| 1. |
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Agility Across Time and Space : Making Agile Distributed Development a Success
- 2010
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Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Rather than deciding whether or not to get involved in global sourcing, many companies are facing decisions about whether or not to apply agile methods in their distributed projects. These companies are often motivated by the opportunities to solve the coordination and communication difficulties associated with global software development. Yet while agile principles prescribe close interaction and co-location, the very nature of distributed software development does not support these prerequisites. Šmite, Moe, and Ågerfalk structured the book into five parts. In “Motivation” the editors introduce the fundamentals of agile distributed software development and explain the rationale behind the application of agile practices in globally distributed software projects. “ Transition” describes implementation strategies, adoption of particular agile practices for distributed projects, and general concepts of agility. “Management” details practical implications for project planning, time management, and customer and subcontractor interaction. “Teams” discusses agile distributed team configuration, effective communication and knowledge transfer, and allocation of roles and responsibilities. Finally, in the “Epilogue” the editors summarize all contributions and present future trends for research and practice in agile distributed development. This book is primarily targeted at researchers, lecturers, and students in empirical software engineering, and at practitioners involved in globally distributed software projects. The contributions are based on sound empirical research and identify gaps and commonalities in both the existing state of the art and state of the practice. In addition, they also offer practical advice through many hints, checklists, and experience reports. Questions answered in this book include: What should companies expect from merging agile and distributed strategies? What are the stumbling blocks that prevent companies from realizing the benefits of the agile approach in distributed environments, and how can we recognize infeasible strategies and unfavorable circumstances? What helps managers cope with the challenges of implementing agile approaches in distributed software development projects? How can distributed teams survive the decisions taken by management and become efficient through the application of agile approaches?
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| 2. |
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Agility Across Time and Space : Implementing Agile Methods in Global Software Projects
- 2010. - 1
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Editorial collection (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Rather than deciding whether or not to get involved in global sourcing, many companies are facing decisions about whether or not to apply agile methods in their distributed projects. These companies are often motivated by the opportunities to solve the coordination and communication difficulties associated with global software development. Yet while agile principles prescribe close interaction and co-location, the very nature of distributed software development does not support these prerequisites. Šmite, Moe, and Ågerfalk structured the book into five parts. In "Motivation" the editors introduce the fundamentals of agile distributed software development and explain the rationale behind the application of agile practices in globally distributed software projects. "Transition" describes implementation strategies, adoption of particular agile practices for distributed projects, and general concepts of agility. "Management" details practical implications for project planning, time management, and customer and subcontractor interaction. "Teams" discusses agile distributed team configuration, effective communication and knowledge transfer, and allocation of roles and responsibilities. Finally, in the "Epilogue" the editors summarize all contributions and present future trends for research and practice in agile distributed development. This book is primarily targeted at researchers, lecturers, and students in empirical software engineering, and at practitioners involved in globally distributed software projects. The contributions are based on sound empirical research and identify gaps and commonalities in both the existing state of the art and state of the practice. In addition, they also offer practical advice through many hints, checklists, and experience reports. Questions answered in this book include: What should companies expect from merging agile and distributed strategies? What are the stumbling blocks that prevent companies from realizing the benefits of the agile approach in distributed environments, and how can we recognize infeasible strategies and unfavorable circumstances? What helps managers cope with the challenges of implementing agile approaches in distributed software development projects? How can distributed teams survive the decisions taken by management and become efficient through the application of agile approaches?
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| 3. |
- Dingsoyr, Torgeir, et al.
(author)
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Towards Principles of Large-Scale Agile Development A Summary of the Workshop at XP2014 and a Revised Research Agenda
- 2014
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In: AGILE METHODS. - 9783319143583 ; , s. 1-8
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Large projects are increasingly adopting agile development practices, and this raises new challenges for research. The workshop on principles of large-scale agile development focused on central topics in large-scale: the role of architecture, inter-team coordination, portfolio management and scaling agile practices. We propose eight principles for large-scale agile development, and present a revised research agenda.
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| 4. |
- Dingsøyr, Torgeir, et al.
(author)
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Towards an Understanding of Scaling Frameworks and Business Agility
- 2018
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In: 19th International Conference On Agile Software Development (Xp '18). - New York, NY, USA : ACM Digital Library.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Large development projects and programs are conducted using agile development methods, with an increasing body of advice from practitioners and from research. This sixth workshop showed in increasing interest in scaling frameworks and in topics related to achieving business agility. This article summarizes four contributed papers, discussions in "open space" format and also presents a revised research agenda for large-scale agile development.
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| 5. |
- Hanssen, Geir Kjetil, et al.
(author)
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Signs of agile trends in global software engineering research : A tertiary study
- 2011
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper we present preliminary findings from a tertiary study on global software engineering. In particular, we observe current trends in the software engineering research and perform an investigation of the role of agile topics in the GSE research literature. Our findings indicate that agility is one of the topics attracting attention in the research agenda for global software companies. In contrast to recent beliefs that agile and distributed are two incompatibilities Global Agile development becomes more and more accepted, a trend which we also see from the growing amount of research on GSE and agile. Finally we conclude that there are indications that both globalization and "agilization" of software companies are stable trends for the future but that there is a strong need for further studies on the particular challenges that distribution of work imposes on the principles of agile development.
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| 6. |
- Moe, Nils Brede, et al.
(author)
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Attractive Workplaces : What Are Engineers Looking for?
- 2023
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In: IEEE Software. - : IEEE Computer Society. - 0740-7459 .- 1937-4194. ; 40:5, s. 85-93
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Competing for talents requires a conscious effort to offer an attractive workplace, which, until recently, involved increasing employee empowerment and engagement and offering opportunities for bottom-up innovation. Today, this is not sufficient, pushing tech companies to harmonize existing strategies with remote work.
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| 7. |
- Moe, Nils Brede, et al.
(author)
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Finding the sweet spot for organizational control and team autonomy in large-scale agile software development
- 2021
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In: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer. - 1382-3256 .- 1573-7616. ; 26:5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Agile methods and the related concepts of employee empowerment, self-management, and autonomy have reached large-scale software organizations and raise questions about commonly adopted principles for authority distribution. However, the optimum mechanism to balance the need for alignment, quality, and process control with the need or willingness of teams to be autonomous remains an unresolved issue. In this paper, we report our findings from a multiple-case study in two large-scale software development organizations in the telecom industry. We analysed the autonomy of the agile teams in the organizations using Hackman’s classification of unit authority and found that the teams were partly self-managing. Further, we found that alignment across teams can be achieved top-down by management and bottom-up through membership in communities or through dialogue between the team and management. However, the degree of team autonomy was limited by the need for organizational alignment. Top-down alignment and control were maintained through centralized decision-making for certain areas, the use of supervisory roles, mandatory processes, and checklists. One case employed a bottom-up approach to alignment through the formation of a community composed of all teams, experts, and supporting roles, but excluding managers. This community-based alignment involved teams in decision-making and engaged them in alignment initiatives. We conclude that implementation of such bottom-up structures seems to provide one possible mechanism for balancing organizational control and team autonomy in large-scale software development. © 2021, The Author(s).
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| 8. |
- Moe, Nils Brede, et al.
(author)
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From offshore outsourcing to insourcing and partnerships : four failed outsourcing attempts
- 2014
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In: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer. - 1382-3256 .- 1573-7616. ; 19:5, s. 1225-1258
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Most large software companies are involved in offshore development, now small and medium-sized companies are starting to undertake global sourcing too. Empirical research suggests that offshoring is not always successful; however, only a few comprehensive failure stories have been reported. The objective of our study has been to understand why small and medium-sized companies terminate their offshore outsourcing relationships and what alternative arrangements they undertake afterwards. Therefore, we designed a multiple case study of four medium-sized Scandinavian software companies that have terminated their offshore outsourcing relationships. Our results are based on data collected through semi-structured interviews, informal dialogues and analysis of company documents. We found that all companies terminated their offshore contracts because of low quality of the software being developed. This was caused by an inability to build the necessary human and social capital. The companies reported challenges with domain knowledge, a lack of commitment of external developers, cultural clashes, poor communication and high turnover, which only amplified the problems. After termination all four companies changed their sourcing strategy from offshore outsourcing to offshore insourcing and partnerships. We conclude that successful offshore software development requires a change from a cost-driven focus to an intellectual capital driven focus. To prevent continuous investments into contracts that are destined to fail, companies should look for signs of escalating commitments and terminate relationships that cannot be corrected. Those companies that choose outsourcing shall also take into account that mismatch between the size of the offshore contract relative to the vendor may have a negative effect on a relationship.
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| 9. |
- Moe, Nils Brede, et al.
(author)
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From Offshore Outsourcing to Offshore Insourcing : Three Stories
- 2012
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Most large software companies are involved in offshore development of some sort, and now the trend is that small and medium sized companies are also going global. While empirical research suggests that offshoring are not always successful, evidence explaining the reasons for terminated collaborations is scarce, especially for small and medium sized companies. In this paper we explore the stories of three Scandinavian medium-sized software companies that have terminated their offshore outsourcing relationships and changed to offshore insourcing arrangements. The main reason for termination was disappointing low quality of the software delivered, being caused by insufficient domain knowledge, high turnover and a lack of motivation among the remote and external developers. We apply the theory of single-loop and double-loop learning in order to explain why the companies failed to correct the experienced problems, and the theory of escalating commitment to explain why the companies did not correct the failing course of action earlier. Finally we describe the change in the choice of the principle sourcing strategy from outsourcing to insourcing.
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| 10. |
- Moe, Nils Brede, et al.
(author)
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Networking in a Large-Scale Distributed Agile Project
- 2014
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context: In large-scale distributed software projects the expertise may be scattered across multiple locations. Goal: We describe and discuss a large-scale distributed agile project at Ericsson, a multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Sweden. The project is distributed across four development locations (one in Sweden, one in Korea and two in China) and employs 17 teams. In such a large scale environment the challenge is to have as few dependences between teams as possible, which is one reason why Ericsson introduced crossfunctional feature teams – teams that are capable of taking the full responsibility for implementing one entire feature. To support such teams when solving problems, ensure knowledge sharing within the project and safeguard the quality Ericsson introduced a new role – Technical Area Responsible (TAR). Method: We conducted extensive fieldwork for 9 months at two Ericsson sites in Sweden and China. We interviewed representatives from different roles in the organization, in addition to focus groups and a survey with seven teams. Results: We describe the TAR role, and how the TARs communicate, coordinate and support the teams. Also architects support the teams, however not as closely as the TARs. We found that the TAR is usually a senior developer working halftime or fulltime in the role. We also present measures of the actual knowledge network of three Chinese and three Swedish teams and the TARs position in it. Conclusions: TARs are central in the knowledge network and act as the boundary spanners between the teams and between the sites. We learned that availability of the TARs across sites is lower than that with local TARs. We also found that the size of a team’s knowledge network depends on how long the team members have been working in the company. Finally we discuss the advantages and the challenges of introducing experts in key roles in large scale distributed agile development.
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