Large-scale Agile Development Research Articles

Acrobats and Safety Nets: Problematizing Large-Scale Agile Software Development

Agile development methods have become a standard in the software industry, including in large-scale projects. These methods share a set of underlying assumptions that distinguish them from more traditional plan-driven approaches. In this article, we adopt Alvesson and Sandberg's problematization approach to challenge three key assumptions that are prevalent in the large-scale agile literature: (1) agile and plan-driven methods are mutually exclusive; (2) self-managing and hierarchically organized teams are mutually exclusive; and (3) agile methods can scale through simple linear composition. Using a longitudinal case study of large-scale agile development, we describe a series of trigger events and episodes whereby the agile approach was tailored to address the needs of the large-scale development context, which was very much at odds with these fundamental assumptions. We develop a set of new underlying assumptions which suggest that agile and plan-driven practices are mutually enabling and necessary for coordination and scaling in large-scale agile projects. We develop nine propositions for large-scale agile projects based on these new alternative underlying assumptions. Finally, we summarize our theoretical contribution in a generic process model of continuously adjusting agile and plan-driven practices in order to accommodate process challenges in large-scale agile projects.

Responding to change over time: A longitudinal case study on changes in coordination mechanisms in large-scale agile

ContextResponding to change and continuously improving processes, practices, and products are core to agile software development. It is no different in large-scale agile, where multiple software development teams need to respond both to changes in their external environments and to changes within the organization.ObjectiveWith this study, we aim to advance knowledge on coordination in large-scale agile by developing a model of the types of organizational changes that influence coordination mechanisms.MethodWe conducted a longitudinal case study in a growing large-scale agile organization, focusing on how external and internal changes impact coordination over time. We collected our data through 62 days of fieldwork across one and a half years. We conducted 37 interviews, observed 118 meetings at all organizational levels, collected supplementary material such as chat logs and presentations, and analyzed the data using thematic analysis.ResultsOur findings demonstrate how external events, such as onboarding new clients, and internal events, such as changes in the team organization, influence coordination mechanisms in the large-scale software development program. We find that external and internal change events lead to the introduction of new coordination mechanisms, or the adjustment of existing ones. Further, we find that continuous scaling requires continuous change and adjustment. Finally, we find that having the right mechanisms in place at the right time strengthens resilience and the ability to cope with change in coordination needs in complex large-scale environments.ConclusionsOur findings are summarized in an empirically based model that provides a practical approach to analyzing change, aimed at supporting both researchers and practitioners dealing with change in coordination mechanisms in large-scale agile development contexts.

Identifying and Categorizing Challenges in Large-Scale Agile Software Development Projects: Insights from Two Swedish Companies

We conducted a case study to examine the challenges encountered in large-scale agile development (LSAD) within two Swedish software companies. While agile methodologies have proven successful in small and medium-sized projects, their implementation in large-scale software development projects can be problematic. To identify these challenges, we employed thematic analysis, which revealed a total of 26 distinct challenges. These challenges were categorized into three main themes: Processes and practices, Teams, and Organizational-level challenges in LSAD. By recognizing and addressing these challenges, projects operating in similar contexts can synchronize their activities and harness the advantages of agile methodologies at a large scale. The article delves into comprehensive discussions on these challenges, offering valuable insights and directions for future research endeavors.

Identifying and Categorizing Challenges in Large-Scale Agile Software Development Projects: Insights from Two Swedish Companies

We conducted a case study to examine the challenges encountered in large-scale agile development (LSAD) within two Swedish software companies. While agile methodologies have proven successful in small and medium-sized projects, their implementation in large-scale software development projects can be problematic. To identify these challenges, we employed thematic analysis, which revealed a total of 26 distinct challenges. These challenges were categorized into three main themes: Processes and practices, Teams, and Organizational-level challenges in LSAD. By recognizing and addressing these challenges, projects operating in similar contexts can synchronize their activities and harness the advantages of agile methodologies at a large scale. The article delves into comprehensive discussions on these challenges, offering valuable insights and directions for future research endeavors.

A longitudinal explanatory case study of coordination in a very large development programme: the impact of transitioning from a first- to a second-generation large-scale agile development method

Large-scale agile development has gained widespread interest in the software industry, but it is a topic with few empirical studies of practice. Development projects at scale introduce a range of new challenges in managing a large number of people and teams, often with high uncertainty about product requirements and technical solutions. The coordination of teams has been identified as one of the main challenges. This study presents a rich longitudinal explanatory case study of a very large software development programme with 10 development teams. We focus on inter-team coordination in two phases: one that applies a first-generation agile development method and another that uses a second-generation one. We identified 27 coordination mechanisms in the first phase, and 14 coordination mechanisms in the second. Based on an analysis of coordination strategies and mechanisms, we develop five propositions on how the transition from a first- to a second-generation method impacts coordination. These propositions have implications for theory and practice.

Enabling Autonomous Teams and Continuous Deployment at Scale

In this article, we advise on transitioning to a more agile delivery model for large-scale agile development projects based on experience from the Parental Benefit Project of the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration. The project modernized a central part of the organization's IT portfolio and included up to ten development teams working in parallel. The project successfully changed from using a delivery model that combined traditional project management elements and agile methods to a more agile delivery model with autonomous teams and continuous deployment. This transition was completed in tandem with the project execution. We identify key lessons learned, which will be useful for other organizations considering similar changes and report how the new delivery model reduced risk and opened up a range of new possibilities for delivering the benefits of digitalization.

Revealing the state of the art of large-scale agile development research: A systematic mapping study

Context:Success with agile methods in the small scale has led to an increasing adoption also in large development undertakings and organizations. Recent years have also seen an increasing amount of primary research on the topic, as well as a number of systematic literature reviews. However, there is no systematic overview of the whole research field. Objective:This work identifies, classifies, and evaluates the state of the art of research in large-scale agile development. Methods:We conducted a systematic mapping study and rigorously selected 136 studies. We designed a classification framework and extracted key information from the studies. We synthesized the obtained data and created an overview of the state of the art. Results:This work contributes with (i) a description of large-scale agile endeavors reported in the industry, (ii) a systematic map of existing research in the field, (iii) an overview of influential studies, (iv) an overview of the central research themes, and (v) a research agenda for future research. Conclusion:This study portrays the state of the art in large-scale agile development and offers researchers and practitioners a reflection of the past thirteen years of research and practice on the large-scale application of agile methods.

An architecture governance approach for Agile development by tailoring the Spotify model

The role of software architecture in large-scale Agile development is important because several teams need to work together to release a single software product while helping to maximise teams’ autonomy. Governing and aligning Agile architecture across autonomous squads (i.e., teams), when using the Spotify model, is a challenge because the Spotify model lacks practices for addressing Agile architecture governance. To explore how software architecture can be governed and aligned by scaling the Spotify model, we conducted a longitudinal embedded case study in a multinational FinTech organisation. Then, we developed and evaluated an approach for architectural governance by conducting an embedded case study. The collected data was analysed using Thematic Analysis and informed by selected Grounded Theory techniques such as memoing, open coding, constant comparison, and sorting. Our approach for architectural governance comprises an organisational structure change and an architecture change management process. The benefits reported by the practitioners include devolving architectural decision-making to the operational level (i.e., Architecture Owners), enhancing architectural knowledge sharing among squads, minimising wasted effort in architectural refactoring, and other benefits. The practitioners in our case study realised an improved squad autonomy by the ability to govern and align architectural decisions. We provide two key contributions in this paper. First, we present the characteristics of our proposed architectural governance approach, its evaluation, benefits, and challenges. Second, we present how the novel Heterogeneous Tailoring model was enhanced to accommodate our architectural governance approach.

Requirement Engineering Challenges in Agile Software Development

Agile software development has large success rate due to its benefits and promising nature but natively where the size of the project is small. Requirement engineering (RE) is crucial as in each software development life cycle, “Requirements” play a vital role. Though agile provides values to customer’s business needs, changing requirement, and interaction, we also have to face impediments in agile, many of which are related to requirement challenges. This article aims to find out the challenges being faced during requirement engineering of agile projects. Many research studies have been conducted on requirement challenges which are somehow biased, no suggestions are given to improve the agile development process, and the research does not highlight large-scale agile development challenges. Hence, this article covers all the challenges discussed above and presents a comprehensive overview of agile models from requirement engineering perspective. The findings and results can be very helpful for software industry to improve development process as well as for researchers who want to work further in this direction.

Requirements engineering challenges and practices in large-scale agile system development

Context:Agile methods have become mainstream even in large-scale systems engineering companies that need to accommodate different development cycles of hardware and software. For such companies, requirements engineering is an essential activity that involves upfront and detailed analysis which can be at odds with agile development methods. Objective:This paper presents a multiple case study with seven large-scale systems companies, reporting their challenges, together with best practices from industry. We also analyze literature about two popular large-scale agile frameworks, SAFe® and LeSS, to derive potential solutions for the challenges. Methods:Our results are based on 20 qualitative interviews, five focus groups, and eight cross-company workshops which we used to both collect and validate our results. Results:We found 24 challenges which we grouped in six themes, then mapped to solutions from SAFe®, LeSS, and our companies, when available. Conclusion:In this way, we contribute a comprehensive overview of RE challenges in relation to large-scale agile system development, evaluate the degree to which they have been addressed, and outline research gaps. We expect these results to be useful for practitioners who are responsible for designing processes, methods, or tools for large scale agile development as well as guidance for researchers.

Empower Your Agile Organization: Community-Based Decision Making in Large-Scale Agile Development at Ericsson

When adopting agile development in a global organization with up to 40 teams working on a single product, Ericsson had to decide how to handle decisions affecting several teams. The solution, called community-based decision making, grew out of this experience.

If it does not scale, it does not work!

The world runs on lots of software. For many businesses and domains, this results in more software elements to develop and maintain. The added software elements often make for greater software complexity, which leads, in turn, to increased need for coordination between multiple software teams that build, integrate, and test the software. This increasing complexity often aggravates the challenges of large-scale software. Achieving scalability means different things in different contexts. The Editor briefly reviews scale, discussed from three different perspectives: scope, people, and time. Scope is about capabilities in terms of added features, greater size, and increased complexity of the system the software serves. The category of people includes the scale of the development organization and the software users. The category of time relates to the expected life of the system. It is then noted that this issue of IEEE Software presents different perspectives of scale with two themes, thus viewing the topic of scale from the perspective of development as well as software property. Articles under the theme Large-Scale Agile Development look into scaling development teams in large projects and organizations using agile software development methods. Articles under the theme Building Long-Lived Adaptive Systems cover state-of-the-art developments related to automated adaptive approaches for engineering systems that stand the test of time.

Software Development and CSCW

Identifying which agile methods and processes are most effective depends on the goals and aims of an organisation. Agile development promotes an environment of continuous improvement and trust within self-organising teams. Therefore, it is important to allow teams to have the flexibility to customize and tailor their chosen methods. However, in a large-scale agile deployment, there needs to be a degree of process standardization across the organisation; otherwise, different teams will not be able to effectively share knowledge and best practices. This paper addresses the classic CSCW issue of the tensions that arise between process standardization and flexibility in a large-scale agile development through a case study at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Coordinating Knowledge Work in Multiteam Programs

Software development projects have undergone remarkable changes with the arrival of agile development approaches. Although intended for small, self-managing teams, these approaches are used today for large development programs. A major challenge of such programs is coordinating many teams. This case study describes the coordination of knowledge work in a large-scale agile development program with 12 teams. The findings highlight coordination modes based on feedback, the use of a number of mechanisms, and how coordination practices change over time. The findings can improve the outcomes of large knowledge-based development programs by tailoring coordination practices to needs over time.

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.

Managing the requirements flow from strategy to release in large-scale agile development: a case study at Ericsson

In a large organization, informal communication and simple backlogs are not sufficient for the management of requirements and development work. Many large organizations are struggling to successfully adopt agile methods, but there is still little scientific knowledge on requirements management in large-scale agile development organizations. We present an in-depth study of an Ericsson telecommunications node development organization which employs a large scale agile method to develop telecommunications system software. We describe how the requirements flow from strategy to release, and related benefits and problems. Data was collected by 43 interviews, which were analyzed qualitatively. The requirements management was done in three different processes, each of which had a different process model, purpose and planning horizon. The release project management process was plan-driven, feature development process was continuous and implementation management process was agile. The perceived benefits included reduced development lead time, increased flexibility, increased planning efficiency, increased developer motivation and improved communication effectiveness. The recognized problems included difficulties in balancing planning effort, overcommitment, insufficient understanding of the development team autonomy, defining the product owner role, balancing team specialization, organizing system-level work and growing technical debt. The study indicates that agile development methods can be successfully employed in organizations where the higher level planning processes are not agile. Combining agile methods with a flexible feature development process can bring many benefits, but large-scale software development seems to require specialist roles and significant coordination effort.

Challenges and success factors for large-scale agile transformations: A systematic literature review

Agile methods have become an appealing alternative for companies striving to improve their performance, but the methods were originally designed for small and individual teams. This creates unique challenges when introducing agile at scale, when development teams must synchronize their activities, and there might be a need to interface with other organizational units. In this paper we present a systematic literature review on how agile methods and lean software development has been adopted at scale, focusing on reported challenges and success factors in the transformation. We conducted a systematic literature review of industrial large-scale agile transformations. Our keyword search found 1875 papers. We included 52 publications describing 42 industrial cases presenting the process of taking large-scale agile development into use. Almost 90% of the included papers were experience reports, indicating a lack of sound academic research on the topic. We identified 35 reported challenges grouped into nine categories, and 29 success factors, grouped into eleven categories. The most salient success factor categories were management support, choosing and customizing the agile model, training and coaching, and mindset and alignment.

Effective role of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) to enhance the photocatalytic activity of F-doped TiO2 prepared by modified sol–gel method

Highly photoactive mesoporous F-doped TiO2 with improved physico-chemical characteristics is achieved using modified sol–gel method. The usage of trifluoroacetic as fluorine precursor significantly modifies the morphology, size, pore shape, crystal phase, crystal structure, surface chemical state and to a lesser extent, {101} and {001} facets. The accessibility of fluoride ions on TiOTi polymer chains during crystal growth during the sol–gel process remarkably influences the properties of catalyst. To the best of our knowledge, preparation of F-doped TiO2 using modified sol–gel and trifluoroacetic acid are limited, and still not enough. Thus this work provides additional insight by using an approach which is less hazardous, less costly and practical for large scale agile development in the photocatalysis industry.

A practical approach to large-scale agile development

A practical approach to large-scale agile development

Research challenges in large-scale agile software development

Agile software development methods are increasingly used in large-scale software development. This article summarizes some of the discussion on research challenges in large-scale agile development at a workshop at the International Conference on Agile Software Development (XP2013), in the form of a research agenda.