Distributing Expertise in Agile Software Development Projects

Transcription

1 Distributing Expertise in Agile Software Development Projects Authors: Mawarny Md Rejab James Noble George Allan Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand

2 Presentation Outlines Introduction : Agile Teams Research Motivations Grounded Theory Research Findings Conclusion

3 Agile Teams Promoting cross-functional teams Being familiar and understanding others roles and tasks Participating beyond area of expertise Distributing expertise to enable the team knowledge can be shared and accessed

4 Research Motivations Most studies focus on knowledge sharing A few empirical studies focus on skills Leveraging expertise integration of knowledge and skills It is not easy to distribute expertise (Cho et al. 2011) Research Question How Agile teams leverage expertise through distribution of expertise

5 Grounded Theory Grounded Theory Inductive research method that aims to infer new theories from observed data The reasons for choosing Grounded Theory: more appropriate for exploring human behavior and social interaction (Glaser, 1992) 5

6 Data Collection Person Location Agile Role Agile Methods Project Domain P1 New Zealand Developer XP, Scrum Mobile application P2 New Zealand Agile Coach XP, Scrum, Kanban Not disclosed P3 Australia Agile Consultant Not disclosed Not disclosed P4 New Zealand Agile Coach Scrum, XP Education P5 New Zealand Software Tester Not disclosed Printing P6 Australia Team Leader Not disclosed Accounting P7 New Zealand Agile Consultant Scrum, XP Financial P8 Australia Agile Coach Scrum, XP, Kanban, Human Resources P9 New Zealand Business Analyst Not disclosed Insurance P10 New Zealand Software Tester Scrum Education P11 New Zealand Project Manager Scrum Education P12 New Zealand Agile Coach Scrum, Kanban Not disclosed P13 New Zealand Agile Coach Scrum, Kanban Government application P14 New Zealand Product Owner Not disclosed Not disclosed P15 New Zealand Agile Coach Scrum, Kanban Government application P16 New Zealand Agile Coach Scrum, Kanban Government application P17 New Zealand Developer Scrum Education P18 New Zealand Software Tester Scrum Education 6

7 Data Analysis category concept code key point data

8 Distributing Expertise Embracing a master-apprentice model Coaching and mentoring Engaging hands-on learning Establishing discussion platform Disseminating explicit knowledge

9 Embracing a Master-Apprentice Model Purpose To pull new expertise into Agile teams Implementation Master apprentice Learning by doing Temporary basis relationship Rotation with other team members

10 Coaching and Mentoring Coaching Agile coach Mentoring Mentor and mentee Purpose to pull new expertise or disseminate available expertise Coaching and Mentoring vs Master-Apprentice Model Purpose Implementation Coaching and Mentoring Disseminate new expertise Facilitation and training Master-Apprentice Model Disseminate expertise and produce an expert Learning by doing

11 Engaging Hands-on Learning Pair-programming Coding Dojo Internship Program

12 Establishing Discussion Platforms Interest group Chatting tools Robust debate

13 Disseminating Explicit Knowledge Video Sketching on whiteboard Document management tools

14 Discussion Successful methods - Pair-programming - Coaching and mentoring Further investigation - Master-apprentice model (Judy, 2009) - Internship program (Lindvall, 2002) - Document management tools (Settina and Heijstek, 2011) Inconsistent finding debate tends to delay knowledge transfer (Chau and Maurer. 2004)

15 Conclusion Several techniques to disseminate and pull expertise into teams More techniques through further investigation In future identify factors that affect the distribution of expertise in Agile teams

16 References T. Chau and F. Maurer, Knowledge sharing in agile software teams, in Logic versus approximation. Springer, 2004, pp J. Cho, R. Huff, and D. Olsen, Management guidelines for scrum agile software development process, Issues in Information Systems, vol. 12, no. 1, pp , K. H. Judy, Agile principles and ethical conduct, in System Sciences, HICSS nd Hawaii International Conference on. IEEE, 2009, pp B. G. Glaser and A. L. Strauss, The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Aldine de Gruyter, M. Lindvall, V. Basili, B. Boehm, P. Costa, K. Dangle, F. Shull, R. Tesoriero, L. Williams, and M. Zelkowitz, Empirical findings in agile methods, pp , C. J. Stettina and W. Heijstek, Necessary and neglected?: an empirical study of internal documentation in agile software development teams, in Proceedings of the 29th ACM international conference on Design of communication. ACM, 2011, pp

17 Thank you! Any enquiry, please feel free to contact: Mawarny Md Rejab School of Engineering and Computer Science Victoria University of Wellington Wellington, New Zealand.