Agile software development through a complex adaptive systems perspective

Agile software development through a complex adaptive systems perspectiv

The combination of agile and lean in software development: an experience report analysis

There has been a noticeable focus shift from agilemethods such as eXtreme Programming (XP) and Scrum tolean software development in the last several years, which is indicated as “from agile to lean”. However, the reality may not be as simple or linear as the term implies. To provide a better understanding of the combined use of agile and lean approaches in software development, a set of experience reports were analysed. These reports were published in the past conferences dedicated to agile software development and report experiences of using both agile and lean. The results of the analysis show that agile and lean can be combined in different manners for different purposes in software development. Lean is often applied as guiding principles for agile development. When combined at practice level, flowbased lean processes tend to substitute time-boxed agile processes

Understanding agility in software development through a complex adaptive systems perspective

Agile software development methods have emerged in recent years and have become increasingly popular since the start of the century. While much research claims to study agile methods, the meaning of agility itself in software development is yet to be fully understood. Agility is viewed by some as the antithesis of plan, structure discipline and bureaucracy. This study aims to develop a better understanding of agility, using the key concepts of Complex Adaptive Systems as a theoretical lens. The study explores agility from several different angles, including autonomous team, stability and uncertainty, and team learning. A multiple case study research method was employed. The findings of the study emphasize that agility is manifested as stability and discipline, which are just as desirable as flexibility, and context sharing is of the same value and importance as knowledge sharing. In addition, the collective nature of learning is underlined

From business process management to business process ecosystem

New technologies, notably service oriented architectures and web services, are enabling a third wave of business process management (BPM). Supporters claim that BPM is informed by complexity theory and that business processes can evolve and adapt to changing business circumstances. It is suggested by BPM adherents that the business/IT divide will be obliterated through a process-centric approach to systems development. The evolution of BPM and its associated technologies are explored and then coevolutionary theory is used to understand the business/IT relationship. Specifically, Kauffman’s NKC model is applied to a business process ecosystem to bring out the implications of coevolution for the theory and practice of BPM and for the relationship between business and IT. The paper argues that a wider view of the business process ecosystem is needed to take account of the social perspective as well as the human/non-human dimensio

An investigation of agility issues in scrum teams using agility indicators

Agile software development methods have emerged and become increasingly popular in recent years, yet the issues encountered by software development teams that strive to achieve agility using agile methods are yet to be explored systematically. Built upon a previous study that has established a set of indicators of agility, this study investigates what issues are manifested in software development teams using agile methods. It is focused on Scrum teams particularly. In other words, the goal of the paper is to evaluate Scrum teams using agility indicators and therefore to further validate previously presented agility indicators within the additional cases. A multiple case study research method is employed. The findings of the study reveals that the teams using Scrum do not necessarily achieve agility in terms of team autonomy, sharing, stability and embraced uncertainty. The possible reasons include previous organizational plan-driven culture, resistance towards the Scrum roles and changing resources

A coevolving systems approach to the organization of agile software

Despite the popularity of agile methods in software development and increasing adoption by organizations there is debate about what agility is and how it is achieved. The debate suffers from a lack of understanding of agile concepts and how agile software development is practised. This paper develops a framework for the organization of agile software development that identifies enablers and inhibitors of agility and the emergent capabilities of agile teams. The work is grounded in complex adaptive systems (CAS) and draws on three principles of coevolving systems: match coevolutionary change rate, maximise self-organizing, and synchronize exploitation and exploration. These principles are used to study the processes of two software development teams, one a team using eXtreme Programming (XP) and the other a team using a more traditional, waterfall-based development cycle. From the cases a framework for the organisation of agile software development is developed. Time pacing, self-management with discipline and routinisation of exploration are among the agile enablers found in the cases studies while event pacing, centralised management and lack of resources allocated to exploration are found to be inhibitors to agility. Emergent capabilities of agile teams that are identified from the research include coevolution of business value, sustainable working with rhythm, sharing and team learning, and collective mindfulness

Toward the agile enterprise: coevolution of business processes and IT infrastructure

New technologies, notably service oriented architectures and Web services, have enabled a third wave of business process management (BPM). Supporters have claimed that BPM is informed by complexity theory with the outcomes that business processes can evolve and adapt to changing business circumstances as well as coevolve with the IT infrastructure. As a consequence it has been suggested by BPM adherents that the businesslIT divide will be obliterated through a process-centric approach to systems development. In this paper we trace the evolution of BPM and its associated technologies and argue that a complex adaptive systems view of business processes and IT infrastructure in general and a coevolutionary view based on Kauffman 's NK[C] model in particular, may provide a more sound basis for BPM and IT infrastructure management. The paper concludes by considering the limitations of coevoutionary theory in the BPM context and proposes areas for future work, including an injection of social theory to address issues such as human agency and the role of social structures

Order and chaos in agile software development: a comparison of two software development teams in a major IT company

Agile methods have emerged and become popular over last few years as a response to shortcomings of the waterfall process model. However, agile processes are stamped by some as chaotic processes and are placed in opposition to waterfall approaches. This paper uses the edge of chaos concept from complex adaptive systems theory as a theoretical lens to analyse the roles of structure and planning in the software development process. The software development processes of two teams in a major IT company, on of whom uses agile methods and the other a waterfall approach, are presented and the project structure and planning process of each is highlighted then compared. Our research finds that structure and planning are essential to agile processes and take different forms from the waterfall model. Contrary to the belief that agile software development may be chaotic we conclude that it is possible that the waterfall method may be chaotic due to prescribed rather than effective structures

Comparing apples with oranges? The perceived differences between agile and lean software development processes.

The evolution processes of agile and lean software development are intertwined. Recently a shift from agile methods to lean software development has been noticed and advocated. To truly comprehend this phenomenon theoretically and practically, we take a step back and investigate the key differences between agile and lean software processes, the understanding of which is still limited. A content analysis of a popular mailing list of the lean community, called kanbandev, is being conducted. The results of the study unveil the perspectives of the lean community on the differences between agile and lean software development processes

Organizing for agility: a complex adaptive systems perspective on agile software development process

Agile software development has caught the attention of both practitioners and academics in recent years. In spite of many anecdotes and papers describing lessons learnt the theoretical foundation of agile software development has not been systematically articulated. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to study agile software development based on the theory of complex adaptive systems. The framework is illustrated by a case study of an agile software development team. Several agile practices are identified and reflected on from the perspective of complex adaptive systems