A Theory of Coordination in Agile Software Development Projects

<p>Agile software development offers a deceptively simple means to organise complex multi-participant software development while achieving fast delivery of quality software, meeting customer requirements, and coping effectively with project change. There is little understanding, however, of how agile software development projects achieve effective coordination, a critical factor in successful software projects. Agile software development provides a unique set of practices for organising the work of software projects, and these practices seem to achieve effective project coordination. Therefore, this thesis takes a coordination perspective to explore how agile software projects work, and why they are effective. The outcome of this research is a theory of coordination in co-located agile software development projects. To build a coordination theory, evidence was drawn from a multi-case study following the positivist tradition in information systems. Three cases of agile software development contributed to the theory, along with one additional non-agile project that contributed contrasting evidence. The findings show that agile software development practices form a coordination strategy addressing three broad categories of dependency: knowledge dependencies, task dependencies, and resource dependencies. Most coordination is for managing requirement, expertise, historical, and task allocation dependencies; all forms of knowledge dependency. Also present are task dependencies, which include activity or business process dependencies, and resource dependencies, which include technical or entity dependencies. The theory of coordination explains that an agile coordination strategy consists of coordination mechanisms for synchronising the project team, for structuring their relations, and for boundary spanning. A coordination strategy contributes to coordination effectiveness, which has explicit and implicit components. The primary contribution of this theory is an explanation of how agile software development practices act together to achieve effective project coordination. The coordination strategy concept can be used to select practices from agile methods to ensure software projects achieve effective coordination. In addition, once operationalised in future work, the well-grounded theoretical concepts developed in this research will provide valuable tools for measuring the coordination effectiveness of agile method adoption and adaptation.</p>

A Theory of Coordination in Agile Software Development Projects

<p>Agile software development offers a deceptively simple means to organise complex multi-participant software development while achieving fast delivery of quality software, meeting customer requirements, and coping effectively with project change. There is little understanding, however, of how agile software development projects achieve effective coordination, a critical factor in successful software projects. Agile software development provides a unique set of practices for organising the work of software projects, and these practices seem to achieve effective project coordination. Therefore, this thesis takes a coordination perspective to explore how agile software projects work, and why they are effective. The outcome of this research is a theory of coordination in co-located agile software development projects. To build a coordination theory, evidence was drawn from a multi-case study following the positivist tradition in information systems. Three cases of agile software development contributed to the theory, along with one additional non-agile project that contributed contrasting evidence. The findings show that agile software development practices form a coordination strategy addressing three broad categories of dependency: knowledge dependencies, task dependencies, and resource dependencies. Most coordination is for managing requirement, expertise, historical, and task allocation dependencies; all forms of knowledge dependency. Also present are task dependencies, which include activity or business process dependencies, and resource dependencies, which include technical or entity dependencies. The theory of coordination explains that an agile coordination strategy consists of coordination mechanisms for synchronising the project team, for structuring their relations, and for boundary spanning. A coordination strategy contributes to coordination effectiveness, which has explicit and implicit components. The primary contribution of this theory is an explanation of how agile software development practices act together to achieve effective project coordination. The coordination strategy concept can be used to select practices from agile methods to ensure software projects achieve effective coordination. In addition, once operationalised in future work, the well-grounded theoretical concepts developed in this research will provide valuable tools for measuring the coordination effectiveness of agile method adoption and adaptation.</p>

48. Local Implementation of an Antibiotic Stewardship Intervention for Asymptomatic Bacteriuria Through Centralized Facilitation Required Minimal Costs and Effort

Background The cost of an antibiotic stewardship intervention is an important yet often neglected factor in antibiotic stewardship research. We studied the costs associated with successful implementation of the “Kicking CAUTI” intervention to decrease treatment of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB). Methods A central coordinating site facilitated roll-out of an audit and feedback intervention to decrease unnecessary urine cultures and antibiotic treatment in patients with ASB in four Veterans Affairs medical centers. Each site had a physician site champion, a part-time research coordinator, and 1-2 additional participants (often pharmacists). Participants kept weekly time-logs to collect the minutes associated with intervention tasks, and percent full-time effort (FTE) and costs were computed. For weeks with missing logs the average minutes for each activity associated with each type of professional was imputed. Salary information was obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Association of American Medical Colleges. Results Research coordinator time comprised of majority of the personnel time, followed by the physician site champions (Figure 1). Each intervention site required about 10% FTE/year of a research coordinator, and 3.5% FTE/year and 3.8% FTE/year of a physician and pharmacist respectively. The coordinating site required 37% FTE/year of a research coordinator, and 9% FTE of a physician to spearhead the intervention. Research coordinators predominantly spent their time on chart-reviews and project coordination. Physician champions predominantly spent their time on delivering audit and feedback and project coordination. The intervention cost USD 22,299/year per site on average, and USD 45,359/year for the coordinating site. Conclusion The Kicking CAUTI intervention was successful at reducing urine cultures and associated antibiotic use, with minimal time from the local team members. The research coordinators’ time was primarily spent on collection of research data, which will not be necessary outside of a research project. Our model of centralized facilitation makes economic sense for widespread scale-up and dissemination of antibiotic stewardship interventions in integrated healthcare systems. Disclosures Barbara Trautner, MD, PhD, Genentech (Consultant, Scientific Research Study Investigator)

Praktik Arsitek dalam Pencarian Keseimbangan Baru

Title: Architect Practice in Search of Balance in New Norm Epidemic Covid 19 enforce us to retrospect our everdayness living, including how architects do for living and for the architectural practice. These condition makes some re- adjustement in architectural program, in some level must renovate totally. The biggest problem in architect profession is the project coordination, because social distancing and large number of meeting member must reduced to minimal level. This condition pushs architects to review their working process in studio and on the projects field. Physical studio is no longer a good place to collaborate and must transform into the digital studio. Digital system become a bridge to connect between stakeholders and the architects. Digital tools and method becoming an extention tools for our eyes and sense. Digital methods and practices suddenly become a daily activities for every level in architecture firms, such as Big Data. The colabortive works in digital format become important, one of them is Building Information Modelling, works as collabortive tools in virtual digital studio. The coding and the scripting are the next language for architect must learn, beside the architecture itself. Within the epidemic, disruption of profession is not a discourse anymore, but a fact that must commenced. Creativity and colaborative is the survival tools in today harsh life .

Social Responsibility Programs may Strengthen the Medical Students’ Role to Fight against COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective: We aimed to explain the details of the “We, as well, are in the Fight Against Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)!” “online” Social Responsibility Project as a model to be used in medical education in the COVID-19 fight. The Project has been developed as a part of Phase 1 Medicine and Social Responsibility Program at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine in Turkey, and aimed to increase the social responsibility, awareness and sensitivity of the students in COVID-19 pandemic days. Material and Methods: All project phases were developed in collaborative work with Faculty Dean’s Office, Project Coordination Team, facilitators, and project groups student representatives. The Project was conducted online in May 2020 in 33 student groups, each of which comprised 10-15 students and an academic staff of the Faculty. All materials were shared simultaneously via the official website of Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine. Results: Various types of materials like reminders, infographics, videos, and other visuals have been prepared for the Project. Students shared all these materials via social media such as Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp groups. International students translated some materials into different languages to share the materials in their home-countries. The materials were prepared by Project Coordination Team by having the opinions and suggestions of the faculty members and students. Conclusion: Social Responsibility Project is thought to facilitate improving the sensitivity of the students in COVID-19 crisis. The Project has also contributed to improve the students’ capacity in the management of infodemic and accessing to the community.

Exploring Networked Project Coordination in Combined Utility Streetworks

Combined utility streetworks involve cable and pipeline owners and authorities that concurrently undertake work in the same physical space. In this networked project setting, ownership fragmentation and lacking formal coordination instruments complicate the integration of multi-stakeholder engineering and construction operations. Boundary spanners have a unique position to pursue integration in this complex system. To understand what it is that constitutes their practices, we explore them through Mintzberg’s seminal framework of informational, interpersonal, and decisional roles. Specifically, we extend the framework to the context of boundary spanning in networked projects by conducting semi-structured interviews with seven boundary spanners of combined utility streetworks: the so-called utility coordinators. Based on open coding of the interview data, we identified 149 performed activities, and twenty-three lower-level management roles (such as involving stakeholders; facilitating formal processes; and, creating a collective memory). Next, axial coding allowed us to tailor Mintzberg’s role model to networked project settings. Based on this, we reflect on how a setting that lacks formal coordination instruments influences the roles that boundary spanners adopt. This empirical study of coordination in networked projects contributes a case to the practice turn literature that calls for explorations of everyday organizational practices in their situated context. Other contributions are the extension of Mintzberg’s framework to networked projects; and, the development of two hypotheses about the position and roles of utility coordinators. Eventually, our findings may help practitioners identify what interpersonal and informational skills they need to improve alignment in loosely connected project networks.