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Agile customer engagement: a longitudinal qualitative case study

In this longitudinal case study we have followed a small software product company that has turned from a waterfall-like process to evolutionary project management (Evo). The most prominent feature of the new process is the close engagement of customers. We have interviewed both internals and customers to investigate the practicalities, costs, gains and prerequisites of such a transition. We have gathered data from a period of two years covering four consecutive release projects using the new process and analyzed the material in detail. Our findings implicate that close customer engagement does give certain benefits but that it comes with a cost and needs careful attention to management.

Introducing knowledge redundancy practice in software development: Experiences with job rotation in support work

Context: Job rotation is a widely known approach to increase knowledge redundancy but empirical evidence regarding introduction and adoption in software development is scant. A lack of knowledge redundancy is a limiting factor for collaboration, flexibility, and coordination within teams and within the organization. Objective: The scientific objective of this investigation was to explore benefits and challenges with improving knowledge redundancy among developers participating in job rotation. There were two practical objectives; (a) to establish customer support as a legitimate organizational function that would shield developers from support enquiries, and (b) to contribute to improved flexibility in project staffing by enabling overlapping product experience among developers. Method: We used action research to integrate organizational change with scientific inquiry. During a period of eighteen weeks, nine developers rotated to customer support. We collected data throughout the period of collaboration; in meetings, from comprehensive interviews, and from customer support work logs. Results: Perceptions of reduced efficiency and unnecessary redundancy outweighed benefits of shielding and learning about different products. Although there were strong indications of increased knowledge redundancy, the benefits were not sufficient to justify job rotation. Job rotation was abandoned after the trial period. Conclusions: Job rotation can contribute to improved knowledge redundancy. Benefits of knowledge redundancy include innovation stemming from integration of different knowledge domains and improved appreciation of organizational concerns. However, knowledge redundancy incurs a collective cost that must be amortized and legitimized by the organization. An adoption process that accommodates open and trustful discussion among all involved stakeholders is therefore encouraged.

What Is Large in Large-Scale? A Taxonomy of Scale for Agile Software Development

Positive experience of agile development methods in smaller projects has created interest in the applicability of such methods in larger scale projects. However, there is a lack of conceptual clarity regarding what large-scale agile software development is. This inhibits effective collaboration and progress in the research area. In this paper, we suggest a taxonomy of scale for agile software development projects that has the potential to clarify what topics researchers are studying and ease discussion of research priorities.

Documentation Work in Agile Teams: The Role of Documentation Formalism in Achieving a Sustainable Practice

As its second guiding principle, agile software development promotes working software over comprehensive documentation. In this paper we investigate alignment between two different documentation practices and agile development. We report upon an experiment conducted to explore the impact of formalism and media type on various dimensions of documentation practice in agile teams. 28 students in 8 teams were divided into two groups: SAD and UML. Group SAD was to update and deliver their high-level software architecture in form of a textual description defined by RUP templates. Group UML was instructed to update and deliver their low-level software design in form of UML models. Our results show that iterative documentation practices led to more extensive and more detailed textual documentation. We found that writing documentation was perceived as a intrusive task leading to task specialization and allocation of documentation to less qualified team members. Consequently, this hampered collaboration within the team. Based in our findings, we suggest that if documentation is to be delivered with the project, producing documentation should be communicated and accepted by the team as a proper product. Furthermore, we argue that codification of internal development knowledge should be a non-intrusive task.

Collaboration, Process Control, and Fragility in Evolutionary Product Development

Evolutionary development is an agile software engineering approach that embraces continuous customer collaboration to assist the construction of a gradually evolving product. Its benefits and challenges are revealed in a longitudinal study we performed of a medium-sized companys transition from a traditional plan-based software process to an evolutionary process

AmbieSense – A System and Reference Architecture for Personalised Context-Sensitive Information Services for Mobile Users

The purpose of AmbieSense is to provide personalised, context-sensitive information to the mobile user. It is about augmenting digital information to physical objects, rooms, and areas. The aim is to provide relevant information to the right user and situation. Digital content is distributed from the surroundings and onto your mobile phone. An ambient information environment is provided by a combination of context tag technology, a software platform to manage and deliver the information, and personal computing devices to which the information is served. This paper describes how the AmbieSense reference architecture has been defined and used in order to deliver information to the mobile citizen at the right time, place and situation. Information is provided via specialist content providers. The application area addresses the information needs of travellers and tourists.

Patterns in Product Family Architecture Design

The common architecture is a central asset of a product family. But in many cases variations in quality requirements between family members make it difficult to standardise architectural solutions across the family. Therefore the common architecture has to support variation. In this paper we propose an approach to product family architecture design, modelling and use based on architecture patterns and their relationship to quality attributes that supports the representation of an open architecture and the specialisation of this architecture to meet product specific quality requirements.

Exploring software development at the very large-scale: a revelatory case study and research agenda for agile method adaptation

Agile development methods were believed to best suit small, co-located teams, but the success in small teams has inspired use in large and very large-scale software development. However, fundamental assumptions of agile development are challenged when applying the methods at a very large scale. An interpretative revelatory case study on one of the largest software development programmes in Norway shows how agile methods were adapted and complemented with practices from traditional methods to handle the scale. The programme ran over four years with 12 co-located development teams and a total of 175 people involved. The case study was conducted retrospectively using group interviews with 24 participants and documents. Findings on key challenging areas are reported: customer involvement, software architecture, and inter-team coordination. The revelatory study also suggests refinements of a research agenda for very large-scale agile development.

Adoption of Team Estimation in a Specialist Organizational Environment

Specialist organizational environments and lack of redundant knowledge reduce flexibility and therefore inhibits transition to agile development. This action research reports from the adoption of team estimation as a vehicle to increase redundant knowledge within a group of specialists. The group suffered from low levels of group learning legitimized by high work pressure and a specialist organizational environment. This resulted in poor planning and optimistic task estimates which contributed to increase the work pressure even higher. I framed the research as double-loop learning; I illustrate how different barriers to team estimation arose from conflicts with existing efficiency norms and then how benefits from team estimation created sufficient momentum to change practice. The results are obtained from qualitative analysis of empirical data gathered during one year of collaboration with the group. The article contributes to understanding of barriers to group learning and agile adoption in software organizations.

Exploring Norms in Agile Software Teams

The majority of software developers work in teams and are thus influenced by team norms. Norms are shared expectations of how to behave and regulate the interaction between team members. Our aim of this study is to gain more knowledge about team norms in software teams and to increase the understanding of how norms influence teamwork in agile software development projects. We conducted a study of norms in four agile teams located in Norway and Malaysia. The analysis of 22 interviews revealed that we could extract a varied set of both injunctive and descriptive norms. Our results suggest that team norms have an important role in enabling team performance.