Agile and Lean: Organizations, Products and Development
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ItemHow the Perception of Agile Software Development Affects Beta Users’ Stress and Satisfaction( 2023-01-03)Agile software development has been shown to alleviate stress and improve satisfaction levels in development teams. Since this development approach relies on strong user involvement, these effects might carry over to the users themselves. If users have a positive perception of the agile approach, they might be more receptive to the produced software. However, users are rarely aware of the underlying development methodology and are, therefore, only partly affected by it. Hence, this study develops a new construct to measure users’ perception of the development methodology and to investigate the effects on technostress and user satisfaction. A survey with 117 beta users was conducted showing that perceiving a development process as agile lowers users’ technostress and elevates their satisfaction levels. Our Results highlight the essential role of user communication in the development phase. We discuss our implications for theory and practice, and conclude with promising future research avenues.
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ItemUncovering Situations of Cargo Cult Behavior in Agile Software Development Method Use( 2023-01-03)Misinterpretations and faulty use of Software Development Method (SDM) practices and principles are identified pitfalls in Software Development (SD). Previous research indicates cases with method adoption and use failures; one reason could be the SDM Cargo Cult (CC) behavior, where SD organizations claim to be agile but not doing agile. Previous research has suggested the SDM CC framework as an analytical tool. The aim of this paper is to refine the SDM CC framework and empirically test this version of the framework. We use data from an ethnographical study on three SD teams’ Daily Scrum Meetings (DSM). The empirical material was collected through observations, interviews, and the organization’s business documents. We uncovered twelve CC situations in the SD teams’ use of the DSM practice, structured into seven categories of SDM deviations: bringing irrelevant information, canceling meetings, disturbing the team, receiving unclear information, bringing new requirements, problem-solving, and task distribution.
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ItemHave the Agile Principles Endured? An Empirical Investigation Post 20th Anniversary of the Agile Manifesto (2001)( 2023-01-03)This study investigates whether the Agile principles introduced in the Agile Manifesto (2001) have endured today two decades later and whether they are still relevant to software developers. Further, are they positively correlated with work and affective outcomes of software development projects? We find out by conducting a survey with team members of 58 software development project in one of the largest global IT firms. To our surprise we find that overall, the Agile principles have endured and were positively correlated with team motivation, project effectiveness and project innovation. However, they were negative correlated with project efficiency. As expected, projects using Agile and plan-driven methodologies showed differential findings.
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ItemHow to Organize DevOps’ Teams in Customer Firms? A Comparative Case Analysis( 2023-01-03)The issue of DevOps’ team structures has been seldom addressed in prior literature. Some scholars underlined certain teams' characteristics and proposed structure taxonomies. However, they hardly considered the effect of the firm's context on a structure choice, by only focusing on project-level influences in few studies. To cover this gap, we propose an organizational model for DevOps’ implementation within a consulting configuration. This setting is frequent in the current digital era and is particular as the partners differ in terms of digital maturity, cognition, and goals. We explored three cases in the public administration, telecommunications, and banking sectors. Data was collected through participant observation and semi-structured interviews and thematically analyzed with Nvivo. As results, we identify the key components of DevOps’ teams and highlight their synergies. We also contribute to academic literature and managerial practice by raising customer firms’ awareness on the contextual factors inducing variability on DevOps’ team structure.
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ItemEvaluating Data Science Project Agility by Exploring Process Frameworks Used by Data Science Teams( 2023-01-03)The lack of effective team process is often noted as one of the key drivers of data science project inefficiencies and failures. To help address this challenge, this research reports on semi-structured interviews, across 16 organizations, which explored data science agile framework usage. While 62% of the organizations reported using an agile framework, none actually followed the Scrum Guide (or any other published framework), but rather, each organization had defined their own process that incorporated one or more aspects of Scrum. The other organizations used a proprietary / ad-hoc approach, often based on a proprietary data science life cycle. In short, while many data science teams are trying to be agile, they are adapting existing frameworks to work within a data science context. Future research could explore how data science teams can best achieve agility, perhaps via new agile frameworks that address the unique data science project management challenges.
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ItemA Qualitative Study on Project Failure in Agile Teams Using Socio- technical Systems Theory( 2023-01-03)Companies are adopting agile methodology in response to fulfill a growing demand for agility. Specifically, the scrum method gained popularity, despite having no guarantee of success. This study employs socio-technical systems interaction as a framework to study the reasons for agile project failure. It reflects on misalignments as an outcome of socio- technical systems interaction. In this study, we identify the events that are most commonly responsible for imbalance by using socio-technical systems theory as a diagnostic tool. We conducted a qualitative interpretive study interviewing twenty-seven individuals in agile information systems delivery (ISD) team settings. Our findings reveal how an individual's lack of belief about being agile, doing agile, and both result in events of failure in IT projects. This study provides a nuanced understanding of the challenges and reasons for failure in agile teams.