scholarly journals How agile teams make self-assignment work: a grounded theory study

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 4962-5005
Author(s):  
Zainab Masood ◽  
Rashina Hoda ◽  
Kelly Blincoe
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Task Allocation ◽  
Theory Analysis ◽  
Grounded Theory Study ◽  
Software Teams ◽  
Software Companies ◽  
Agile Practices ◽  
Facilitating Conditions ◽  
Agile Software ◽  
Agile Teams

Abstract Self-assignment, a self-directed method of task allocation in which teams and individuals assign and choose work for themselves, is considered one of the hallmark practices of empowered, self-organizing agile teams. Despite all the benefits it promises, agile software teams do not practice it as regularly as other agile practices such as iteration planning and daily stand-ups, indicating that it is likely not an easy and straighforward practice. There has been very little empirical research on self-assignment. This Grounded Theory study explores how self-assignment works in agile projects. We collected data through interviews with 42 participants representing 28 agile teams from 23 software companies and supplemented these interviews with observations. Based on rigorous application of Grounded Theory analysis procedures such as open, axial, and selective coding, we present a comprehensive grounded theory of making self-assignment work that explains the (a) context and (b) causal conditions that give rise to the need for self-assignment, (c) a set of facilitating conditions that mediate how self-assignment may be enabled, (d) a set of constraining conditions that mediate how self-assignment may be constrained and which are overcome by a set of (e) strategies applied by agile teams, which in turn result in (f) a set of consequences, all in an attempt to make the central phenomenon, self-assignment, work. The findings of this study will help agile practitioners and companies understand different aspects of self-assignment and practice it with confidence regularly as a valuable practice. Additionally, it will help teams already practicing self-assignment to apply strategies to overcome the challenges they face on an everyday basis.

scholarly journals A Statistical Model to Assess the Team's Productivity in Agile Software Teams

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Mashmool ◽  
Samiyeh Khosravi ◽  
Javad Hassannataj Joloudari ◽  
Irum Inayat ◽  
Taghi Javdani Gandomani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Statistical Model ◽  
Software Teams ◽  
Software Companies ◽  
Software Productivity ◽  
Effectiveness Factors ◽  
Team Productivity ◽  
Agile Software ◽  
Agile Teams ◽  
Software Team

Agile methods promise to achieve high productivity and provide high-quality software. Agile software development is the most important approach that has spread through the world of software development over the past decade. Software team productivity measurement is essential in agile teams to increase the performance of software development. Due to the prevalence of agile methodologies and increasing competition of software development companies, software team productivity has become one of the crucial challenges for agile software companies and teams. Awareness of the level of team productivity can help them to achieve better estimation results on the time and cost of the projects. However, to measure software productivity, there is no definitive solution or approach whether in traditional and agile software development teams that lead to the occurrence of many problems in achieving a reliable definition of software productivity. Hence, this study aims to propose a statistical model to assess the team’s productivity in agile teams. A survey was conducted with forty software companies and measured the impact of six factors of the team on productivity in these companies. The results show that team effectiveness factors including inter-team relationship, quality conformance by the team, team vision, team leader, and requirements handled by the team had a significant impact on the team’s productivity. Moreover, the results also state that inter-team relations affect the most on software teams’ productivity. Finally, the model fit test showed that 80% of productivity depends on team effectiveness factors.

scholarly journals A Statistical Model to Assess the Team's Productivity in Agile Software Teams

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Mashmool ◽  
Samiyeh Khosravi ◽  
Javad Hassannataj Joloudari ◽  
Irum Inayat ◽  
Taghi Javdani Gandomani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Statistical Model ◽  
Software Teams ◽  
Software Companies ◽  
Software Productivity ◽  
Effectiveness Factors ◽  
Team Productivity ◽  
Agile Software ◽  
Agile Teams ◽  
Software Team

Agile methods promise to achieve high productivity and provide high-quality software. Agile software development is the most important approach that has spread through the world of software development over the past decade. The software team’s productivity measurement is essential in agile teams to increase the performance of Software development. Due to the increasing competition of software development companies, software team productivity has become one of the crucial challenges for software companies and teams. Awareness of the level of team productivity can help them to achieve better estimation results on the time and cost of the projects. However, to measure software productivity, there is no definitive solution or approach whether in traditional and agile software development teams that lead to the occurrence of many problems in achieving a reliable definition of software productivity. Hence, this study aims to propose a statistical model to assess the team’s productivity in agile teams. A survey was conducted with forty software companies and measured the impact of six factors of the team on productivity in these companies. The results show that team effectiveness factors including inter-team relationship, quality conformance by the team, team vision, team leader, and requirements handled by the team had a significant impact on team productivity. Moreover, the results also state that inter-team relations affect the most on software teams’ productivity. Finally, the model fit test showed that 80% of productivity depends on team effectiveness factors.

scholarly journals From Collaboration to Solitude and Back: Remote Pair Programming During COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Darja Smite ◽  
Marius Mikalsen ◽  
Nils Brede Moe ◽  
Viktoria Stray ◽  
Eriks Klotins
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Pair Programming ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
Collaborative Practices ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Software Teams ◽  
Software Companies ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Agile Software

AbstractAlong with the increasing popularity of agile software development, software work has become much more social than ever. Contemporary software teams rely on a variety of collaborative practices, such as pair programming, the topic of our study. Many agilists advocated the importance of collocation, face-to-face interaction, and physical artefacts incorporated in the shared workspace, which the COVID-19 pandemic made unavailable; most software companies around the world were forced to send their engineers to work from home. As software projects and teams overnight turned into distributed collaborations, we question what happened to the pair programming practice in the work-from-home mode. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of remote pair programming in two companies. We conducted 38 interviews with 30 engineers from Norway, Sweden, and the USA, and used the results of a survey in one of the case companies. Our study is unique as we collected the data longitudinally in April/May 2020, Sep/Oct 2020, and Jan/Feb 2021. We found that pair programming has decreased and some interviewees report not pairing at all for almost a full year. The experiences of those who paired vary from actively co-editing the code by using special tools to more passively co-reading and discussing the code and solutions by sharing the screen. Finally, we found that the interest in and the use of PP over time, since the first months of the forced work from home to early 2021, has admittedly increased, also as a social practice.

scholarly journals Professional courage to create a pathway within midwives’ fields of work: a grounded theory study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Malin Hansson ◽  
Ingela Lundgren ◽  
Gunnel Hensing ◽  
Anna Dencker ◽  
Monica Eriksson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
Work Situation ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Grounded Theory Study ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Health Promoting ◽  
Facilitating Conditions ◽  
Constant Comparative Analysis

Abstract Background The theory of salutogenesis focuses on resources for health and health-promoting processes. In the context of midwives’ work, this is not well described despite the importance for occupational health and the intention to remain in the profession. In order to promote a healthy workplace, it is necessary to consider the facilitating conditions that contribute to a sustainable working life. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore health-promoting facilitative conditions in the work situation on labour wards according to midwives. Methods A constant comparative analysis was applied to face-to-face interviews with midwives that constituted the empirical material in this classical grounded theory study. Results The substantive theory of Professional courage to create a pathway within midwives’ fields of work emerged as an explanation of the health-promoting facilitative conditions in midwives’ work situation. The theory consists of a four-stage process with prerequisite contextual conditions: visualising midwifery, organisational resources and a reflective and learning environment, that were needed to fulfil the midwives’ main concern a Feasibility of working as a midwife. This meant being able to work according to best-known midwifery theory and practice in each situation. Positive consequences of a fulfilled main concern were a professional identity and grounded knowledge that enabled the development of the resistant resource professional courage. The courage made it feasible for midwives to move freely on their pathway within the different fields of work extending between normal and medicalised birth and being autonomous and regulated. Conclusions A professional courage was required to create a pathway within midwives’ fields of work, to move freely depending on what actions were needed in a particular work situation. Professional courage could be seen as a resistance resource, enabling midwives to become resilient when dealing with the unpredictable work situation. However, there are vital organisational preconditions that needed to be fulfilled for workplaces to become facilitative, organisational resources, visualising midwifery and a reflective environment. The theory can be used to foster health-promoting and sustainable work situations for midwives, which is possible if the organisational preconditions are met. This could be a key factor in retaining midwives in the profession.

Agile Assessment Methods and Approaches

2016 ◽  
pp. 165-174
Author(s):  
Mina Ziaei Nafchi ◽  
Taghi Javdani Gandomani
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Measurement Methods ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Agile Methods ◽  
Universal Model ◽  
Actual Position ◽  
Software Teams ◽  
Software Companies ◽  
Development Methods ◽  
Agile Teams

Agile methods are widely used in software companies in recent years. Many software companies are replacing their traditional development methods with agile methods. Nonetheless, measuring agility that they have achieved has been a topic of debate. Software teams and companies need to know how agile they are or how much is the agility degree of their organization. Unlike traditional methods in software development, there is no standard or universal model (like CMM/CMMI) to measure maturity of agile teams and software companies. So far, only a few methods and tools have been proposed to measure the agility of software companies. The main aim of this chapter is introducing the structure and main features of the existing agile assessment methods and providing a brief discussion on drawbacks of these methods. This chapter tries to elucidate the actual position of agility measurement methods in measuring agility degree of companies who are trying to adapt to agile methods and practices.

scholarly journals Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rashina Hoda
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Software Development ◽  
Agile Software Development ◽  
Senior Management ◽  
Management Support ◽  
Grounded Theory Research ◽  
Software Development Teams ◽  
Agile Software ◽  
Agile Teams ◽  
Self Organizing

<p>Self-organizing teams are a hallmark of Agile software development, directly a ecting team e ectiveness and project success. Agile software development, and in particular the Scrum method, emphasizes self-organizing teams but does not provide clear guidelines on how teams should become and remain self-organizing. Based on Grounded Theory research involving 58 Agile prac- titioners from 23 di erent software organizations in New Zealand and In- dia, this thesis presents a grounded theory of self-organizing Agile teams. The theory of self-organizing Agile teams explains how software development teams take on informal, implicit, transient, and spontaneous roles and per- form balanced practices while facing critical environmental factors, in order to become self-organizing. The roles are: Mentor, Co-ordinator, Translator, Champion, Promoter, and Terminator. The practices involve balancing free- dom and responsibility, cross-functionality and specialization, and continuous learning and iteration pressure. The factors are senior management support and level of customer involvement. This thesis will help teams and their coaches better understand their roles and responsibilities as a self-organizing Agile team. This thesis will also serve to educate senior management and customers about the importance of supporting these teams</p>

scholarly journals Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rashina Hoda
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Software Development ◽  
Agile Software Development ◽  
Senior Management ◽  
Management Support ◽  
Grounded Theory Research ◽  
Software Development Teams ◽  
Agile Software ◽  
Agile Teams ◽  
Self Organizing

<p>Self-organizing teams are a hallmark of Agile software development, directly a ecting team e ectiveness and project success. Agile software development, and in particular the Scrum method, emphasizes self-organizing teams but does not provide clear guidelines on how teams should become and remain self-organizing. Based on Grounded Theory research involving 58 Agile prac- titioners from 23 di erent software organizations in New Zealand and In- dia, this thesis presents a grounded theory of self-organizing Agile teams. The theory of self-organizing Agile teams explains how software development teams take on informal, implicit, transient, and spontaneous roles and per- form balanced practices while facing critical environmental factors, in order to become self-organizing. The roles are: Mentor, Co-ordinator, Translator, Champion, Promoter, and Terminator. The practices involve balancing free- dom and responsibility, cross-functionality and specialization, and continuous learning and iteration pressure. The factors are senior management support and level of customer involvement. This thesis will help teams and their coaches better understand their roles and responsibilities as a self-organizing Agile team. This thesis will also serve to educate senior management and customers about the importance of supporting these teams</p>

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