Applying Adapted Big Five Teamwork Theory to Agile Software Development

Teamwork is a central tenet of agile software development but various teamwork theories only partially explain teamwork in that context. Big Five teamwork theory is one of the most influential teamwork theories, but prior research shows that the team leadership concept in this theory it is not applicable to agile software development. This paper applies an adapted form of Big Five teamwork theory to cases of agile software development. Three independent cases were drawn from a single organisation providing a measure of control over contextual factors affecting the teamwork. The findings show that the adapted form of Big Five teamwork theory, including a shared team leadership concept, is fully applicable to some forms of agile software development, but not all. For practitioners, insights as to which agile practices support teamwork are provided

Measuring Coordination in Agile Software Development

Coordination has long been recognized as contributing to successful IT projects. Agile software development provides many practices for achieving project coordination in small co-located projects. Given the importance of coordination to successful software development projects and the increasing popularity of agile software development, investigating coordination in this context is timely and potentially useful. This paper takes an existing theory of coordination in co-located agile software development projects developed from case study research and proposes a field test of that theory. The question addressed is what is the effect of an agile coordination strategy on coordination effectiveness in co-located software development projects? This paper describes the initial theory of coordination and a research design for field-testing that theory

Effective communication in globally distributed Scrum teams

Trends in information systems development include the use of globally distributed teams and agile methodologies such as Scrum. Globally distributed (GD) software development challenges team communication. Before we can evaluate effective communication in GD teams using Scrum, we need to know what effective communication means in that context. This study captures the understanding of effective communication based on interviews with industry professionals working in GD Scrum teams and reports on Scrum practices that keep communication effective. From these interviews, we developed a model consisting of communication transparency, communication quality, and communication discipline, leading to the alignment of team understanding. This paper contributes to practitioners’ knowledge about what effective communication means in GD Scrum and describes tools that support communication. The theoretical contribution of the study is a model of effective communication that lays the ground for future research on evaluating Scrum’s effect on communication in GD contexts

Effective Communication in Globally Distributed Scrum: A Model and Practical Guidance

A trend in information systems development is for globally distributed teams to use agile methods and frameworks such as Scrum. In globally distributed (GD) software development, a known challenge is effective team communication. Researchers, however, cannot evaluate effective communication in GD teams using Scrum unless they know what effective communication means in that context. This qualitative study contributes a theoretical model of effective communication in GD Scrum teams and practical guidance for practitioners. Ten industry professionals working in GD Scrum teams were interviewed to capture their understanding of effective communication. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the interviews and form a basis for the model and the practical guidance. This novel model consists of communication transparency, communication quality, and communication discipline, which together lead to the alignment of team understanding (i.e., a team-level shared mental model). This theoretical model lays the ground for future research into the effect of Scrum practices on communication in GD contexts, and the effect of communication on team and project success. For practitioners, this study contributes 11 practical actions that professionals recommend for improving and sustaining effective communication

Leadership in Agile Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Effective leadership is deemed essential for successful projects and teams. However, leadership in agile software development projects and teams is a challenge in practice, and the research literature provides no general agreement on what constitutes effective leadership in this environment. To address this issue and give the agile community a comprehensive overview of the research on agile leadership we report the results of a systematic literature review (SLR). The SLR identified 33 studies in the Scopus database published from 2000-2019 that contribute to agile leadership knowledge. The results indicate that whilst some studies apply leadership theories to explore and explain the role of agile leadership other studies propose alternative approaches to leadership within agile software teams and projects. The results suggest that agile leadership research needs further attention and that more empirical studies are needed to better understand agile leadership in general and in the various agile information systems development environments

A Theory of Coordination: From Propositions to Hypotheses in Agile Software Development

Coordination is crucial in agile software development projects and a Theory of Coordination in co-located agile software development projects explains coordination in this context. This theory has propositions based on case study research. To improve the generalisability of theory built from case studies, researchers often transition to a theory testing phase involving a large-scale field study using the survey method. Prior to a large-scale field study, the propositions generated during theory building must be converted to testable hypotheses. There is little guidance explaining the complexity of this transition process and the challenges involved. Therefore, this paper explains the operationalisation process of transitioning from research propositions to research hypotheses and illustrates the process using the Theory of Coordination. The paper offers six practical guidelines, identifies seven challenges encountered, and potential solutions for each challenge. This paper contributes to agile software development and theory testing research offering seven recommendations for research practice

A taxonomy of dependencies in agile software development

Dependencies in a software project can contribute to unsatisfactory progress if they constrain or block the flow of work. Various studies highlight the importance of dependencies in the organisation of work; however dependencies in agile software development projects have not previously been a research focus. Drawing on three case studies of agile software projects, and the IS literature, this paper develops an initial taxonomy of agile software project dependencies. Three distinct categories of dependency are found: task, resource, and knowledge dependencies. This paper contributes to theory by providing a taxonomy of dependency types occurring in the area of agile software development. Practitioners can use this taxonomy as sensitising device to ensure they consider dependencies they might face that could hinder their projects, enabling them to take appropriate and timely mitigating action.<br /

A SECI-Based Knowledge Conversion Model of Business Process Capture

Security questions are one of the mechanisms used to recover passwords. Strong answers to security questions (i.e. high entropy) are hard for attackers to guess or obtain using social engineering techniques (e.g. monitoring of social networking profiles), but at the same time are difficult to remember. Instead, weak answers to security questions (i.e. low entropy) are easy to remember, which makes them more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Convenience leads users to use the same answers to security questions on multiple accounts, which exposes these accounts to numerous cyber-threats. Hence, current security questions implementations rarely achieve the required security and memorability requirements. This research study is the first step in the development of a model which investigates the determinants that influence users’ behavioural intentions through motivation to select strong and memorable answers to security questions. This research also provides design recommendations for novel security questions mechanisms

Lean Management in IT Organizations: A Ranking-type Delphi Study of Implementation Success Factors

Lean management (LM) is well established in manufacturing organizations, and LM adoption in service organizations has recently increased. However, we lack research that focuses on the success of lean management implementations in IT organizations (lean IT). This paper contributes to knowledge of the success factors of lean IT implementation and the relative importance of each factor based on the insights of field experts. The experts identified, agreed on, and ranked 12 implementation success factors for lean IT in a Delphi study using the best/worst scaling technique. The most important factors were leadership involvement, change culture and work ethic, employee involvement, and performance management. Factors of intermediate importance were implementation facilitation, training and education, clear vision and direction, long-term focus, communication, and a holistic approach. Least important factors were existing skills, organizational changes/standardization, and financial resources. This paper contributes a more nuanced understanding of the relative importance of lean IT success factors, proposes relationships between them, and comprehensively explains how to use the rigorous best/worst scaling method in a traditional ranking-type Delphi study

Effective Communication in Globally Distributed Scrum: A Model and Practical Guidance

A trend in information systems development is for globally distributed teams to use agile methods and frameworks such as Scrum. In globally distributed (GD) software development, a known challenge is effective team communication. Researchers, however, cannot evaluate effective communication in GD teams using Scrum unless they know what effective communication means in that context. This qualitative study contributes a theoretical model of effective communication in GD Scrum teams and practical guidance for practitioners. Ten industry professionals working in GD Scrum teams were interviewed to capture their understanding of effective communication. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the interviews and form a basis for the model and the practical guidance. This novel model consists of communication transparency, communication quality, and communication discipline, which together lead to the alignment of team understanding (i.e., a team-level shared mental model). This theoretical model lays the ground for future research into the effect of Scrum practices on communication in GD contexts, and the effect of communication on team and project success. For practitioners, this study contributes 11 practical actions that professionals recommend for improving and sustaining effective communication