Role clarity deficiencies can wreck agile teams

Background One of the twelve agile principles is to build projects around motivated individuals and trust them to get the job done. Such agile teams must self-organize, but this involves conflict, making self-organization difficult. One area of difficulty is agreeing on everybody’s role. Background What dynamics arise in a self-organizing team from the negotiation of everybody’s role? Method We conceptualize observations from five agile teams (work observations, interviews) by Charmazian Grounded Theory Methodology. Results We define role as something transient and implicit, not fixed and named. The roles are characterized by the responsibilities and expectations of each team member. Every team member must understand and accept their own roles (Local role clarity) and everbody else’s roles (Team-wide role clarity). Role clarity allows a team to work smoothly and effectively and to develop its members’ skills fast. Lack of role clarity creates friction that not only hampers the day-to-day work, but also appears to lead to high employee turnover. Agile coaches are critical to create and maintain role clarity. Conclusions Agile teams should pay close attention to the levels of Local role clarity of each member and Team-wide role clarity overall, because role clarity deficits are highly detrimental

Ein Modell zum Konzept Klarheit gewinnen und dessen Ursachen und Auswirkungen auf die Zusammenarbeit in selbstorganisierten Softwareentwicklungsteams

Hintergrund: Agile Softwareentwicklungsteams setzen Scrum unterschiedlich und individuell in der Praxis um. Anleitungen, Leitfäden und Handreichungen aus der Praxis und Forschung verlieren sich in den Details einzelner Werkzeuge,Faktoren oder Teile. Forschungsfrage: Was hält selbstorganisierte Softwareentwicklungsteams zusammen und fördert eine gute Zusammenarbeit? Methode: Es wurde mit Grounded-Theory-Methodologie nach Charmaz geforscht. Es wurden in 5 Scrum-Teams aus der Praxis intensiv Daten erhoben und weitere Interviews und Validierungen mit Expert_innen durchgeführt. Ergebnisse: Es wurde ein Modell entwickelt, das als zentrales Konzept "Klarheit gewinnen" enthält. Erstmals werden bekannte und neue Erkenntnisse zu einem gemeinsamen Modell verbunden und erklären Grundlagen funktionierender Zusammenarbeit in agilen Softwareentwicklungsteams. Fazit: In der Validierung wird deutlich, dass agile Teams das Modell anwenden können, um ihre Zusammenarbeit zu analysieren und zu stärke

IKUWA6. Shared Heritage

Celebrating the theme ‘Shared heritage’, IKUWA6 (the 6th International Congress for Underwater Archaeology), was the first such major conference to be held in the Asia-Pacific region, and the first IKUWA meeting hosted outside Europe since the organisation’s inception in Germany in the 1990s. A primary objective of holding IKUWA6 in Australia was to give greater voice to practitioners and emerging researchers across the Asia and Pacific regions who are often not well represented in northern hemisphere scientific gatherings of this scale; and, to focus on the areas of overlap in our mutual heritage, techniques and technology. Drawing together peer-reviewed presentations by delegates from across the world who converged in Fremantle in 2016 to participate, this volume covers a stimulating diversity of themes and niche topics of value to maritime archaeology practitioners, researchers, students, historians and museum professionals across the world

Minding the Gap: Computing Ethics and the Political Economy of Big Tech

In 1988 Michael Mahoney wrote that “[w]hat is truly revolutionary about the computer will become clear only when computing acquires a proper history, one that ties it to other technologies and thus uncovers the precedents that make its innovations significant” (Mahoney, 1988). Today, over thirty years after this quote was written, we are living right in the middle of the information age and computing technology is constantly transforming modern living in revolutionary ways and in such a high degree that is giving rise to many ethical considerations, dilemmas, and social disruption. To explore the myriad of issues associated with the ethical challenges of computers using the lens of political economy it is important to explore the history and development of computer technology