Inter-team Coordination in Large-Scale Agile Development: A Case Study of Three Enabling Mechanisms

Agile methods are increasingly used in large development projects, with multiple development teams. A central question is then what is needed to coordinate feature teams efficiently. This study exam- ines three mechanisms for coordination: Shared mental models, commu- nication and trust in a large-scale development project with 12 feature teams running over a four-year period. We analyse the findings in rela- tion to suggested frameworks for large-scale agile development and a theory on coordination, and provide new recommendations for practice and theory.Inter-team Coordination in Large-Scale Agile Development: A Case Study of Three Enabling MechanismspublishedVersio

Examining the strategy development process through the lens of complex adaptive systems theory

The development of strategy remains a debate for academics and a concern for practitioners. Published research has focused on producing models for strategy development and on studying how strategy is developed in organisations. The Operational Research literature has highlighted the importance of considering complexity within strategic decision making; but little has been done to link strategy development with complexity theories, despite organisations and organisational environments becoming increasingly more complex. We review the dominant streams of strategy development and complexity theories. Our theoretical investigation results in the first conceptual framework which links an established Strategic Operational Research model, the Strategy Development Process model, with complexity via Complex Adaptive Systems theory. We present preliminary findings from the use of this conceptual framework applied to a longitudinal, in-depth case study, to demonstrate the advantages of using this integrated conceptual model. Our research shows that the conceptual model proposed provides rich data and allows for a more holistic examination of the strategy development process. © 2012 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved

The Ethics of Engagement in an Age of Austerity: A Paradox Perspective

Our contribution in this paper is to highlight the ethical implications of workforce engagement strategies in an age of austerity. Hard or instrumentalist approaches to workforce engagement create the potential for situations where engaged employees are expected to work ever longer and harder with negative outcomes for their well-being. Our study explores these issues in an investigation of the enactment of an engagement strategy within a UK Health charity, where managers and workers face paradoxical demands to raise service quality and cut costs. We integrate insights from engagement, paradox, and ethic of care literatures, to explore these paradoxical demands—illustrating ways in which engagement experiences become infused with tensions when the workforce faces competing requirements to do 'more with less' resources. We argue that those targeted by these paradoxical engagement strategies need to be supported and cared for, embedded in an ethic of care that provides explicit workplace resources for helping workers and managers cope with and work through corresponding tensions. Our study points to the critical importance of support from senior and frontline managers for open communications and dialogue practices

The product owner in large-scale agile: An empirical study through the lens of relational coordination theory

In agile software development, a core responsibility of the product owner (PO) is to communicate business needs to the development team. In large-scale agile software development projects, many teams work toward an overall outcome, but they also need to manage interdependencies and coordinate efficiently. In such settings, POs need to coordinate knowledge about project status and goal attainment both within and across the development teams. Previous research has shown that the PO assumes a wide set of roles. Still, our knowledge about how POs coordinate amongst themselves and with their teams in large-scale agile is limited. In this case study, we explore PO coordination in a large-scale development program through the theoretical lens of Relational Coordination Theory. Our findings suggest that (1) coordination varies depending on the context of each PO, (2) a focus on achieving high-quality communication changes coordination over time, and (3) unscheduled coordination enables of high-quality communication

Coordinating Public E-services : Investigating Mechanisms and Practices in a Government Agency

Coordination is an important enabler when creating and managing coherent, integrated, secure and smart public electronic services (e-services). With an increased demand for such services, coordination as an internal organizational phenomenon is becoming increasingly important. Based on a qualitative case study, and informed by coordination theory, this paper investigates two different theoretical views applied on internal e-service coordination within a government agency in Sweden. At the outset, the agency is seeking one generic way to coordinate the current heterogeneous and fragmented internal e-service landscape in a more efficient way. Hence, our aim also includes investigating the prerequisites and potential for this type of coordination. We conduct this study in two stages. First, we apply a well-established theoretical lens from organizational theory on a set of coordination efforts, thereby perceiving coordination as a planned and anticipated activity based on a fixed set of mechanisms. Second, we apply a lens of coordinating as emergent practice, which allows for an in-depth investigation of more flexible and dynamic aspects of coordinating activities in daily work. By combining these two views, we argue that this approach can facilitate and increase understanding of the dynamics and flexibility needed to understand the type of coordination needed in public e-service contexts. This also implies that there is no single best practice or ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to internal e-service coordination. Instead, organizations need to acknowledge the need for combined multi-dimensional views revealing the inherent complexity of coordination; as planned as well as emerging activities