Post-agility: What follows a decade of agility?

Context

Agile information systems development (ISD) has received much attention from both the practitioner and researcher community over the last 10-15 years. However, it is still unclear what precisely constitutes agile ISD.

Objective

Based on four empirical studies conducted over a 10-year time period from 1999 to 2008 the objective of this paper is to show how the meaning and practice of agile ISD has evolved over time and on this basis to speculate about what comes next.

Method

Four phases of research has been conducted, using a grounded theory approach. For each research phase qualitative interviews were held in American and/or Danish companies and a grounded theory was inductively discovered by careful data analysis. Subsequently, the four unique theories have been analyzed for common themes, and a global theory was identified across the empirical data.

Results

In 1999 companies were developing software at high-speed in a desperate rush to be first-to-market. In 2001 a new high-speed/quick results development process had become established practice. In 2003 changes in the market created the need for a more balanced view on speed and quality, and in 2008 companies were successfully combining agile and plan-driven approaches to achieve the benefits of both. The studies reveal a two-stage pattern in which dramatic changes in the market causes disruption of established practices and process adaptations followed by consolidation of lessons learnt into a once again stable software development process.

Conclusion

The cyclical history of punctuated process evolution makes it possible to distinguish pre-agility from current practices (agility), and on this basis, to speculate about post-agility: a possible next cycle of software process evolution concerned with proactively pursuing the dual goal of agility and alignment through a diversity of means.     

Beyond the customer: Opening the agile systems development process

Context

A particular strength of agile systems development approaches is that they encourage a move away from ‘introverted’ development, involving the customer in all areas of development, leading to more innovative and hence more valuable information system. However, a move toward open innovation requires a focus that goes beyond a single customer representative, involving a broader range of stakeholders, both inside and outside the organisation in a continuous, systematic way.

Objective

This paper provides an in-depth discussion of the applicability and implications of open innovation in an agile environment.

Method

We draw on two illustrative cases from industry.

Results

We highlight some distinct problems that arose when two project teams tried to combine agile and open innovation principles. For example, openness is often compromised by a perceived competitive element and lack of transparency between business units. In addition, minimal documentation often reduce effective knowledge transfer while the use of short iterations, stand-up meetings and presence of on-site customer reduce the amount of time for sharing ideas outside the team.

Conclusion

A clear understanding of the inter- and intra-organisational applicability and implications of open innovation in agile systems development is required to address key challenges for research and practice.     

The agile requirements refinery: Applying SCRUM principles to software product management

Context

Although agile software development methods such as SCRUM and DSDM are gaining popularity, the consequences of applying agile principles to software product management have received little attention until now.

Objective

In this paper, this gap is filled by the introduction of a method for the application of SCRUM principles to software product management.

Method

A case study research approach is employed to describe and evaluate this method.

Results

This has resulted in the ‘agile requirements refinery’, an extension to the SCRUM process that enables product managers to cope with complex requirements in an agile development environment. A case study is presented to illustrate how agile methods can be applied to software product management.

Conclusions

The experiences of the case study company are provided as a set of lessons learned that will help others to apply agile principles to their software product management process.     

Drivers of agile software development use: Dialectic interplay between benefits and hindrances

Context

Agile software development with its emphasis on producing working code through frequent releases, extensive client interactions and iterative development has emerged as an alternative to traditional plan-based software development methods. While a number of case studies have provided insights into the use and consequences of agile, few empirical studies have examined the factors that drive the adoption and use of agile.

Objective

We draw on intention-based theories and a dialectic perspective to identify factors driving the use of agile practices among adopters of this software development methodology.

Method

Data for the study was gathered through an anonymous online survey of software development professionals. We requested participation from members of a selected list of online discussion groups, and received 98 responses.

Results

Our analyses reveal that subjective norm and training play a significant role in influencing software developers’ use of agile processes and methods, while perceived benefits and perceived limitations are not primary drivers of agile use among adopters. Interestingly, perceived benefit emerges as a significant predictor of agile use only if adopters face hindrances to their agile practices.

Conclusion

We conclude that research in the adoption of software development innovations should examine the effects of both enabling and detracting factors and the interactions between them. Since training, subjective norm, and the interplay between perceived benefits and perceived hindrances appear to be key factors influencing the adoption of agile methods, researchers can focus on how to (a) perform training on agile methods more effectively, (b) facilitate the dialog between developers and managers about perceived benefits and hindrances, and (c) capitalize on subjective norm to publicize the benefits of agile methods within an organization. Further, when managing the transition to new software development methods, we recommend that practitioners adapt their strategies and tactics contingent on the extent of perceived hindrances to the change.     

Conducting a Business Ethnography in Global Software Development projects of small German enterprises

Context

Studying work practices in the context of Global Software Development (GSD) projects entails multiple opportunities and challenges for the researchers. Understanding and tackling these challenges requires a careful and rigor application of research methods.

Objective

We want to contribute to the understanding of the challenges of studying GSD by reflecting on several obstacles we had to deal with when conducting ethnographically-informed research on offshoring in German small to medium-sized enterprises.

Method

The material for this paper is based on reflections and field notes from two research projects: an exploratory ethnographic field study, and a study that was framed as a Business Ethnography. For the analysis, we took a Grounded Theory-oriented coding and analysis approach in order to identify issues and challenges documented in our research notes.

Results

We introduce the concept of Business Ethnography and discuss our experiences of adapting and implementing this action research concept for our study. We identify and discuss three primary issues: understanding complex global work practices from a local perspective, adapting to changing interests of the participants, and dealing with micro-political frictions between the cooperating sites.

Conclusions

We identify common interests between the researchers and the companies as a challenge and chance for studies on offshoring. Building on our experiences from the field, we argue for an active conceptualization of struggles and conflicts in the field as well as for extending the role of the ethnographer to that of a learning mediator.     

Conceptual framework for business processes compositional verification

Context

To guarantee the success of Business Process Modelling (BPM) it is necessary to check whether the activities and tasks described by Business Processes (BPs) are sound and well coordinated.

Objective

This article describes and validates a Formal Compositional Verification Approach (FCVA) that uses a Model-Checking (MC) technique to specify and verify BPs.

Method

This is performed using the Communicating Sequential Processes +Time (CSP+T) process calculus, which adds new constructions to timed Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) modelling entities for non- functional requirement specification.

Results

Using our proposal we are able to specify the BP Task Model (BPTM) associated with BPs by formalising the timed BPMN notational elements. The proposal also allows us to apply MC to BPTM verification. A real-life example of verifying a BPTM in the field of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is discussed as a practical application of FCVA.

Conclusion

This approach facilitates the verification of complex BPs from independently verified local processes, and establishes a feasible way to use process calculi to verify BPs using state-of-the-art MC tools.     

Software engineering projects may fail before they are started: Post-mortem analysis of five cancelled projects

Context

Software project cancellations are often caused by mistakes made during the project, and such cancellations make a strong economic impact. We analyzed five cancelled software engineering projects. One case was an internal product development project of a company that sells products to its customers. The other four cases were different software engineering projects, and outcomes of these projects were planned to be delivered to external customers.

Objective

This study reports a post-mortem analysis of five software engineering projects with the aim of providing more knowledge about the reasons for cancellation decisions and the causes behind those reasons.

Methods

The research method is case study. A method for a document-based post-mortem analysis was developed and post-mortem analysis was performed. All project documentation was available for analysis.

Results

The reasons for the cancellation decisions were well-known ones. In four cases of five, the outcome of the project was to be delivered to an external customer, but in these cases the causes of the cancellation reasons were not found from the normal project documentation. In these cases the cause of the cancellation originated in a phase before the start of the project and therefore the project was doomed before it was started.

Conclusion

It is reasonable to suggest that a remarkable portion of project cancellations are due to mistakes made before the project is started in the case of contract-based software engineering projects.     

Design guidelines for software processes knowledge repository development

Context

Staff turnover in organizations is an important issue that should be taken into account mainly for two reasons:

1.

Employees carry an organization’s knowledge in their heads and take it with them wherever they go

2.

Knowledge accessibility is limited to the amount of knowledge employees want to share

Objective

The aim of this work is to provide a set of guidelines to develop knowledge-based Process Asset Libraries (PAL) to store software engineering best practices, implemented as a wiki.

Method

Fieldwork was carried out in a 2-year training course in agile development. This was validated in two phases (with and without PAL), which were subdivided into two stages: Training and Project.

Results

The study demonstrates that, on the one hand, the learning process can be facilitated using PAL to transfer software process knowledge, and on the other hand, products were developed by junior software engineers with a greater degree of independence.

Conclusion

PAL, as a knowledge repository, helps software engineers to learn about development processes and improves the use of agile processes.     

Partnering effects on user-developer conflict and role ambiguity in information system projects

Context

Information system development (ISD) has been plagued with high failure rates. This is partially due to the activities being a combination of both a technical and social processes involving stakeholders with conflicting interests.

Objective

Existing software risk management theories and frameworks offer limited suggestions for actions that can be taken to reduce the chance of failure of ISD projects. Our objective is to examine the connections among some of the more important user related risks in order to shed light on how specific strategies enhance the chance of project success.

Method

We conducted a sample of information systems project managers to test a multivariate model to explain the impact of pursuing a partnership with users on the conflicts that arise between users and developers, role ambiguity, and subsequent impact on project performance.

Results

The proposed model was supported, suggesting that user-developer conflict and role ambiguity have a negative impact on performance estimation difficulty, which negatively affects project performance.

Conclusion

Pursuit of project partnering yields a number of significant relationships in the model indicating an organization can implement practices that reduce risks associated with role ambiguity and conflict in system development projects.     

Quantitative release planning in extreme programming

Context

Extreme Programming (XP) is one of the most popular agile software development methodologies. XP is defined as a consistent set of values and practices designed to work well together, but lacks practices for project management and especially for supporting the customer role. The customer representative is constantly under pressure and may experience difficulties in foreseeing the adequacy of a release plan.

Objective

To assist release planning in XP by structuring the planning problem and providing an optimization model that suggests a suitable release plan.

Method

We develop an optimization model that generates a release plan taking into account story size, business value, possible precedence relations, themes, and uncertainty in velocity prediction. The running-time feasibility is established through computational tests. In addition, we provide a practical heuristic approach to velocity estimation.

Results

Computational tests show that problems with up to six themes and 50 stories can be solved exactly. An example provides insight into uncertainties affecting velocity, and indicates that the model can be applied in practice.

Conclusion

An optimization model can be used in practice to enable the customer representative to take more informed decisions faster. This can help adopting XP in projects where plan-driven approaches have traditionally been used.     

Software process improvement success factors for small and medium Web companies: A qualitative study

Context

The context of this research is software process improvement (SPI) in small and medium Web companies.

Objective

The primary objective of this paper is to identify software process improvement (SPI) success factors for small and medium Web companies.

Method

To achieve this goal, we conducted semi-structured, open-ended interviews with 21 participants representing 11 different companies in Pakistan, and analyzed the data qualitatively using the Glaserian strand of grounded theory research procedures. The key steps of these procedures that were employed in this research included open coding, focused coding, theoretical coding, theoretical sampling, constant comparison, and scaling up.

Results

An initial framework of key SPI success factors for small and medium Web companies was proposed, which can be of use for small and medium Web companies engaged in SPI. The paper also differentiates between small and medium Web companies and analyzes crucial SPI requirements for companies operating in the Web development domain.

Conclusion

The results of this work, in particular the use of qualitative techniques - allowed us to obtain rich insight into SPI success factors for small and medium Web companies. Future work comprises the validation of the SPI success factors with small and medium Web companies.     

Conceptual scheduling model and optimized release scheduling for agile environments

Context

Release scheduling deals with the selection and assignment of deliverable features to a sequence of consecutive product deliveries while several constraints are fulfilled. Although agile software development represents a major approach to software engineering, there is no well-established conceptual definition and sound methodological support of agile release scheduling.

Objective

To propose a solution, we present, (1) a conceptual model for agile scheduling, and (2) a novel multiple knapsack-based optimization model with (3) a branch-and-bound optimization algorithm for agile release scheduling.

Method

To evaluate our model simulations were carried out seven real life and several generated data sets.

Results

The developed algorithm strives to prevent resource overload and resource underload, and mitigates risks of delivery slippage.

Conclusion

The results of the experiment suggest that this approach can provide optimized semi-automatic release schedule generations and more informed and established decisions utilizing what-if-analysis on the fly to tailor the best schedule for the specific project context.     

Sociomaterial bricolage: The creation of location-spanning work practices by global software developers

Context

Studies on global software development have documented severe coordination and communication problems among coworkers due to geographic dispersion and consequent dependency on technology. These problems are exacerbated by increase in the complexity of work undertaken by global teams. However, despite these problems, global software development is on the rise and firms are adopting global practices across the board, raising the question: What does successful global software development look like and what can we learn from its practitioners?

Objective

This study draws on practice-based studies of work to examine successful work practices of global software developers. The primary aim of this study was to understand how workers develop practices that allow them to function effectively across geographically dispersed locations.

Method

An ethnographically-informed field study was conducted with data collection at two international locations of a firm. Interview, observation and archival data were collected. A total of 42 interviews and 3 weeks of observations were conducted.

Results

Teams spread across different locations around the world developed work practices through sociomaterial bricolage. Two facets of technology use were necessary for the creation of these practices: multiplicity of media and relational personalization at dyadic and team levels. New practices were triggered by the need to achieve a work-life balance, which was disturbed by global development. Reflecting on my role as a researcher, I underscore the importance of understanding researchers’ own frames of reference and using research practices that mirror informants’ work practices.

Conclusion

Software developers on global teams face unique challenges which necessitate a shift in their work practices. Successful teams are able to create practices that span locations while still being tied to location based practices. Inventive use of material and social resources is central to the creation of these practices.     

Analogy-based software effort estimation using Fuzzy numbers

Background

Early stage software effort estimation is a crucial task for project bedding and feasibility studies. Since collected data during the early stages of a software development lifecycle is always imprecise and uncertain, it is very hard to deliver accurate estimates. Analogy-based estimation, which is one of the popular estimation methods, is rarely used during the early stage of a project because of uncertainty associated with attribute measurement and data availability.

Aims

We have integrated analogy-based estimation with Fuzzy numbers in order to improve the performance of software project effort estimation during the early stages of a software development lifecycle, using all available early data. Particularly, this paper proposes a new software project similarity measure and a new adaptation technique based on Fuzzy numbers.

Method

Empirical evaluations with Jack-knifing procedure have been carried out using five benchmark data sets of software projects, namely, ISBSG, Desharnais, Kemerer, Albrecht and COCOMO, and results are reported. The results are compared to those obtained by methods employed in the literature using case-based reasoning and stepwise regression.

Results

In all data sets the empirical evaluations have shown that the proposed similarity measure and adaptation techniques method were able to significantly improve the performance of analogy-based estimation during the early stages of software development. The results have also shown that the proposed method outperforms some well know estimation techniques such as case-based reasoning and stepwise regression.

Conclusions

It is concluded that the proposed estimation model could form a useful approach for early stage estimation especially when data is almost uncertain.     

Code churn estimation using organisational and code metrics: An experimental comparison

Context

Source code revision control systems contain vast amounts of data that can be exploited for various purposes. For example, the data can be used as a base for estimating future code maintenance effort in order to plan software maintenance activities. Previous work has extensively studied the use of metrics extracted from object-oriented source code to estimate future coding effort. In comparison, the use of other types of metrics for this purpose has received significantly less attention.

Objective

This paper applies machine learning techniques to unveil predictors of yearly cumulative code churn of software projects on the basis of metrics extracted from revision control systems.

Method

The study is based on a collection of object-oriented code metrics, XML code metrics, and organisational metrics. Several models are constructed with different subsets of these metrics. The predictive power of these models is analysed based on a dataset extracted from eight open-source projects.

Results

The study shows that a code churn estimation model built purely with organisational metrics is superior to one built purely with code metrics. However, a combined model provides the highest predictive power.

Conclusion

The results suggest that code metrics in general, and XML metrics in particular, are complementary to organisational metrics for the purpose of estimating code churn.     

A methodology to assess the impact of design patterns on software quality

Context

Software quality is considered to be one of the most important concerns of software production teams. Additionally, design patterns are documented solutions to common design problems that are expected to enhance software quality. Until now, the results on the effect of design patterns on software quality are controversial.

Aims

This study aims to propose a methodology for comparing design patterns to alternative designs with an analytical method. Additionally, the study illustrates the methodology by comparing three design patterns with two alternative solutions, with respect to several quality attributes.

Method

The paper introduces a theoretical/analytical methodology to compare sets of “canonical” solutions to design problems. The study is theoretical in the sense that the solutions are disconnected from real systems, even though they stem from concrete problems. The study is analytical in the sense that the solutions are compared based on their possible numbers of classes and on equations representing the values of the various structural quality attributes in function of these numbers of classes. The exploratory designs have been produced by studying the literature, by investigating open-source projects and by using design patterns. In addition to that, we have created a tool that helps practitioners in choosing the optimal design solution, according to their special needs.

Results

The results of our research suggest that the decision of applying a design pattern is usually a trade-off, because patterns are not universally good or bad. Patterns typically improve certain aspects of software quality, while they might weaken some other.

Conclusions

Concluding the proposed methodology is applicable for comparing patterns and alternative designs, and highlights existing threshold that when surpassed the design pattern is getting more or less beneficial than the alternative design. More specifically, the identification of such thresholds can become very useful for decision making during system design and refactoring.     

The longitudinal, chronological case study research strategy: A definition, and an example from IBM Hursley Park

Context

There is surprisingly little empirical software engineering research (ESER) that has analysed and reported the rich, fine-grained behaviour of phenomena over time using qualitative and quantitative data. The ESER community also increasingly recognises the need to develop theories of software engineering phenomena e.g. theories of the actual behaviour of software projects at the level of the project and over time.

Objective

To examine the use of the longitudinal, chronological case study (LCCS) as a research strategy for investigating the rich, fine-grained behaviour of phenomena over time using qualitative and quantitative data.

Method

Review the methodological literature on longitudinal case study. Define the LCCS and demonstrate the development and application of the LCCS research strategy to the investigation of Project C, a software development project at IBM Hursley Park. Use the study to consider prospects for LCCSs, and to make progress on a theory of software project behaviour.

Results

LCCSs appear to provide insights that are hard to achieve using existing research strategies, such as the survey study. The LCCS strategy has basic requirements that data is time-indexed, relatively fine-grained and collected contemporaneous to the events to which the data refer. Preliminary progress is made on a theory of software project behaviour.

Conclusion

LCCS appears well suited to analysing and reporting rich, fine-grained behaviour of phenomena over time.     

The relationship between organizational culture and the deployment of agile methods

Context

Systems development normally takes place in a specific organizational context, including organizational culture. Previous research has identified organizational culture as a factor that potentially affects the deployment systems development methods.

Objective

The purpose is to analyze the relationship between organizational culture and the post-adoption deployment of agile methods.

Method

This study is a theory development exercise. Based on the Competing Values Model of organizational culture, the paper proposes a number of hypotheses about the relationship between organizational culture and the deployment of agile methods.

Results

Inspired by the agile methods thirteen new hypotheses are introduced and discussed. They have interesting implications, when contrasted with ad hoc development and with traditional systems development methods.

Conclusion

Because of the conceptual richness of organizational culture and the ambiguity of the concept of agility the relationship between organizational culture and the deployment of agile systems development forms a rich and interesting research topic. Recognizing that the Competing Values Model represents just one view of organizational culture, the paper introduces a number of alternative conceptions and identifies several interesting paths for future research into the relationship between organizational culture and agile methods deployment.     

Factors associated with quad bike loss of control events in agriculture

Objective

To determine personal and workplace factors associated with quad bike loss of control events (LCEs) on New Zealand farms.

Methods

Rural community databases were used to sample 130 farmers and farm employees (workers). Fieldwork and survey investigated for prevalence of LCEs; farm type; farm terrain; personal measures; and vehicle driving exposures.

Results

Seventy nine workers (61%) described a total of 200 LCEs. Increased driver height, increased body mass, non-flat farm terrain, increased driving speed and distance, and greater whole body vibration exposure were significantly associated with LCEs.

Conclusions

Taller and heavier drivers of quad bikes should be particularly vigilant for risk of an LCE. Vehicle speed, distance driven and choice of driving routes over difficult terrain are potentially modifiable factors which have behavioural components and should be considered as management strategies for reducing risk of on-farm quad bike LCEs.

Relevance to industry

Quad bike accidents are a considerable problem in agriculture. This research has identified a number of physical and driving factors that should be considered in the management strategies for reducing risk of on-farm quad bike accidents.     

Cross-domain probabilistic inference in a clinical decision support system: examples for dermatology and rheumatology

Introduction

Maintaining a large diagnostic knowledge base (KB) is a demanding task for any person or organization. Future clinical decision support system (CDSS) may rely on multiple, smaller and more focused KBs developed and maintained at different locations that work together seamlessly. A cross-domain inference tool has great clinical import and utility.

Methods

We developed a modified multi-membership Bayes formulation to facilitate the cross-domain probabilistic inferencing among KBs with overlapping diseases. Two KBs developed for evaluation were non-infectious generalized blistering diseases (GBD) and autoimmune diseases (AID). After the KBs were finalized, they were evaluated separately for validity.

Result

Ten cases from medical journal case reports were used to evaluate this “cross-domain” inference across the two KBs. The resultant non-error rate (NER) was 90%, and the average of probabilities assigned to the correct diagnosis (AVP) was 64.8% for cross-domain consultations.

Conclusion

A novel formulation is now available to deal with problems occurring in a clinical diagnostic decision support system with multi-domain KBs. The utilization of this formulation will help in the development of more integrated KBs with greater focused knowledge domains.