1 Agile Experience communication and collaboration in agile software development teams Elizabeth Whitworth 7th September, 2006.

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Agile Experience

communication and collaboration in agile software development teams

Elizabeth Whitworth7th September, 2006

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Research quest?on

What is the experience of being in an agile software development team?

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Research quest?on

How do agile practices structure and mediate the experience of individuals developing software?

What are the socio-psychological characteristics surrounding agile practices and individuals within a software development team?

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Study data

18 one-on-one interviews

agile software development literature and community interaction

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Content of interviews

cohesive vs. non-cohesive teams

agile vs. non-agile teams

personal experiences and/or team activity

project characteristics

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Grounded theory

theory generation: line-by-line coding

memoing and analysis of data

results of study:high level understanding

confirmation from participants

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Cohesive teamwork

strong feelings of excitementteams that ‘clicked,’‘gelled,’‘really worked together’’

agile methodologies were seen to support team cohesiveness; more so than traditional software development methodologies

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Agile practices

the planning game

continuous integration

iterative development and delivery

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Agile practices

daily stand-ups

information radiators

shared team rooms

pairing

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Ease & speed

Agile culture:openness, honesty

transparent environment

trust, respect action-based culture

whole team involvement and availability frequent interaction and immersion

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Collective activity

Buy-in to shared team goals:

provide the most business value to the customer in the least amount of time

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Collective activity

prioritization & chunking of activitydevelopment around working software

reduce cognitive load

importance and immediacy discipline and rigor

clear measures of success

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holistic awareness& understanding

of team of project

of product

Context-rich information exchange and activity

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holistic awareness& understanding

team:familiarity and understanding

observe and refine working relationships

project:involvement and interesthelping and support

product:purpose and meaning

opportunistic action and collaboration

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Whole team awareness & feedback

constant feedback:whole team awareness and understanding

commitment towards team goalsfrequent and noticeable progress

for example: highly visible information radiators

daily or weekly team meetings

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Whole team awareness & feedback

whole team agreement, approval, and action

frequent and informal team interactions

social accountability and responsibility

recognition and appreciation

support and motivationshared team goals

self-regulating teams

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Conclusion detailed and transparent planning and activity

certainty in the project environmentsocial accountability and support

Holistic understanding and competence security and controlinvestment and involvementpride and ownership

balance of structure and freedomindividual freedom and initiative

ability to assess relative importance of goals

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Next stepsfurther investigation:

observational studiespsychological literature

areas for future study:critical success factorsnegative phenomenaagile practices

application:non-traditional contexts

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Quest?ons

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Conceptual frameworkTeamworking‘Self-regulating’, ‘self-managing’, ‘high-performance’

sociotechnical systems theory“the study of the relationships and inter-relationships between the social and technical parts of any system.” - Coakes (2000)

systems thinkingholistic, emergent effects,

dynamics of regulation

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Study focus: the agile system

This study involved the agile system made up of individuals, agile technology, and the group as a whole

Particularly the relationships between system entities

interdependenciesemergent effects, such as flow

feedback and feedforward mechanismseffects of technology

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Interview data18 interviews:

five developers, three interaction designers, five project managers, two agile coaches, three developers/project managers

Recruited at conferences, and through contacts in the agile software development community

5 members of the same software development team

Software development community: agile software development conferences and

workshops practitioner literature (print and online ) online correspondence

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Conducting interviewsExample Questions (initial):

Could you pick a software development team that you found particularly enjoyable or exciting to work in and describe it to me?

Could you describe the physical space the team was in? What was the experience of working in such a team?

Did you feel that [being in the same room] effected your interactions with your team-mates? How so?

Example Questions (later):Did you feel like you were part of the team? Why/why not?

Did you feel that you were able to approach your team members to ask for help? Why/why not?

How was responsibility divided among team members? How did you ensure that everything that needed to get done got done?

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Coding

Coding occurred line-by-line and provided a means of comparison across diverse participant experiences

Common themes were extracted as categories and explored across situations/participants

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Theoretical categories

Theoretical categories and related properties and dimensions were developed based on codes and memos

Diversity of data in this study, and complex nature of interactions made it difficult to define a core category about which to construct a comprehensive theory

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extra notes - awareness

Details?

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extra notes - conclusion

Success, progress and change