Improving the management of cost and scope in software projects using agile practices

While organizations want to develop software products with reduced cost and flexible scope, stories about the applicability of agile practices to improve project development and performance in the software industry are scarce and focused on specific methodologies such as Scrum and XP. Given these facts, this paper aims to investigate, through practitioners' perceptions of value, which agile practices are being used to improve two performance criteria for software projects-cost and scope. Using a multivariate statistical technique known as Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), the results suggest that the use of agile practices can be represented in factors which describe different applications in software development process to improve cost and scope. Also, we conclude that some agile practices should be used together in order to get better efficiency on cost and scope in four development aspects: improving (a) team abilities, (b)management of requirements, (c) quality of the code developed, and (d) delivery of software on-budget and on-time.Comment: 47-64p

Views from an organization on how agile development affects its collaboration with a software development team

The purpose of this study is to investigate how agile development affects collaboration in an organization. Agile processes have received interest from the software development community during the last years as they address changes, such as new customer requirements or re-prioritization of development tasks, which is important to manage in software development. Most of the research published about agile processes are based on opinions from teams applying these processes. However, since software development is an activity where many parties often collaborate, it is interesting to investigate from an organizational point of view, how agile development affects collaboration between these teams and their organizations. An agile process based on extreme programming, XP, was applied by a team during eight months. The team interacted with its surrounding organization regularly. People from the organization which the team collaborated with were interviewed to understand how the use of the process affected their collaboration with the team. The results show that the interviewed people perceived an improvement of their collaboration with the team, as the team started develop software in an agile way

The Role of Social Agile Practices for Direct and Indirect Communication in Information Systems Development Teams

Methods for Agile information systems development (ISD) are widely accepted in industry. One key difference in comparison to traditional, plan-driven ISD approaches is that Agile ISD teams rely heavily on direct, informal face-to-face communication instead of indirect and formal documents, models, and plans. While the importance of communication in Agile ISD is generally acknowledged, empirical studies investigating this phenomenon are scarce. We empirically open up the “black box” of the Agile ISD process to enhance the knowledge about the communication mechanisms of Agile ISD teams. We conducted a case study at two medium-sized ISD companies. As our primary data collection technique, we carried out semi-structured interviews, which we complemented with observations and, in one case, a survey. Our study’s main contribution is a set of so-called social Agile practices that positively impact the direct communication of team members. Our data suggests including the Agile practices co-located office space, daily stand-up meeting, iteration planning meeting, pair programming, sprint retrospective, and sprint review in this set. Furthermore, we investigate the role of more formal, indirect communication in Agile ISD projects. We highlight areas in which formal documents remain important so that a trade-off between indirect and direct communication is necessary

Impacto da incerteza no processo ágil de gestão do orçamento : estudo de caso Natixis, sucursal em Portugal

A elevada competitividade e instabilidade nos mercados aumentou a necessidade das empresas encontrarem soluções para incorporar a incerteza nos seus processos. Com isto, surgiram metodologias que permitiram agilizar as rotinas operacionais e responder de forma dinâmica às necessidades do mercado, aumentando também o valor criado para os clientes. A presente investigação trata de analisar o impacto da incerteza no processo ágil de gestão do orçamento numa empresa de grande dimensão prestadora de serviços financeiros, a Natixis em Portugal. Esta empresa, apesar de apresentar atualmente processos de orçamentação tradicionais, está ciente da necessidade de implementar processos ágeis que, no futuro, a tornem mais competitiva e dinâmica no mercado. O estudo recorre a uma análise qualitativa, sustentada em entrevistas semiestruturadas, realizadas a colaboradores com impacto direto no processo de orçamentação e na implementação da metodologia ágil na organização. O objetivo passa por analisar o impacto que a incerteza tem atualmente no orçamento tradicional e compará-la com as previsões de incorporação no futuro, com a agilização dos processos. Esta pesquisa permitiu constatar que a metodologia responde à necessidade de incorporar a incerteza dos mercados e aumenta a capacidade competitiva da empresa dado que se sustenta na utilização de reuniões e ajustes frequentes nos processos, colaboração constante com os clientes e foco nas pessoas.The high competitiveness and instability in the markets increased the need for companies to find solutions to incorporate uncertainty into their processes. With this, methodologies emerged that made it possible to streamline operational routines and dynamically respond to market needs, also increasing the value created for customers. This investigation analyzes the impact of uncertainty on the agile process of budget management in a large company providing financial services, Natixis in Portugal. This company, despite currently presenting traditional budgeting processes, is aware of the need to implement agile processes that, in the future, will make it more competitive and dynamic in the market. The study resorts to a qualitative analysis, supported by semi-structured interviews, carried out with employees with a direct impact on the budgeting process and on the implementation of the agile methodology in the organization. The objective is to analyze the impact that uncertainty currently has on the traditional budget and compare it with forecasts for incorporation in the future, with the streamlining of processes. This research showed that the methodology responds to the need to incorporate market uncertainty and increases the company's competitive capacity given that it is based on the use of meetings and frequent adjustments in processes, constant collaboration with customers and focus on people

Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams

Over time, there has been a high failure rate of information systems development (ISD) projects, although Agile development has brought recent improvements. Knowledge management is also known to be one of the critical factors to Agile and project success; however, there are some knowledge transfer studies in Agile development. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to present a theoretical model examining what makes individuals successful at transferring knowledge in teams using Scrum, Agile’s most popular methodology. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted at two Scrum companies in Cape Town. Participants interviewed ranged from project managers and Scrum masters to software developers, business analyst and testers. The interviews were all transcribed, then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings produced new relationships between characteristics already well known to impact knowledge transfer as well as newly defined characteristics impacting knowledge transfer in Scrum teams: empathy and articulation skills of the source. The results have shown that the recipient should perceive the person wanting to transfer knowledge as having these characteristics to enable successful knowledge transfer: empathy, motivation, capability, credibility, articulate and ability to communicate enough. The contribution of this study to practice is a list of attributes for HR managers to help improve the knowledge transfer of Scrum team members. The contribution to Scrum research is a new theoretical model that suggests which characteristics a person needs to transfer knowledge successfully in Scrum teams, adapted from Joshi, Sarker and Sarker’s (2007) knowledge transfer model. This model can also be extended in the future by looking more deeply into the new relationships between constructs, such as how motivation together with capability of the source affect knowledge transfer in Scrum teams

Estudio de la Aplicación de Metodologías Ágiles para la Evolución de Productos Software

Las actuales características de dinamismo y variabilidad de la industria software han precisado replantear los cimientos sobre los que se sustenta el desarrollo software convencional. Un reciente estudio realizado por Boehm en [1], sobre la tendencia en ingeniería del software, indica que el mercado actual está caracterizado por el rápido desarrollo de aplicaciones y la reducción de la vida de los productos. En este entorno inestable la ventaja competitiva se encuentra en aumentar la productividad y satisfacer las variantes necesidades del cliente en el menor tiempo posible para proporcionar un mayor valor al negocio. Ante esta situación, cabe reflexionar sobre el grado de adaptación de las metodologías convencionales a estas circunstancias. La mayoría de los estudios coinciden en que el carácter normativo y la fuerte dependencia de planificaciones previas al desarrollo que definen a las metodologías convencionales, implican que resulten excesivamente pesadas para cubrir las necesidades de un amplio porcentaje del mercado software actual. En los últimos años las metodologías ágiles han irrumpido con fuerza como un intento de despojar al desarrollo software del estricto corsé planteado por las metodologías convencionales, y son muchas las organizaciones punteras con creciente interés en las mismas. La novedad de estas metodologías hace que, aunque existen evidencias de los beneficios que pueden proporcionar en proyectos de pequeña envergadura, aun resulte difícil escalar a grandes proyectos. Algunos estudios recientes indican que la productividad y calidad del software aumenta aplicando los principios y valores que las rigen. No obstante, la mayoría de estos estudios se limitan a narrar observaciones cualitativas. Entre los que utilizan datos empíricos para apoyar sus conclusiones, los resultados son tan dispares como una mejora del 337% en la productividad en [2] y un decremento del 44% en [3]. Por este motivo, desde las organizaciones que promueven el desarrollo ágil de aplicaciones se solicita la realización de estudios sobre metodologías ágiles que permitan constatar o reprobar sus beneficios. El objeto de esta investigación es estudiar la evolución de un producto software concreto utilizando las directrices marcadas por metodologías ágiles, en concreto por la metodología SCRUM. Se presentan los resultados obtenidos en aspectos tales como las características del producto a lo largo de la evolución, incluyendo estimaciones de la calidad del producto obtenido, la agilidad en el desarrollo, y evaluando el esfuerzo dedicado a adoptar la metodología. Además, dado que el factor humano es fundamental en este tipo de metodologías, se presenta un análisis cualitativo del desarrollo del proyecto. Cabe destacar que el estudio aquí presentado se enmarca en una de las líneas de investigación del grupo SYST (System and Software Technology Group) de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, que participa en el proyecto ITEA2 Flexi [4]. En este proyecto se persigue mejorar la competitividad de la industria software europea proporcionando un entorno flexible, rápido y ágil para el desarrollo de aplicaciones que permita adaptarse a las actuales características del mercado para pasar de la idea al producto en seis meses

Teams in agile software development: Design principles and examination of human factors

In response to new customer requirements, market dynamics, mergers, and technological innovation, modern software development organizations are adopting agile software development (ASD). Yet, the simple adoption of agile methods such as Scrum or eXtreme programming does not automatically result in a very agile team. While we understand the introduction and adoption of ASD from a methodical perspective, we have yet to explore design principles that guide methodical extensions of ASD, and we need to learn more about the human factors that influence software development teams. This thesis presents four studies. Studies 1 and 2 investigate the methodical extension of ASD by identifying design principles from secondary data. Study 1 extends ASD with processes and practices from user-centered design. Study 2 investigates early activities that precede development activities. The thesis also investigates human factors of agile software development in studies 3 and 4. Study 3 compares teams along their extents of agility in order to identify influential factors using a multicase study design. Study 4 tests the effects of emotional contagion in virtual software development teams using a large dataset from an open source software repository. Thus, this thesis makes two primary contributions. First, it develops design principles for methodical extensions of ASD; second, it contributes to the human factors that influence software development teams. Managers also receive guidance on the improvement of ASD in their organization