Disciplined Teams vs. Agile Teams

Software development has been considered a socio-technical activity over the past decades. Particularly, in the case of software engineering, the necessity to communicate effectively with stakeholders and team members has been progressively emphasized. Human resources play a critical role in the success of software projects. Many techniques, methods, tools, models, and methodologies have been proposed, applied, and improved in order to help and ease the management of the software development process. Regardless of the software development methodology adopted, delivering a quality product in a predictable, efficient, and responsive manner is the objective for every team. Disciplined and Agile teams have different characteristics, but also share common aspects when working to accomplish their goals. The main motivation of this chapter is to present the differences and similarities of both teams in the context of software development.

Expertise Coordination for Agile Software Development Projects

<p>Agile software development projects rely on the diversity of team members’ expertise. This expertise, however, is not adequate on its own: it is important to leverage available expertise through expertise coordination. Expertise coordination requires team members to rely on each other for recognizing who has particular expertise, when and where they are needed, and how to access the expertise effectively. Agile teams also need to rely on outside expertise such as user experience designers, architects, and database administrators. This thesis presents a theory of expertise coordination in Agile Software Development projects. We employed semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis in a Grounded Theory study involving 48 Agile practitioners and external specialists. This study discovered three main categories of expertise coordination: processes of expertise coordination, strategies of managing external expertise, and management roles in supporting expertise coordination. The theory provides a new insight into how Agile teams coordinate internal and external expertise, how they utilize external specialists and outsourcers’ expertise, and how management can support expertise coordination.</p>

Expertise Coordination for Agile Software Development Projects

<p>Agile software development projects rely on the diversity of team members’ expertise. This expertise, however, is not adequate on its own: it is important to leverage available expertise through expertise coordination. Expertise coordination requires team members to rely on each other for recognizing who has particular expertise, when and where they are needed, and how to access the expertise effectively. Agile teams also need to rely on outside expertise such as user experience designers, architects, and database administrators. This thesis presents a theory of expertise coordination in Agile Software Development projects. We employed semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis in a Grounded Theory study involving 48 Agile practitioners and external specialists. This study discovered three main categories of expertise coordination: processes of expertise coordination, strategies of managing external expertise, and management roles in supporting expertise coordination. The theory provides a new insight into how Agile teams coordinate internal and external expertise, how they utilize external specialists and outsourcers’ expertise, and how management can support expertise coordination.</p>

Reconciling agility and architecture: a theory of agile architecture

<p>The purpose of agile software development is to enable the software development team to respond to change and learn from change so that it can better deliver value to its customer. If an agile software development team spends too much time planning and designing architecture up-front then the delivery of value to the customer is delayed or otherwise compromised, and responding to change can become extremely difficult. Not doing enough architecture design increases exposure to risk and increases the chance of failure. The balance between architecture and agility is not well understood by agile practitioners or researchers. This thesis is based on grounded theory research involving 44 participants from 36 organisations, all working in agile software development and who are either experienced in architecture design or are closely involved with architecture. The thesis presents a theory that describes how agile software teams design an agile architecture with reduced up-front design and which is able to respond to change, helping teams find a balance between architecture and agility. The theory describes six forces that affect the agility of the architecture and up-front design, and five strategies that teams use in response to those forces to determine how much effort they put into up-front design. Understanding these forces and strategies helps agile teams to determine how much up-front design is appropriate in their contexts.</p>

Reconciling agility and architecture: a theory of agile architecture

<p>The purpose of agile software development is to enable the software development team to respond to change and learn from change so that it can better deliver value to its customer. If an agile software development team spends too much time planning and designing architecture up-front then the delivery of value to the customer is delayed or otherwise compromised, and responding to change can become extremely difficult. Not doing enough architecture design increases exposure to risk and increases the chance of failure. The balance between architecture and agility is not well understood by agile practitioners or researchers. This thesis is based on grounded theory research involving 44 participants from 36 organisations, all working in agile software development and who are either experienced in architecture design or are closely involved with architecture. The thesis presents a theory that describes how agile software teams design an agile architecture with reduced up-front design and which is able to respond to change, helping teams find a balance between architecture and agility. The theory describes six forces that affect the agility of the architecture and up-front design, and five strategies that teams use in response to those forces to determine how much effort they put into up-front design. Understanding these forces and strategies helps agile teams to determine how much up-front design is appropriate in their contexts.</p>

Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory

<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>

Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory

<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>

Interaction Design and Agile Development: a Real World Perspective

<p>Although both agile development methods and interaction design aim to build quality software that meets the user's needs, each approaches development from a different perspective. Agile development methods describe activities addressing the coding (and in some cases the process management) part of software development, whereas interaction design methods describe activities for developing that aspect of the software that will be perceived by the user. Agile development and interaction design each have little to say about the other, despite the reality that both approaches are combined in practice. There has been little investigation into how the two processes work together, and the issues that arise. To aim for a better understanding of practice, we conducted grounded theory research about real-world software teams who combine interaction design and agile development. The results provided insights into interaction design being done up front (before implementation begins), the structure of the development iterations, the effect of incorporating interaction design techniques into the agile development iterations, as well as the role of the interaction designer on agile teams. The analysis also highlighted areas that may benefit from further research.</p>