Coordination Strategies When Working from Anywhere: A Case Study of Two Agile Teams

Effective coordination is the key to successful agile teams. They rely on frequent interactions and mutual adjustment to manage dependencies between activities, which traditionally has been solved by co-locating the team. As the world is adjusting to post-covid work-life, companies are moving towards a work-from-anywhere approach where workers can choose to what degree they want to work from home or office. However, little is known about coordination in such a context. We report findings on developers’ emerging strategies when working-from-anywhere, from an exploratory case study in Norway, including eight interviews. Our study shows that new strategies for mutual adjustment emerged as teams experimented with different tools and approaches: developers chose tasks according to location, tasks with vague requirements are performed collocated while individual tasks requiring focus are best performed at home; large meetings are virtual, preserving co-located time for collaborative tasks; using virtual rooms to maintain unscheduled meetings as they communicate mental presence to teammates, lowering the threshold for intra-team unscheduled talks. The strategies can help organizations create a productive and effective environment for developers.publishedVersio

TECHNOLOGY FOR KNOWLEDGE WORK: A RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

In this research in progress paper, we consider how two major trends drive digitalization. First, software product management focuses on fast and iterative development where users are involved in the design phase of products through product managers. Second, there is a push toward applying AI in knowledge domains. We show how these trends intensify the need to focus on relations between IS development and use. Through an interpretative case study of digitalization, drawing on ethnographic methods, we investigate key relations and how they compound into constellations of relations. We discuss key constellations of relations, how the data flow between constellations of relations functions, and how we can zoom in and out to understand relations—allowing for a reposition of IS development for AI, both theoretically and practically

Managing Competing Concerns in Digital Innovation: A Case Study of an Incumbent Maritime Company

The need for new digitally enhanced solutions has led companies in traditionally non-digital industries to explore the potential of digital innovation. Various process frameworks claim their ability to support this endeavor by facilitating the digital innovation process. However, such frame-works alone may not be sufficient because digital innovation in established firms tends to involve numerous actors with competing interests. This introduces the need to manage the competing concerns in order to orchestrate the digital innovation process. Knowledge about how the organizational actors negotiate, agree, and collectively drive the innovation process forward thus becomes crucial. This interpretive case study describes how participants of a digital innovation program in an established maritime company manage their competing concerns through four negotiation episodes: Mobilizing of internal stakeholders, Developing capacity for faster decision-making, Pricing new digital services, and Establishing a connection between business and development. The results indicate that negotiating competing concerns is necessary for the incumbents to move forward with their digital innovation and that communities of practice can facilitate such negotiations. We conclude that recombination of the established processes as an outcome of such negotiations is necessary to succeed with digital innovation in incumbent firms.publishedVersio

Managing Competing Concerns in Digital Innovation: A Case Study of an Incumbent Maritime Company

The need for new digitally enhanced solutions has led companies in traditionally non-digital industries to explore the potential of digital innovation. Various process frameworks claim their ability to support this endeavor by facilitating the digital innovation process. However, such frame-works alone may not be sufficient because digital innovation in established firms tends to involve numerous actors with competing interests. This introduces the need to manage the competing concerns in order to orchestrate the digital innovation process. Knowledge about how the organizational actors negotiate, agree, and collectively drive the innovation process forward thus becomes crucial. This interpretive case study describes how participants of a digital innovation program in an established maritime company manage their competing concerns through four negotiation episodes: Mobilizing of internal stakeholders, Developing capacity for faster decision-making, Pricing new digital services, and Establishing a connection between business and development. The results indicate that negotiating competing concerns is necessary for the incumbents to move forward with their digital innovation and that communities of practice can facilitate such negotiations. We conclude that recombination of the established processes as an outcome of such negotiations is necessary to succeed with digital innovation in incumbent firms

Understanding Barriers to Internal Startups in Large Organizations: Evidence from a Globally Distributed Company

Large global companies need to speed up their innovation activities to increase competitive advantage. However, such companies' organizational structures impede their ability to capture trends they are well aware of due to bureaucracy, slow decision-making, distributed departments, and distributed processes. One way to strengthen the innovation capability is through fostering internal startups. We report findings from an embedded multiple-case study of five internal startups in a globally distributed company to identify barriers for software product innovation: late involvement of software developers, executive sponsor is missing or not clarified, yearly budgeting and planning, unclear decision-making authority, lack of digital infrastructure for experimentation and access to data from external actors. Drawing on the framework of continuous software engineering proposed by Fitzgerald and Stol, we discuss the role of BizDev in software product innovation. We suggest that lack of continuity, rather than the lack of speed, is an ultimate challenge for internal startups in large global companies.acceptedVersio

A longitudinal explanatory case study of coordination in a very large development programme: The impact of transitioning from a first- to a second-generation large-scale agile development method

Large-scale agile development has gained widespread interest in the software industry, but it is a topic with few empirical studies of practice. Development projects at scale introduce a range of new challenges in managing a large number of people and teams, often with high uncertainty about product requirements and technical solutions. The coordination of teams has been identified as one of the main challenges. This study presents a rich longitudinal explanatory case study of a very large software development programme with 10 development teams. We focus on inter-team coordination in two phases: one that applies a first-generation agile development method and another that uses a second-generation one. We identified 27 coordination mechanisms in the first phase, and 14 coordination mechanisms in the second. Based on an analysis of coordination strategies and mechanisms, we develop five propositions on how the transition from a first- to a second-generation method impacts coordination. These propositions have implications for theory and practice.publishedVersio

Using Guilds to Foster Internal Startups in Large Organizations: A Case Study

Software product innovation in large organizations is fundamentally challenging because of restrained freedom and flexibility to conduct experiments. As a response, large agile companies form internal startups to initiate employ-driven innovation, inspired by Lean startup. This case study investigates how communities of practice support five internal startups in developing new software products within a large organization. We observed six communities of practice meetings, two workshops and conducted ten semi-structured interviews over the course of a year. Our findings show that a community of practice, called the Innovation guild, allowed internal startups to help each other by collectively solving problems, creating shared practices, and sharing knowledge. This study confirms that benefits documented in earlier research into CoPs also hold true in the context of software product innovation in large organizations. Henceforth, we suggest that similar innovation guilds, as described in this paper, can support large companies in the innovation race for new software products.publishedVersio

Realiserte gevinster av prestasjonsmåling

Statistisk sentralbyrå publiserer jevnlig statistikk over produktiviteten i norsk bygg- anlegg- og eiendomsnæring (BAE) som viser et produktivitetsfall på 10 prosent siden år 2000. Byggekostnadene har økt mer enn generell prisstigning og kostnadsnivået i Norge er langt høyere enn våre naboland i Europa. Prestasjonsmåling av prosjekter er en av flere tiltak næringen selv foreslår for å møte disse utfordringene. Flere norske virksomheter har derfor tatt i bruk prestasjonsmåleverktøyet “10-10” og etablert en medlemseid forening som tilgjengeliggjør verktøyet, Nordic 10-10. Foreningen ønsker å finne ut hvilke gevinster som realiseres fra arbeidet med 10-10 og de tre virksomhetene med lengst erfaring deltok i denne undersøkelsen. Formålet er å vurdere i hvilken grad seks spesifikke gevinster realiseres i virksomhetene. De seks gevinstene er foreslått i forskningsarbeidet som anbefalte prestasjonsmåling til byggebransjen, og er godt fundamentert i annen litteratur. Problemstillingen er som følger: I hvilken grad lykkes tre norske virksomheter å realisere gevinster fra prestasjonsmåling av prosjekter med hjelp av verktøyet 10-10? For å svare på problemstillingen er det gjennomført seks intervjuer og samlet inn 176 spørreundersøkelser. Først ble ett intervju gjennomført i alle de tre virksomheten for å sikre problemavklaring og forståelse. Så ble en spørreundersøkelse sendt til alle som har deltatt i arbeidet med 10-10 i de tre virksomheten (svarprosent 39%). Til slutt intervjuet vi én leder i hver virksomhet og viste resultatene fra spørreundersøkelsen. Det er altså benyttet en kombinasjon av kvalitative og kvantitative forskningsmetoder, noe som har kompensert for svakheter i de forskjellige metodene og gitt mulighet for å validere funn på tvers av datasettene. Undersøkelsen viser at de tre virksomhetene realiserer noen av gevinstene, mens andre er mer utfordrende å sette ut i livet. De lykkes i stor grad å nytte prestasjonsmåling til å identifisere forbedringsområder og skape dialog og læring fra målingene. De lykkes i middels grad å implementere forbedringstiltak, gi tilbakemelding på individers egne prestasjoner og motivere til å forbedre dem. Til slutt lykkes de i liten grad å bruke prestasjonsmåling til å skape tiltak på tvers av prosjektporteføljen, følge opp virksomhetens strategi og å lære av andre virksomheters erfaringer. Undersøkelsen bidrar til kunnskap som hjelper Nordic 10-10 og BAE-næringen å vurdere om prestasjonsmåling er et tiltak som hjelper på veien mot målet om økt produktivitet. Funnene fra undersøkelsen har praktisk verdi for de tre virksomhetene. De får en vurdering av hvilke gevinster de realiserer og hvor de må legge inn en ekstra innsats for å realisere de resterende

Employee-Driven Innovation to Fuel Internal Software Startups: Preliminary Findings

To keep up with the pace of innovation, established companies are increasingly relying on internal software startups. However, succeeding with such startups is a challenging task because internal startups need to find a balance between the interests of the company and the interest of the innovator. One approach that is argued to strengthen innovation in existing companies is employee-driven innovation (EDI). This study explores this argument by examining two internal software startups in companies aligned with the principles of EDI and with a strong focus on innovation. The preliminary findings indicate that startups with EDI are characterized by commitment towards innovation, cooperative orientation, and autonomy. The findings suggest that internal software startups may be strengthened when the parent companies practice EDI.publishedVersio

Coordination Strategies When Working from Anywhere: A Case Study of Two Agile Teams

Effective coordination is the key to successful agile teams. They rely on frequent interactions and mutual adjustment to manage dependencies between activities, which traditionally has been solved by co-locating the team. As the world is adjusting to post-covid work-life, companies are moving towards a work-from-anywhere approach where workers can choose to what degree they want to work from home or office. However, little is known about coordination in such a context. We report findings on developers’ emerging strategies when working-from-anywhere, from an exploratory case study in Norway, including eight interviews. Our study shows that new strategies for mutual adjustment emerged as teams experimented with different tools and approaches: developers chose tasks according to location, tasks with vague requirements are performed collocated while individual tasks requiring focus are best performed at home; large meetings are virtual, preserving co-located time for collaborative tasks; using virtual rooms to maintain unscheduled meetings as they communicate mental presence to teammates, lowering the threshold for intra-team unscheduled talks. The strategies can help organizations create a productive and effective environment for developers