TWINS - This Workflow Is Not Scrum: Agile Process Adaptation for Open Source Software Projects

Abstract

It is becoming commonplace for companies to contribute to open source software (OSS) projects. At the same time, many software organizations are applying Scrum software development practices, for productivity and quality gains. Scrum calls for self-organizing teams, in which the development team has total control over its development process. However, OSS projects typically have their own processes and standards, which might not mesh well with a company's internal processes, such as Scrum. This paper presents an experience report from Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), where the "toolchain CPU compiler" team directly participates in the "LLVM" OSS project. The team ran into a number of difficulties when using Scrum to manage their development. In particular, the team often failed to complete Scrum sprints where tasks required interaction with the open source community. We look at how the team redefined task flows to alleviate these difficulties, and eventually evolved a highly modified process, dubbed TWINS (This Workflow Is Not Scrum). We assess the revised process, and compare it to other established agile methods, finding it bears a strong resemblance to Scrumban (the SIE team was not aware of Scrumban previously). The TWINS framework presented here may help other organizations who develop software in-house and engage in OSS projects, to gain the best of both worlds.