Agile Teams Research Articles

Using an Instrument to Assess Trust, Knowledge, Learning, and Motivation of Agile Teams

Background: Trust, Knowledge, Learning, and Motivation influence the organizational environment of agile teams. Organizational climate surveys can provide concrete evidence of how the process, project activities, people, and culture work in practice. Using assessment climate instruments that do not consider agile values, principles, practices, and roles in a proper context may create difficulties in analyzing possible causes of problems and the execution of corrective actions within organizational climate management. Objective: We present a preliminary evaluation of TACT, which is an instrument to assess the organizational climate of agile teams, comprising four dimensions, Trust, Knowledge, Learning, and Motivation. Method: We planned and executed a case study considering eight development teams from three organizations. We evaluated TACT using open-ended questions, quantitative methods, and TAM dimensions of Intention to Use, Perceived Usefulness, and Output Quality. Results: TACT captured that the product owner's lack of knowledge and experience probably influenced the adverse climate in team trust and that unrealistic deadlines may have generated a lack of team motivation due to an absence of autonomy to plan the iteration. The team leaders reported intention of future use. Contributions and Impact in the IS area: TACT was grounded in scientific literature and industry observations. TACT items regarding Trust, Knowledge, Learning, and Motivation are grounded in the "agile philosophy'' and consider the most common agile practices. At the same time, it allows reflections on the behaviors of the prominent involved roles in agile projects. Based on the evidence gathered, we inferred that TACT captured the organizational climate of the teams correctly and can be used to identify issues better and improve actions aligned with the agile values, principles, and practices while developing Information Systems.

A Requirement Quality Assessment Method Based on User Stories

Agile development processes based on user stories often face issues such as incomplete, inconsistent, and inaccurate user requirements, which increase the workload of agile development teams and reduce the efficiency of product function development, ultimately resulting in the inability to respond quickly to user requirements. This paper proposes a user requirement quality assessment method based on user stories to address these problems. This method relies on the agile development process, constructs a user requirement quality assessment framework, defines a user story model and a user requirement quality model, develops seven user requirement quality assessment criteria, and designs a user requirement quality assessment process. A data experiment exploring the development of smartphone requirements is used to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the method. The experimental results demonstrate that the method improves user requirement quality to some extent, providing an automated solution for agile development teams to enhance user requirement quality.

The discovery effort worthiness index: How much product discovery should you do and how can this be integrated into delivery?

In a world of high dynamics and uncertainties, it is almost impossible to have a long-term prediction which products, services, or features will satisfy the needs of the customer. To counter this situation, the conduction of Continuous Improvement or Design Thinking for product discovery are common approaches. A major constraint in conducting product discovery activities is the high effort to discover and validate features and requirements. In addition, companies struggle to integrate product discovery activities into their agile processes and iterations. This paper aims at suggests a supportive tool, the “Discovery Effort Worthiness (DEW) Index”, for product owners and agile teams to determine a suitable amount of effort that should be spent on Design Thinking activities. To operationalize DEW, proposals for practitioners are presented that can be used to integrate product discovery into product development and delivery. A case study was conducted for the development of the DEW index. In addition, we conducted an expert workshop to develop proposals for the integration of product discovery activities into the product development and delivery process. First, we present the "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" in form of a formula. Second, we identified requirements that must be fulfilled for systematic integration of product discovery activities into product development and delivery. Third, we derived from the requirements proposals for the integration of product discovery activities with a company's product development and delivery. The developed "Discovery Effort Worthiness Index" provides a tool for companies and their product owners to determine how much effort they should spend on Design Thinking methods to discover and validate requirements. Integrating product discovery with product development and delivery should ensure that the results of product discovery are incorporated into product development. This aims to systematically analyze product risks to increase the chance of product success.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF DYNAMIC INTEGRATED INTELLIGENCE MODEL FOR MANAGING INNOVATION PROJECTS

Existing Intelligence Models for managing innovative projects and programs have been explored. The competency-based approach is considered the basis for building a Dynamic Integrated Intelligence Model for managing innovative projects and programs. The proposed architecture of two groups of competence at a high level and five groups of Competencies lower level of the Dynamic Integrated Intelligence Model for Managing Innovation Projects. The Dynamic Integrated Intelligence model has two groups of high levels – Fluid intelligence and Crystallized intelligence. The lower-level model is presented by seven groups of interrelated competencies: strategic, managerial, emotional, social, cognitive, business, and technical. Each group of competencies of the Dynamic Integrated Intelligence Model is defined. The Dynamic Integrated Intelligence Model (DIIM) is a framework that helps individuals and organizations develop and enhance their ability to adapt to change and uncertainty. It is based on the idea that intelligence is not a fixed trait but rather a dynamic set of skills and abilities that can be developed and improved over time. By developing and enhancing these four components of intelligence, individuals, and organizations can become more adaptable, innovative, and resilient in the face of change and uncertainty. The dynamic integrated intelligence model can be applied in an Agile environment to enhance the cognitive and social-emotional skills of Agile team members. Applying the dynamic integrated intelligence model in an Agile environment can lead to better teamwork, enhanced problem-solving abilities, and improved project outcomes. The organization competence-based IPMA Delta model was used to assess the project team’s competence level. As an example of the application, the Dynamic Integrated Intelligence Model to the implementation of the double degree project of the Kyiv National University of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences.

Insights from the application of Exploratory Tests in the daily life of distributed teams: an experience report

The Exploratory Testing (ET) approach has been adopted in the context of agile development due to the effectiveness of its application. Due to these benefits, the need arose to train agile professionals based on the practical application of this type of test to contribute to its incorporation into the daily work of teams. In this sense, the objective of this article is to investigate the contributions and limitations of adopting Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) in ET teaching-learning, and the main aspects that favor or limit the incorporation of ET into the day-to-day of agile teams. For this, we conducted a course in remote teaching format with agile professionals from a software development company, distributed geographically. At the end of the course, data were collected through an online questionnaire and examined with quantitative and qualitative analysis. Then, the ET activities performed by the participants in their daily lives were monitored and a brainstorming session was conducted to evaluate this experience. Our main findings are that (1) the collaboration between participants and the adoption of a real problem, along with (2) activities and resources made available before the class, and (3) the existence of specific tool support for ET sessions optimized learning in the context of remote teaching. Other main results refer to the planning and registration of ET and the need for guidelines to guide the execution of ET. Therefore, integrating theory and practice in ET is necessary for a better understanding of the effects of tests in the agile environment. Additionally, it is necessary to investigate specific approaches and tools that contribute to the execution of the ET and, consequently, to the incorporation of this test into the daily lives of the teams.

Impact of Shared Leadership Quality on Agile Team Productivity and Project Results

Drawing on leadership theory, this research verified what makes shared leadership an effective form of leadership for agile project teams, and whether using it influences the outcomes achieved by such teams as well as the more distal outcomes. Survey data were collected from 251 members of agile project teams implementing projects of an iterative and incremental character. Structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted to test the hypotheses. Our research confirms that shared leadership is an effective form of leadership for agile project teams whose members are empowered to engage in leadership functions or processes. The findings confirm a positive direct impact of shared leadership on the performance of agile project teams and indirect impact on project efficiency and effectiveness. The research results also confirm the influence of project team–related contextual moderators on shared leadership inputs and outputs. The study contributes to leadership theory in the plural leadership research stream and confirms the shift from individual leadership to collective leadership as a result of the growing popularity of the agility paradigm.

Lessons learned to improve the UX practices in agile projects involving data science and process automation

Context: User-Centered Design and Agile methodologies focus on human issues. Nevertheless, agile methodologies focus on contact with contracting customers and generating value for them. Usually, the communication between end users and the agile team is mediated by customers. However, they do not know the problems end users face in their routines. Hence, UX issues are typically identified only after the implementation, during user testing and validation. Objective: Aiming to improve the understanding and definition of the problem in agile projects, this research investigates the practices and difficulties experienced by agile teams during the development of data science and process automation projects. Also, we analyze the benefits and the teams' perceptions regarding user participation in these projects. Method: We collected data from four agile teams in an academia-industry collaboration focusing on delivering data science and process automation solutions. Therefore, we applied a carefully designed questionnaire answered by developers, scrum masters, and UX designers. In total, 18 subjects answered the questionnaire. Results: From the results, we identify practices used by the teams to define and understand the problem and to represent the solution. The practices most often used are prototypes and meetings with stakeholders. Another practice that helped the team to understand the problem was using Lean Inceptions. Also, our results present some specific issues regarding data science projects. Conclusion: We observed that end-user participation can be critical to understanding and defining the problem. They help to define elements of the domain and barriers in the implementation. We identified a need for approaches that facilitate user-team communication in data science projects and the need for more detailed requirements representations to support data science solutions.

Organizational Type Mismatch in Agile SMEs

Organizational type mismatch occurs when organizations use traditional approaches to govern agile teams. It has harmful effects on organizational performance and team morale. This article explores this phenomenon at agile software development small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular, we aimed to evaluate the importance, frequency, and agility level of governance practices in this context. To do this, we developed a survey underpinned by CMMI-DEV V2.0 governance practices. We collected information from 50 practitioners working at 39 agile SMEs from 12 countries. Our quantitative and qualitative analysis shows that most of the surveyed agile SMEs consider that governance practices are important. However, only a few frequently implement such practices, and those that do fail to adopt an agile approach. These results suggest that agile SMEs are also prone to organizational type mismatch. We provide some recommendations to address this issue.

Improving active participation during enterprise operations modeling with an extended story-card-method and participative modeling software

The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the need for process automation, using agile software development practices. However, when agile methods are used in scaled contexts, many software development efforts fail, mainly due to lacking requirements engineering practices. When business-oriented software needs to be developed within a scaled context, the story-card method (SCM), developed as part of a previous study, assists in structuring emerging software requirements within a taxonomy that represents enterprise operation. The SCM helps agile team members to develop a common understanding about enterprise operation when they construct the enterprise operation taxonomy. Digital participatory enterprise modeling (PEM) may increase collaboration and understanding among team members, especially when team members are geographically dispersed, when they co-model their understanding of enterprise operations. Using design science research to further evolve the existing SCM, we identified two concerns regarding the existing SCM: (1) The modeling software did not encourage active participation during modeling, and (2) Low quality of the resulting cooperation structure diagram (CSD) that is used to derive an enterprise operation taxonomy, i.e., the need to further extend the existing SCM. As main contribution of this article, we addressed previous deficiencies of the SCM, developing an extended SCM (eSCM), based on principles and guidelines that would encourage online participation during PEM, also providing a comprehensive case to demonstrate the eSCM. As a second contribution, we used survey-feedback from research participants, as well as activity tracking to evaluate whether the modeling tool encouraged active PEM. Our third contribution is to evaluate the quality of the resulting CSDs with suggestions for future improvement.

Fixations in Agile Software Development Teams

Abstract Cognitive biases influence every human being, including the individuals that take part in the software development process. Fixation is a cognitive bias that occurs when one focuses too much on certain items, events, obstacles or activities. In this study, we examine whether agile team members fixate on any particular agile practices. Through a set of semi-structured interviews, we investigated the source of these fixations, their consequences, and then propose possible countermeasures. We found that practitioners tend to fixate on practices that give them a sense of being in control over the project (such as meetings or Scrum events), while neglecting the Agile Principles of self-organising teams and working at a sustainable pace. This resulted in a series of problems, such as futile attempts to control team members, oversharing information with the client, meetings becoming a form of interrogation, and others.

Enhancing IoT Project Success through Agile Best Practices

Worldwide spending on Internet of Things (IoT) applications is forecasted to surpass $1 trillion by 2022. To stay competitive in this growing technological industry segment, lowering costs while increasing productivity and shortening time-to-market will become increasingly important. Adopting Agile Software Development practices for IoT projects may provide this competitive advantage, as it enables organizations to respond to change, while being dynamic and innovative. Applying a mixed-methods approach, agile IoT practitioners around the world and from diverse industries were surveyed and interviewed. Our study recommends that Agile Software Development team makeup, practices, and methods should be tailored to the specific industry, culture, people, and IT application of an organization. People play an important role in the success of agile projects; therefore, our research focuses on identifying the critical attributes of agile teams to maximize success. Our study identified the five critical agile practices: Collective Code Ownership, Continuous Integration, Single Team, Dedicated Customer, and Sprint Planning and found that both technical and soft skills are essential for successful IoT development.

A New Approach for Agile Teams’ Allocation in Open Innovation Projects

Due to constant change in the marketplace, it can be difficult for companies to secure the material, human, and technological resources necessary for competitive innovation activities. In this sense, and to overcome these constraints, the open innovation model is a quite successful approach, where the sharing of resources among companies allows the formation of an innovation ecosystem. However, the execution time of these projects can be negatively affected if the performance of each work team is not taken into account. In this work, the application of the agile approach in open innovation projects is proposed as a way to reduce the uncertainty both in the execution time of the projects and in the respective implementation costs. In this sense, a methodology for optimal team assignment for agile teams in open innovation projects according to their performance on each project task is developed to determine the optimal team assignment that leads to the shortest project execution time. This methodology will support decision making in the project management of open innovation projects, especially in the selection of the internal and external work teams that will participate in a given innovation project. The application of the proposed methodology is illustrated with an example describing and analyzing the different steps of its application. The results show that with the proposed methodology it is possible to take into account the performance of each team when calculating the project execution time and that the project execution time varies depending on the assignment of the agile teams to the project tasks. It is also shown that it is possible to determine the optimal assignment with the shortest project execution time.

There's no "I" in Research Data Management: Reshaping RDM Services Toward a Collaborative Multi-Stakeholder Model

Objective: This article examines a reshaped service model for research data management (RDM) founded on centralized and cohesive collaboration between multiple stakeholders at a large research university in Canada. This initiative, along with a newly formed team dedicated to RDM service provision, is a joint effort by the institution’s Vice-Principal Research and Innovation (VPRI), Library, IT Services, and Research Ethics units.Methods: This article presents a single case study methodology. The authors reflect on services such as “query the panel” sessions where researchers across all disciplines bring their questions to representatives from the Library, IT, Research Ethics, and VPRI. This case study also highlights the use of Jira’s service desk software as a user management system. The authors also present descriptive statistics representing engagement with this new unit and our services.Results: Support for RDM requires expertise from multiple domains. With a collaborative approach as a guiding principle and a focus on establishing a small, but agile team comprised of a librarian along with stakeholders from IT and VPRI, it is possible to leverage resources and support for RDM from a broad range of units across an institution. Conclusions: At many institutions, RDM services are siloed within the library or an adjacent campus unit. New digital technologies have profoundly transformed academic research across all disciplines, necessitating the evolution of corresponding research data-related services. The authors will conclude by outlining specific lessons learned in reshaping digital research infrastructure-related services at their institution.

The crippling effects of a cyberattack at an academic level 1 trauma center: An orthopedic perspective

IntroductionMalicious cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and severity with healthcare institutions spending an average of over 10 million dollars to resolve the consequences of healthcare data breaches. This cost does not include the effect of a downtime event should a healthcare system electronic medical record (EMR) lose functionality. An Academic Level 1 trauma center suffered a cyberattack resulting in a total EMR downtime of 25 days. Orthopedic operative time was used as a surrogate for OR functionality during the event and a framework with specific examples is presented to promote rapid adaptation during downtime events. MethodsOperative time losses were identified by calculating a running average of weekday total in room operative time during a total downtime event secondary to a cyberattack. This data was compared to week-of-the-year matched data from the year prior and the year after the attack. A framework for creating adaptations to a total downtime event was created by repeatedly interviewing different provider groups and identifying how they adjusted care to the challenges faced. ResultsTotal weekday in room operative time during the attack decreased by 53.4% ± 12.2% and 53.2% ± 14.9% when comparing the matched period one year prior and one year after, respectively. Immediate challenges to patient care were identified by small groups of highly motivated individuals, with self-assigned agile teams formed. These teams sequenced system processes, identified failure points, and created real-time solutions. A frequently updated EMR backup mirror and hospital disaster insurance were crucial for mitigating the impact of the cyberattack. ConclusionsCyberattacks are expensive and their downstream effects, including downtime events, can be crippling. Agile team formation, process sequencing, and understanding EMR backup times are tactics used to combat the challenges of a prolonged total downtime event. Level of EvidenceLevel III retrospective cohort

Genetic algorithm based probabilistic model for agile project success in global software development

Software development organizations implement agile methods in global software development (GSD) to leverage benefits in terms of low development cost, continuous project delivery, and high-quality product. Despite the benefits, using the agile process in the GSD organizations is not a straightforward task due to inhibit additional risk factors that could lead agile projects to failure. GSD organizations are continuously improving their process management activities to improve the rate of agile project success. Project success could be improved if the project manager or organization management has preliminary information about the derailment of the project features. This work aims to investigate the most influential agile project features in determining the project outcomes and develop a cost-effective, and effort-based prediction model to improve the probability of successful completion in the globally distributed environment. To do so, a nature-inspired optimization algorithm i.e., genetic algorithm (GA), has been employed to achieve these goals. In the proposed model, GA considers the probability of success with respect to cost to determine probable project outcomes. An efficacy measure is formulated as a fitness function in GA which maximizes the success of agile project outcomes relative to cost. The optimization model has been tested with two different prediction models i.e., Naive Bayes classifier (NBC) and logistic regression (LR). We performed the experiment on data gathered through the survey administered from the globally distributed agile projects. The results demonstrate that prediction models calculate the efficacy for best solutions as 0.531 and 0.5850 for NBC and LR, respectively. Moreover, the ranking of each project feature based on their relative cost identified using NBC and LR have more similarities. The t test results are significant, i.e., t = 6.068, p = 0.001 < 0.005, which indicates that no significant differences have been observed between the ranking assigned by two different methods ( NBC and LR). The results reveal that the developed prediction model based on identified eight agile project features that the GSD organization management and agile team need to focus more on to facilitate cost-effective successful implementation of agile projects.

Developing Work Practices and Sustainable Talent Management of Autonomous Agile Teams

The purpose of this research is to examine the practice behind sustainable agile work practices. In the wake of Covid-19, organizations need to understand the importance of agile development processes to be able to continue doing business. This study looks at a process made popular by software engineering development in the context of post covid organization. This study takes consideration into existing social-psychology research from a human resource perspective. Namely, this study will examine group socialization and how much new members of the organization contribute to the group, particularly in sustaining organization goals.

Social Sustainability Approaches for a Sustainable Software Product

Sustainability is the use of existing resources without compromising them for future generations. Resources must be guaranteed in the environmental, economic, and social dimensions. Sustainable Software Engineering is an emerging research field aiming to minimize software development's negative impacts on society. Furthermore, software sustainability can be defined as a way of keeping something running at a certain level of quality in relation to these dimensions. From the social dimension perspective, it is necessary to confirm software's trade-offs, benefits, and impacts on society since it lacks empirical evidence of its achievements in software. In this research thesis, we will explore how the literature addresses the aspect of social sustainability during software development and understand how social sustainability approaches can be integrated into the context of agile software development. In the end, we expect to have a set of guidelines, activities, and practices that can be adopted by agile teams.

Agile project management as a stage for creativity: a conceptual framework of five creativity-conducive spaces

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how agile project management can foster creativity in project teams.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on an extensive literature review of agile project management and team creativity and is matching these two to answer the following research questions: (1) how agile project management approach can foster creativity in project teams? and (2) which principles and practices promoted by the most popular agile methodologies enhance creativity in project teams?FindingsFive creativity-conducive spaces in agile project management were identified and integrated into a conceptual framework, namely, a space for generative social interactions, a space for learning, a space for change and adaptation, a space for exploration and a space promoting team members' well-being. In the next step, based on a thorough analysis of seven widespread agile project management methods, a large number of agile principles and practices were mapped into each of the five conceptual spaces.Originality/valueThis study provides new insights into how agile project management can foster creativity in project teams. The conceptual framework developed in this paper might be utilized to enhance creativity in agile teams, it can also serve as a starting point for future research.

On the Relationship Between Organizational Structure Patterns and Architecture in Agile Teams

Forming members of an organisation into coherent groups or teams is an important issue in any large-scale software engineering endeavour, especially so in agile software development where teams rely heavily on self-organisation and organisational flexibility. But <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">is there a recurrent organisational structure pattern in agile software engineering teams?</i> and if so <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">what does that pattern imply, in terms of software architecture quality?</i> We address these questions using mixed-methods research in industry featuring interviews, surveys, and Delphi studies of real agile teams. In our study of 30 agile software teams we found that, out of seven organisational structure patterns that recur across our dataset, a single organisational pattern occurs over 37% of the time. This pattern: (a) reflects young communities (1-12 months old); (b) disappears in established ones (13+ months); and (c) reflects the highest number of architecture smells reported. Finally, we observe a negative correlation between a proposed organisational measure and architecture smells. On the one hand, these insights may serve to aid architects in designing not only their architectures but also their communities to best support their co-evolution. On the other hand, we observe that organisational structures in software engineering influence much more than simply software architectures, and we expect our results to lay the foundations of more structured and rigorous approaches to organisational structure studies and use in software engineering research and practice.

Agile teams’ assignment model for Scaling Agile

Adherence to the schedule for completion of a project is one of the basic requirements for the success of a management team. Failure to meet this schedule can have a negative impact on both the business side and the reputation of the company, this issue is a constant challenge in project management. This challenge becomes even greater with agile project management. Agile methodology has increasingly become the method of choice for project delivery. However, in this type of project, uncertainty increases in terms of execution time due to the uncertainty that arises from the agile characteristics that are so valued. Optimized assignment of agile teams based on their performance to project tasks can reduce this uncertainty and increase the probability of success. However, it appears that the tools available in the literature have very limited applicability to this problem.In this paper, we present a model for agile team assignment that uses the Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) along with the effective risk model and the Monte Carlo model. An illustrative case study was used to illustrate the application of the proposed model. The results show that the project execution time is highly dependent on the performance of the agile teams and their respective assignment to the project tasks. In practice, the proposed model enables the determination of the execution time of a given agile project considering the performance of the respective teams.