Rini van Solingen

How Technological Support Can Enable Advantages of Agile Software Development in a GSE Setting

Because of the distance between the dispersed development locations, Global Software Engineering (GSE) is confronted with challenges regarding communication, coordination and control of the development work. At the same time, agile software development is strongly built upon communication between engineers and has proven its benefits, although, mostly on one single site. As such, it might be advantageous to combine GSE with agile development. This blend however is not straightforward since the distributed and agile development approaches might have conflicting convictions. In this paper we will discuss the advantages and challenges of combining GSE with agile development based on a theoretical, literature-based research. The main results presented in this paper are: (i) aspects of agile software development, (ii) benefits and challenges associated with these in relation to GSE, (iii) categories of technological support for agile GSE and (iv) a framework depicting the mutual relations among them.

The Impact of Number of Sites in a Follow the Sun Setting on the Actual and Perceived Working Speed and Accuracy: A Controlled Experiment

Follow the sun (FTS) software development seems promising in theory, however well founded knowledge on its successes is rare. One of the questions unanswered is: what is the impact of increasing the number of sites in a FTS cycle on working speed and accuracy? In this paper a controlled experiment is presented in which the impact of the number of sites in a daily cycle in terms of overall working speed, individual working speed and working accuracy is measured. Furthermore, the participants perception of working speed and their perception of working accuracy is investigated. The results indicate a clear discrepancy between actual and perceived performance, when increasing the number of sites.

Virtual Open Conversation Spaces: Towards Improved Awareness in a GSE Setting

Conversations between colleagues in collaborative software engineering are important for coordinating work, sharing knowledge and creating knowledge. Overhearing conversations of others is useful as well since this: (i) provides access to the information discussed in the conversations, (ii) offers the possibility of joining the conversations and (iii) provides insight in the communication structure of the project team. When working in a GSE setting, specialized tooling is required to be able to have conversations and to know what conversations others are having. In this paper we discuss how conversations support collaborative software engineering and how this can be supported by technology in a GSE environment. To do this, we introduce Communico: a virtual open conversation space which features: (i) initiating conversations by selecting people to converse with, (ii) sharing information regarding the involvement of project members in these conversations and (iii) having access to persistent conversations with an explicit status indicating whether they are ongoing.

Implementation of continuous improvement based on Lean Six Sigma in small- and medium-sized enterprises

Research has highlighted a need for a specific and practical implementation framework for deploying Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The success of LSS implementation in SMEs is highly dependent on the extent to which an LSS deployment programme addresses the specific properties of SMEs. In this study we have evaluated an existing framework for Six Sigma implementation for SMEs [Kumar, M., Antony, J., & Tiwari, M. K. (2011). Six Sigma implementation framework for SMEs – a roadmap to manage and sustain the change. International Journal of Production Research, 49(18), 5449–5467] using a multi-method triangulation approach. The objectives of this study were firstly to strengthen the foundations of the existing framework by uncovering evidence for some of its elements and, secondly, to identify the proposed revisions to the framework, especially focussed on its application in manufacturing SMEs. The results of our study are a collection of confirmations and revision proposals for the framework, leading to a revised conceptual framework.

Selecting Locations for Follow-the-Sun Software Development: Towards a Routing Model

Deciding where to establish development locations is a strategic decision in the field of Follow-the-Sun software development. Our research has focussed on two factors: a. the optimal time zone difference between locations, and b. the natural ease of communication. The former depends on the required transfer time for handing over work from one location to the other. The latter involves communication aspects such as language. The objective is to construct a routing model, which calculates (sub)optimal deployment routes. The routing model consists of an algorithm that calculates sequences of locations from a dataset containing demographic data about these locations. The possible sequences are prioritized based on a set of parameters. The routing model has been implemented in a website. The website can be used to validate the routing model, but moreover can be used as a first support when considering potential locations for Follow-the-Sun software development.

How to build a good practice software project portfolio

What can we learn from historic data that is collected in three software companies that on a daily basis had to cope with highly complex project portfolios? In this paper we analyze a large dataset, containing 352 finalized software engineering projects, with the goal to discover what factors affect software project performance, and what actions can be taken to increase project performance when building a software project portfolio. The software projects were classified in four quadrants of a Cost/Duration matrix: analysis was performed on factors that were strongly related to two of those quadrants, Good Practices and Bad Practices. A ranking was performed on the factors based on statistical significance. The paper results in an inventory of ‘what factors should be embraced when building a project portfolio?’ (Success Factors), and ‘what factors should be avoided when doing so?’ (Failure Factors). The major contribution of this paper is that it analyzes characteristics of best performers and worst performers in the dataset of software projects, resulting in 7 Success Factors (a.o. steady heartbeat, a fixed, experienced team, agile (Scrum), and release-based), and 9 Failure Factors (a.o. once-only project, dependencies with other systems, technology driven, and rules- and regulations driven).

Aligning codependent Scrum teams to enable fast business value delivery

We develop a series of intervention actions to mitigate collaboration issues in chains of Scrum teams.We implement the intervention actions in a Scrum chain at a financial service provider.The interventions result in a feature delivery time reduction from 29 to 10 days.We package the intervention actions in a governance framework for chains of Scrum teams. Many enterprises that adopt Agile/Scrum suffer from collaboration issues between Scrum teams that depend on one another to deliver end-to-end functionality. These dependencies delay delivery and as a result deteriorate the business value delivered in such value chains. The objective of our study is to support enterprises that suffer from such dependencies with a governance framework that helps them mitigate collaboration issues between sets of codependent Scrum teams. We first identify a set of intervention actions that aim to mitigate the collaboration issues between codependent Scrum teams. Second, we validate the effectiveness of these intervention actions in a large confirmatory industrial case study. This study was held in a large multi-national financial institute that worked with a large number of codependent Scrum teams. Third, we triangulate the findings in three focus groups. We finally package the intervention actions in a governance framework. The intervention actions led to a delivery time reduction from 29 days to 10 days. The participants in the focus groups confirmed the causality between the intervention actions and the observed delivery improvement. The empirical results show that the intervention actions, packaged in the governance framework, enable codependent sets of Scrum teams to deliver faster.

Scrum in Sales: How to Improve Account Management and Sales Processes

Like most client service units, the sales and account management teams at iSense accepted that sales are a random, reactive process. After all, customers, not sales managers, decide whether or not to buy. Then, after deciding to learn more about a certain offering, Scrum training, the teams found a way to take more control over this process. In the fall of 2010, the iSense sales and account management teams decided to adopt Scrum internally as their best practice. Scrum transformed the random process, revealing early indicators related to final sales results, and showed that the direct causes for closing a deal could be detected and controlled. Once it became possible to predict and influence final order intake and sales numbers, the sales teams used early predictive indicators to proactively control their work. With the sales processes under better control, the teams could improve continuously and have more fun at work. Strategically implementing Scrum into sales and account management has lead to escalating revenue and a sustainable competitive advantage.

An exploratory study on the effects of perceived value and stakeholder satisfaction on software projects

Context: In this paper we present an exploratory study on the insights of organizations into the perceived value of their software projects. Our study is based on the notion that quantifying and qualifying project size, cost, duration and defects needs to be done in relation with stakeholder satisfaction and perceived value. Objectives: We expect that bringing perceived value into the equation will help in increasing the impact such organizations deliver. Method: In order to find out whether our approach is practically feasible in an industrial setting, we performed an exploratory study in a Belgian telecom company. Results: In this study we evaluate 22 software projects that were delivered during one release. Fifty-three (53) key stakeholders provide stakeholder satisfaction and perceived value measurements in 103 completed surveys. Conclusions: We conclude that a focus on shortening overall project duration, and improving communication on intermediate progress improved stakeholder satisfaction and perceived value. Our study does not provide any evidence that steering on costs helped to improve these.

Measuring Best-in-Class Software Releases

In this research we aimed to identify distinguishing factors in software releases. For this purpose we analyzed the metrics of 26 software projects. These projects were release-based deliveries from two stable, experienced development teams. During the measurement period both teams transformed from a plan-driven delivery model (waterfall) to an agile approach (Scrum). Overall, we observed that these small release-based projects differ largely from non-release-based projects. Our research indicates that a combination of release-based working, a fixed and experienced development team, and a steady heartbeat contribute to performances that can be characterized as best-practice. The main contribution of this paper is that we found five success factors (all reducing development complexity) that result in best-of-class performance for small software releases.