Agile Development in Meteorological R&D: Achieving a Minimum Viable Product in a Scrum Work Setting

Abstract

AbstractIn the Agile Way of Working (AoW), a group of developers jointly work to efficiently realize a project. Here we report on the application of AoW in meteorological research and development (R&D) outside of the software engineering environment. Three projects were formulated, derived from the observations strategy (2015) of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). An initial phase of preparation consisted of breaking down the workload into tasks to be accomplished by individual project members and achievable in two one-week sprints. Sprints consisted of daily stand-ups, where accomplishments, work intentions, and obstacles were discussed, followed by project work in a joint working environment. The three projects identified were 1) flying a drone to detect boundary layer evolution, 2) monitoring the quality of the precipitation measurement system, and 3) realizing a platform for merging third-party data with meteorological observations. The preparation phase proved to be vitally important to each of the projects. The roles of the product owner and Scrum master in streamlining and guiding these projects were essential to the success of the sprint weeks, but the joint group settings worked well for only two of the three projects. While team members were positive about their experience with the AoW, the challenge remains to fuse the traditional individual work practice of researchers with that of software engineers, who are experienced in working in a group setting.