Inter-team Coordination in Large-Scale Agile Software Development Projects

• Software development organizations worldwide are adopting values, principles, and frameworks to implement Agile ways of working. The advantages of Agile ways of working are seen in teams that are allowed a high level of autonomy. The Agile methods were initially designed for use in small, single-team projects, and routines for coordination between several teams have not been adopted in the same way as routines for coordination within the team. With several teams coordinating, autonomy must, to some extent, be sacrificed in the individual team. Work needs to be coordinated with other teams, and a project is often part of a portfolio or program. The purpose of this research is to investigate routines for inter-team coordination: how they are performed; if, how and why they are tailored, and the impacts of these added routines in relation to Agile values and principles, in particular team autonomy.This thesis is based on empirical studies at three organizations with disparate business logics. One is a product development department in the automotive industry, one is a business bank, and one is an IT department at a Swedish government agency. Data has been collected from 379 hours of on-site observations, 28 interviews, and 201 answers to a survey questionnaire.Insights from these cases build on coordination theories as well as institutional logics (new institutional theory). One contribution of this thesis is the rich descriptions of tailoring of inter-team coordination routines. Another contribution is the identified perceived impacts of the implemented inter-team coordination routines, especially regarding perceived changes to team autonomy. An important theoretical contribution is the identified and defined institutional logics (Agile toolbox logic, Agile rulebook logic, Flow efficiency logic, and Resource efficiency logic), which can be used for analysis of large-scale Agile software development projects.

• Software development organizations are implementing Agile values, principles, and frameworks all over the world. One important part of Agile is to allow teams to self-organize with a high level of autonomy; a strategy that has proved to be very successful. The Agile methods were initially designed for use in small, single-team projects. Routines for coordination between teams have not been adopted as much as routines for coordination within teams and have therefore not been much studied. A problem with several teams coordinating is that the autonomy must, to some extent, be sacrificed in the individual team when work needs to be coordinated with other teams, and a project is often part of a portfolio or program.This thesis provides insights and rich descriptions of routines for inter-team coordination in large-scale Agile software development projects. How they are performed, how and why they are tailored, and the impacts of these added routines.Empirical case studies have been performed at three large and diverse organizations: A company in the automotive industry, a business bank, and a Swedish government agency. Insights from this multiple-case study build on coordination theory as well as institutional logics (new institutional theory).

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik med samhällsvetenskaplig inriktning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Systems, Social aspects (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Inter-Team Coordination

Large-Scale Agile Software Development

Institutional logics

Scaled Agile Framework

Project Management

Information Systems

Informatik

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