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature and a comparative analysis of the two organisations' experiences, this research identifies challenges and mitigation strategies for large-scale ASD implementation. The findings elucidate typical implementation phases and challenges encountered, demonstrating correlations between challenges and the implementation process. Ultimately, this study fills a gap in the academic literature by addressing challenges in large-scale ASD implementation, offering real-world insights and comparisons with existing literature to provide valuable recommendations

Perceived Impacts of Using the Scaled Agile Framework for Large-Scale Agile Software Development

Software development organizations are adopting values, principles, and frameworks to implement agile ways of working today, even in larger organizations. When several teams need to cooperate, and development needs to scale, many organizations are implementing the Scaled Agile Framework. At the same time, both researchers and practitioners have raised critical voices towards this framework, and the impacts are not much studied. This study aims to fill that gap by providing perceptions of benefits and drawbacks experienced in three different organizations: one in the automotive industry, one government agency, and one bank in Sweden. The analysis of survey answers from 154 respondents showed that the most commonly perceived benefits from implementing the Scaled Agile Framework were increased visibility, overview, and transparency. Authors of the framework claim massive productivity gains in every single team but, regarding perceived drawbacks, a lack of productivity, focus, and efficiency were most commonly reported

Changes to team autonomy in large-scale software development: a multiple case study of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) implementations

Large-scale transformations of agile ways of working have received more attention in the industry in recent years. Some organizations have developed their own solutions for scaling, whereas many have chosen trademarked frameworks. In large-scale agile software development, many developers and development teams carry out work simultaneously. When autonomous teams need to coordinate toward a common goal, they must sacrifice some level of autonomy. Development, testing, and integrations need to be coordinated with other teams and aligned with an organization´s programs or portfolio. Through the conducting of 28 interviews and 17 on-site visits, this multiple case study explored how team autonomy changed in three agile software development organizations that implemented the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The positive changes to team autonomy that they experienced as a result included getting a better overview, making better long-term decisions, giving and receiving help, and signaling limitations. We found two negative impacts on team autonomy: limited feature choice and enforced refinement. The study extends previous research on large-scale agile software development and improves our understanding of impacts on team autonomy

Changes to team autonomy in large-scale software development: a multiple case study of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) implementations

Large-scale transformations of agile ways of working have received more attention in the industry in recent years. Some organizations have developed their own solutions for scaling, whereas many have chosen trademarked frameworks. In large-scale agile software development, many developers and development teams carry out work simultaneously. When autonomous teams need to coordinate toward a common goal, they must sacrifice some level of autonomy. Development, testing, and integrations need to be coordinated with other teams and aligned with an organization´s programs or portfolio. Through the conducting of 28 interviews and 17 on-site visits, this multiple case study explored how team autonomy changed in three agile software development organizations that implemented the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The positive changes to team autonomy that they experienced as a result included getting a better overview, making better long-term decisions, giving and receiving help, and signaling limitations. We found two negative impacts on team autonomy: limited feature choice and enforced refinement. The study extends previous research on large-scale agile software development and improves our understanding of impacts on team autonomy.publishedVersio

Changes to team autonomy in large-scale software development: a multiple case study of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) implementations

Large-scale transformations of agile ways of working have received more attention in the industry in recent years. Some organizations have developed their own solutions for scaling, whereas many have chosen trademarked frameworks. In large-scale agile software development, many developers and development teams carry out work simultaneously. When autonomous teams need to coordinate toward a common goal, they must sacrifice some level of autonomy. Development, testing, and integrations need to be coordinated with other teams and aligned with an organization´s programs or portfolio. Through the conducting of 28 interviews and 17 on-site visits, this multiple case study explored how team autonomy changed in three agile software development organizations that implemented the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The positive changes to team autonomy that they experienced as a result included getting a better overview, making better long-term decisions, giving and receiving help, and signaling limitations. We found two negative impacts on team autonomy: limited feature choice and enforced refinement. The study extends previous research on large-scale agile software development and improves our understanding of impacts on team autonomy

Large scale agile software development compliant to IEC 62443-4-1: artefact design and tool support

There has been a considerable increase in the use of agile methodologies over the last years. However, applying these methodologies can be challenging, particularly for industrial control systems that must obey to rigorous operational requirements through regulations and standards, and in particular cybersecurity requirements. The current work proposes a concept for a structured and systematic integration of security activities into a DevOps pipeline, with the ambition of pursuing the capability of both secure agile development and security compliant agile software engineering. The basis for this concept is the integration of the IEC 62443-4-1 (4-1) standard, which describes secure product development in industrial control systems, with a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery pipeline specification. To achieve this, the security requirements, as described in the 4-1 standard, were mapped into a simple DevOps pipeline specification. As a result, all of the 4-1 activities were analysed and classified according to the possibility of being automated through tool support. Interviews with expert practitioners, from the fields of security compliance and agile software engineering, were conducted to evaluate the present work. Results have shown evidence about the possibility of providing tool support for the IEC 62443-4-1 standard and to specify a DevOps pipeline compliant to the 4-1 standard.Nos últimos anos houve um aumento considerável no uso de metodologias ágeis. No entanto, a aplicação destas metodologias pode ser um desafio, em especial para sistemas de controle industrial que têm a obrigação de obedecer a requisitos operacionais rigorosos através de regulamentos e normas, e em particular no âmbito da cibersegurança. Este trabalho propõe um conceito para uma integração estruturada e sistemática de actividades de segurança num pipeline de DevOps, com o intuito de alcançar ambas as capacidades de desenvolvimento ágil seguro e engenharia de software ágil em conformidade com segurança. A base para este conceito é a integração da norma IEC 62443-4-1 (4-1), que descreve o desenvolvimento seguro de produtos em ambientes de controle industrial, com um especificação de Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery. Para alcançar isto, foi feito um mapeamento de requisitos de segurança, de acordo com a descrição na norma 4-1, numa especificação simples de DevOps. Como resultado, todas as actividades da norma 4-1 foram analisadas e classificadas de acordo com a possibilidade de serem automatizadas através de suporte de ferramentas. Para avaliar o trabalho, foram realizadas entrevistas com profissionais especializados nas áreas de conformidade em segurança de TI’s e engenharia de software ágil. Os resultados mostram evidências sobre a possibilidade de fornecer suporte de ferramentas para a automatização da norma IEC 62443-4-1 e para a especificação um pipeline de DevOps conforme com a norma 4-1