Paul L. Bannerman

Risk and risk management in software projects: A reassessment

Controlling risk in software projects is considered to be a major contributor to project success. This paper reconsiders the status of risk and risk management in the literature and practice. The analysis is supported by a study of risk practices in government agencies in an Australian State, contributing to a gap in research in the public sector. It is found that risk is narrowly conceived in research, and risk management is under-performed in practice. The findings challenge some conventional conceptions of risk management and project management. For example, it was found that software projects do not conform to a uniform structure, as assumed in much of the literature. This introduces variations in the risk and project management challenges they face. Findings also suggest that formal project management is neither necessary nor sufficient for project success. It is concluded that risk management research lags the needs of practice, and risk management as practiced lags the prescriptions of research. Implications and directions for future research and practice are discussed.

Scrum Practice Mitigation of Global Software Development Coordination Challenges: A Distinctive Advantage?

Global software development is a major trend in software engineering. Practitioners are increasingly trying Agile methods in distributed projects to tap into the benefits experienced by co-located teams. This paper considers the issue by examining whether Scrum practices, used in four global software development projects to leverage the benefits of Agile methods over traditional software engineering methods, provided any distinctive advantage in mitigating coordination challenges. Four temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distance-based coordination challenges and seven scrum practices are identified from the literature. The cases are analyzed for evidence of use of the Scrum practices to mitigate each challenge and whether the mitigation mechanisms employed relate to any distinctive characteristics of the Scrum method. While some mechanisms used were common to other/ traditional methods, it was found that Scrum offers a distinctive advantage in mitigating geographical and socio-cultural but not temporal distance-based GSD coordination challenges. Implications are discussed.

Scrum practices in global software development: a research framework

Project stakeholder distribution in Global Software Development (GSD) is characterized by temporal, geographical and socio-cultural distance, which creates challenges for communication, coordination and control. Practitioners constantly seek strategies, practices and tools to counter the challenges of GSD. There is increasing interest in using Scrum in GSD even though it originally assumed collocation. However, empirically, little is known about how Scrum practices respond to the challenges of GSD. This paper develops a research framework from the literature as a basis for future research and practice. The framework maps current knowledge and views on how Scrum practices can be used to mitigate commonly recognized challenges in GSD. This research is useful as a reference guide for practitioners who are seeking to understand how Scrum practices can be used effectively in GSD, and for researchers as a research framework to validate and extend current knowledge.

Towards an understanding of tailoring scrum in global software development: a multi-case study

There is growing interest in applying Scrum practices in Global Software Development to leverage the advantages of both. However, the effective use of Scrum practices largely depends on close interactions between project stakeholders. The distribution of project stakeholders in GSD provides significant challenges related to project collaboration processes that may limit the use of Scrum. However, project managers increasingly seek to use the Scrum model in their distributed projects. While there is an emerging body of industrial experience, there are limited empirical studies that discuss Scrum tailoring in GSD. The paper reports a multi-case study that investigates the impact of key project contextual factors on the use of Scrum practices in GSD. This study is relevant to researchers and practitioners who are seeking ways to use Scrum in GSD and improve project effectiveness.

Software development governance: A meta-management perspective

Software development governance is a nascent field of research. Establishing how it is framed early, can significantly affect the progress of contributions. This position paper considers the nature and role of governance in organizations and in the software development domain in particular. In contrast to the dominant functional and structural perspectives, an integrated view of governance is proposed as managing the management of a particular domain (that is, a meta-management perspective). Principles are developed and applied to software development governance and illustrated by a case study.

Software Configuration Management in Global Software Development: A Systematic Map

Many companies use Global Software Development (GSD) to access skilled people, reduce costs and utilize around the clock development. GSD has numerous social and technical difficulties, but most literature only examines social difficulties. Few studies concern technical difficulties or address Software Configuration Management (SCM) issues. SCM is widely used, and supports the infrastructure and practices that enable change management and version control. SCM has potential to support more effective GSD, but is more difficult in GSD, because coordination and synchronization are more complex. This paper presents our findings of a systematic mapping study of SCM in GSD. Systematic mapping is a methodology to discover and categorize research on a topic, and can be used to identify common themes and areas requiring further study. We find most research on SCM in GSD has used case studies, and there has been little empirical validation. The lack of coordination and group awareness causes difficulties for SCM in GSD, but no SCM process has been proposed to address this. More research is required on Software Configuration Control for GSD.

Software Project Risk in the Public Sector

Controlling risk in software projects is a major contributor to successful outcomes, in both the private and public sectors. Few studies investigate risk management in the public sector. This paper reports a study of risk practices in government agencies in an Australian State. It finds that risk management practices lag behind project management practices and that there is scope for improvement in both. Ten major risk factors are identified. Also, some conventional conceptions of project and risk management are challenged. The paper concludes by discussing implications of the findings for research and practice in the public sector.

Analysis of Dependencies between Specific Practices in CMMI Maturity Level 2

CMMI contains a collection of Process Areas (PAs), each of which contains many Specific Practices (SPs). However, the CMMI specification does not provide any explicit recommendation about which individual SPs can or should be implemented before other SPs. In this paper we identify dependencies between CMMI SPs in PAs in maturity level 2, and between the PAs. We analyzed the text of the CMMI specification to identify every Work Product (WP) produced and used by every SP in maturity level 2. Our analysis was validated by independent researchers and comparison with an existing dependency analysis shown in CMMI training materials. Our results have significance as a reference model of SP and PA dependencies for both SPI researchers and practitioners. For researchers we have provided an explicit representation of SP and PA dependencies that were previously only implicit in the CMMI specification. For practitioners, our results may provide guidance on the order of implementation of SPs and PAs. Our dependency analysis has limitations in being derived from the text of the CMMI specification – we have no direct evidence that these dependencies are valid in practice.

Overcoming the First Hurdle: Why Organizations Do Not Adopt CMMI

This paper further examines why some software development organizations decide not to adopt CMMI by replicating an earlier Australian study in another country. The study examines data collected from the efforts of three consulting firms to sell a CMMI Level 2 program subsidized by the Malaysian government. The most frequently cited reasons for not adopting CMMI were: the program was too costly; the companies were unsure of the benefits; the organization was too small; and/or the organization had other priorities. The Malaysian study extends and generally supports the Australian study (differences were found in the frequency ordering of reasons and two new reason categories had to be introduced). It also adds to our understanding of CMMI adoption decisions. Based on the results, we conclude that to achieve broader impact in practice, software process improvement (SPI) researchers need to develop a stronger cost-benefit analysis for SPI, recognising it as a business investment rather than just a product or process quality improvement technique, and provide flexible entry options to enable more companies of difference sizes to take the adoption leap.

Capturing business benefits from process improvement: four fallacies and what to do about them

A basic assumption underlying any process improvement initiative is that it will have a positive impact on the organization. Therefore, it can become easy to assume that process change will in fact deliver benefits to business. This paper takes a practice-based look at some fundamental assumptions about process improvement that can be as fallacious as they can be true. The argument is supported by case scenarios. Also, some ways are suggested to manage around these fallacies to achieve net benefits rather than no impact or negative impacts on the business. Four basic fallacies are considered: that process improvement leads to business improvement; that process change equates to process improvement; that software processes are non-lethal; and the vision of the enterprise as an automated process. The paper concludes that the future success of process improvement as a management strategy is dependent upon the capability of organizations to capture material gains.