Understanding leadership in agile software development teams : who and how?

The principles in the Agile Manifesto, the Scrum Guide and most other approaches to agile software development emphasize self-organizing teams, but rarely address issues of leadership. In this paper we report on a study of the nature of different aspects of leadership in agile teams. We used an established model of leadership, distinguishing transactional and transformational styles, and asked IT professionals a set of questions about the leadership they experience, both from direct supervisors (hierarchical leadership) and from the team itself (shared leadership). We determined correlation measures of these four types of leadership with the extent of agility in the whole organization. Our results show that agility is indeed related to the transformational style, but that the transactional style also plays a part, especially as shared leadership. Furthermore, even in highly agile software development, leadership by direct supervisors still plays an important role. We propose that, as software development becomes more agile, the transactional aspects of leadership may shift away from the leadership dyad between supervisor and employee into the agile team, while transformational leadership is important for both the team and supervisors. We discuss our results in light of applications for both research and practice

Obstacles and opportunities in the functionalanalysis of extracellular vesicle RNA – an ISEVposition paper

The release of RNA-containing extracellular vesicles (EV) into the extracellular milieu has been demonstrated in a multitude of different in vitro cell systems and in a variety of body fluids. RNA-containing EV are in the limelight for their capacity to communicate genetically encoded messages to other cells, their suitability as candidate biomarkers for diseases, and their use as therapeutic agents. Although EV-RNA has attracted enormous interest from basic researchers, clinicians, and industry, we currently have limited knowledge on which mechanisms drive and regulate RNA incorporation into EV and on how RNA-encoded messages affect signalling processes in EV-targeted cells. Moreover, EV-RNA research faces various technical challenges, such as standardisation of EV isolation methods, optimisation of methodologies to isolate and characterise minute quantities of RNA found in EV, and development of approaches to demonstrate functional transfer of EV-RNA in vivo. These topics were discussed at the 2015 EV-RNA workshop of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles. This position paper was written by the participants of the workshop not only to give an overview of the current state of knowledge in the field, but also to clarify that our incomplete knowledge – of the nature of EV(-RNA)s and of how to effectively and reliably study them – currently prohibits the implementation of gold standards in EV-RNA research. In addition, this paper creates awareness of possibilities and limitations of currently used strategies to investigate EV-RNA and calls for caution in interpretation of the obtained data

Obstacles and opportunities in the functional analysis of extracellular vesicle RNA - An ISEV position paper

The release of RNA-containing extracellular vesicles (EV) into the extracellular milieu has been demonstrated in a multitude of different in vitro cell systems and in a variety of body fluids. RNA-containing EV are in the limelight for their capacity to communicate genetically encoded messages to other cells, their suitability as candidate biomarkers for diseases, and their use as therapeutic agents. Although EV-RNA has attracted enormous interest from basic researchers, clinicians, and industry, we currently have limited knowledge on which mechanisms drive and regulate RNA incorporation into EV and on how RNAencoded messages affect signalling processes in EV-targeted cells. Moreover, EV-RNA research faces various technical challenges, such as standardisation of EV isolationmethods, optimisation of methodologies to isolate and characteriseminute quantities of RNA found in EV, and development of approaches to demonstrate functional transfer of EV-RNA in vivo. These topics were discussed at the 2015 EV-RNA workshop of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles. This position paper was written by the participants of the workshop not only to give an overview of the current state of knowledge in the field, but also to clarify that our incomplete knowledge – of the nature of EV(-RNA)s and of how to effectively and reliably study them – currently prohibits the implementation of gold standards in EV-RNA research. In addition, this paper creates awareness of possibilities and limitations of currently used strategies to investigate EV-RNA and calls for caution in interpretation of the obtained data

Teaching and learning agile collaboration

Agile methods are widely adopted in software development. They are based on agile principles that sharply contrast to traditional command-and-control management methods. Such methods emphasize the importance of highly interactive self-organizing teams and close collaboration of all stakeholders, as well as values like courage, openness and respect. However, recent studies show that graduates and undergraduates of computer science often lack the collaborative and communicative skills necessary for agile methods and, thus, are not yet well enough educated for agile development approaches. Therefore, new approaches or more adequate educational methods for teaching the necessary communication and collaboration skills need to be developed. In a recent interview study, the authors elicited specific collaboration and communication skills needed in agile teams. In this paper, we present results from this study and discuss teaching concepts for collaboration skills from both engineering and psychological points of view. We suggest an approach on how to integrate these concepts into university courses, that focuses on active learning of agile collaboration. We have started implementing the proposed concept in a software engineering course and report on the experiences we have made and on the challenges that we have encountered

Kreative Zusammenarbeit im digitalen Wandel : eine empirische Studie zur Gestaltung und Nutzung interaktiver Tische fü kollaborative Design- und Brainstorming-Aufgaben

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden verschiedene Gestaltungsvarianten für interaktive Multitouch-Tische in ihrem Einfluss auf die dyadische Teamarbeit in Design- und Brainstorming-Aufgaben untersucht. Vier Varianten eines interaktiven Tischs unterschieden sich dadurch, wie sie durch individuelle Arbeitsbereiche vorstrukturiert waren (entweder am Tisch fixiert, verschiebbar oder mobil). In einer experimentellen Studie mit 160 Teilnehmenden wurden die verschiedenen Varianten hinsichtlich ihrer Einflüsse auf kollaborative Prozesse und den Erfolg der Zusammenarbeit verglichen und einer Kontrollbedingung gegenübergestellt. Die Kontrollbedingung enthielt keine individuellen Arbeitsbereiche. Die Ergebnisse von multivariaten Regressionsanalysen zeigen signifikante Effekte der Arbeitsplatzstrukturierung (fixierte, verschiebbare, mobile vs. keine individuelle Arbeitsbereiche) und des Aufgabentyps (Design vs. Brainstorming) auf kollaborative Prozesse und den Erfolg der dyadischen Zusammenarbeit: (1) Individuelle Arbeitsbereiche bewirkten einen positiven Einfluss auf kollaborative Prozesse und den Erfolg der Zusammenarbeit. (2) Individuelle Arbeitsbereiche haben ein höheres Potential für die Lösung von Brainstorming- verglichen mit Design-Aufgaben.publishe

Collaboration on large interactive displays : a systematic review

Large Interactive Displays (LIDs), such as tabletops or interactive walls, are promising innovations, which are increasingly used to support co-located collaboration. Yet the current evidence base on the impact of LID use on collaborative processes and outcomes, and associated influencing factors, is fragmented, particularly in comparison with other media. To address this gap, a systematic review was carried out in the databases Web of Science, Psych.Info, ACM, Elsevier, JSTOR and Springer and in the ACM CHI conference database. A corpus of 38 articles with experimental study designs met the eligibility criteria and was analyzed in-depth. With regard to collaboration processes, the findings suggest a relatively clear advantage of the use of LIDs over classic forms of collaboration, in particular over single-user environments (e.g. laptops). With attention to collaborative outcomes, positive effects of LIDs were identified for knowledge gains and social encounters, and mixed effects for task-related outcomes. The analysis further shows relevant influencing factors of LID, such as the separation of personal and joint work spaces and the deployment of horizontal instead of vertical displays. Conceptual and practice implications are discussed.publishe

Visualizing Progress Tracking for Software Teams on Large Collaborative Touch Displays

© 2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Keeping track of the progress on software projects can be difficult and time consuming. Progress tracking requires developers to track progress by hand or digitally neither of which have good support for collaborative team processes. In this paper we present DashVis a tool to help support teams to track progress more effectively using large touch displays and visualization techniques. We conducted a study and found the visualizations to be very effective in supporting teams to gain a more accurate way of keeping track of progress. With large touch displays becoming ubiquitous in the work place and the demand for software teams to understand their progress more effectively there is a need for tools like DashVis

Understanding Leadership in Agile Software Development Teams: Who and How?

The principles in the Agile Manifesto, the Scrum Guide and most other approaches to agile software development emphasize self-organizing teams, but rarely address issues of leadership. In this paper we report on a study of the nature of different aspects of leadership in agile teams. We used an established model of leadership, distinguishing transactional and transformational styles, and asked IT professionals a set of questions about the leadership they experience, both from direct supervisors (hierarchical leadership) and from the team itself (shared leadership). We determined correlation measures of these four types of leadership with the extent of agility in the whole organization. Our results show that agility is indeed related to the transformational style, but that the transactional style also plays a part, especially as shared leadership. Furthermore, even in highly agile software development, leadership by direct supervisors still plays an important role. We propose that, as software development becomes more agile, the transactional aspects of leadership may shift away from the leadership dyad between supervisor and employee into the agile team, while transformational leadership is important for both the team and supervisors. We discuss our results in light of applications for both research and practice

Interactive digital cardwalls for Agile software development

Agile software development is characterized by very intensive communication and collaboration among members of the software development team and external stakeholders. In this context, we look specifically at cardwalls, noting that despite the wide availability of digital cardwalls, most Agile teams still use physical cardwalls to support their collaborative events. This is true even though a physical cardwall hinders efficient distributed software development and causes extra effort to capture story artefacts into digital tools to meet traceability and persistence requirements. We conducted two empirical studies in industry to understand the use of existing digital Agile cardwalls and to find out the needs for an ideal digital Agile cardwall. The first study was with eight Agile teams of committed digital cardwall users. The study showed the reasons why some teams use projected digital cardwalls and their detailed experiences with them. The study showed that most digital cardwalls seem not be sufficient for the highly interactive and collaborative Agile workstyle. The second study was with eleven Agile companies. The study comprised of the development of aWall, a software prototype of a large interactive high-resolution multi-touch display that supports varied Agile meetings where cardwalls are used. The results of the study e

Particular Aspects Related to CD4+ Level in a Group of HIV-Infected Patients and Associated Acute Coronary Syndrome

People living with HIV infection are at high risk for cardiovascular events due to inflammation and atherosclerosis. Also, some antiretroviral therapies may contribute to the risk of cardiovascular complications. Immune status is highly dependent on the level of lymphocyte T helper CD4+. There are data suggesting that immune status and CD4+ cell count may be involved in the development of cardiovascular complications in these patients. Our study is longitudinal and retrospective and included a total number of 50 patients with HIV infection associated with acute coronary syndrome, divided into two subgroups based on the nadir of CD4+ cells. This study analyzes the relationship between the immune status of HIV patients, assessed by the nadir of the CD4+ T-cell count, and the outcome of these patients. Also, secondary endpoints were the assessment of the magnitude of coronary lesions and of thrombotic and bleeding risk assessed by specific scores. Clinical and biological parameters and also the extension and complexity of coronary lesions were assessed. Although patients with poor immune status had more complex coronary lesions and increased operative risk and bleeding risk at one year, this was not associated with significant differences in major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events at the 30-day and 1-year outcomes