Zugl.: Karlsruhe, Universiẗat, Habil.-Schr.

The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of an agile way of working at an IT organization in a context of a surrounding and otherwise manufacturing industrial organization, when it comes to software development projects. Thus the study aims to answer whether to what extent agile methodologies are manifested at an IT organization, what is demanded of the IT organization in order to follow agile values and principles, and whether it is possible to develop software according to agile values and principles in an IT organization in the above mentioned context. The study has been carried out as a case study at a case company where an IT organization, within a larger organization, was investigated. The study consisted of a pre-study, a literature review and an empirical study followed by analysis of the gathered data. The pre-study aimed to give the authors relevant insights into the case company as well as to the available academic literature. During the pre-study eight initial interviews were conducted, at the case company, among project managers, methodology experts and group managers. The pre-study was used in order to define and refine the scope of this study. From this the authors investigated literature relevant to their findings in the pre-study and to the scope. The literature review was used to formulate the theoretical framework of this study. The theoretical framework is mainly based on academic journals complemented by various publications and books. The empirical study was conducted by investigations of four software development projects, at the case company. Here nine interviews were conducted among the project managers, customers of the projects, and with managers of the IT organization. The empirical study have then been analyzed using the theoretical framework in order to form the conclusions of this report. The theory presents benefits, drawbacks and demands when it comes to agile methodologies in software development. The importance of support from the IT department, and from the customer, to a project is especially highlighted in literature. The empirical study presents findings of both agile and non-agile projects operating in the above mentioned organization. Several advantages and drawbacks have been identified regarding agile projects in the organization. Also hinders for an agile way of working, in the form or organizational demands, extensive processes, limited support and customer commitment have also been seen. While benefits regarding agile projects can be identified, in the context of an IT organization functioning within a larger industrial manufacturing organization, several drawbacks and hinders are also prominent. The analysis show agile values and principles manifested in the IT organization agile practices are harder to identify. It is also seen that an organization should strive for agility on several organizational levels in order to support an agile way of working. Regarding the surrounding organization an agile way of working is seen to be possible. Furthermore several benefits are identified, for a customer, when it comes to agile projects. However agile methodologies are also seen to be demanding when it comes to time, commitment and external support. Putting this in the context of an IT organization developing business support systems for a surrounding organization the benefits, while still prominent, can be further discussed.

This dissertation aims to assist Agile champions in their organisations with their Agile adoption journey. Such a journey typically starts with identifying the Agile challenges and then determining how to address these challenges in their unique context (Hajjdiab & Taleb, 2011a:9). This study provides a manual together with an automated framework to showcase a list of prioritised Agile challenges and their corresponding possible solutions. Before reaching this automated framework, the research presented a comprehensive list of Agile adoption challenges, possible solutions and a mapping between them. The automated framework, also named Agile Adoption Coach (AAC), is in the form of an online tool: www.agilesense.coza/aac. The critical quantitative contribution to this study was the evaluation of the AAC by Scrum Masters and Agile coaches to determine the acceptability of the tool. The research has shown that there is, on average, an 86% acceptability rating for this tool in South Africa. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)

Tübingen, University, Diss., 2004.

Many organizations aspire to adopt agile processes to take advantage of the numerous benefits that it offers to an organization. Those benefits include, but are not limited to, quicker return on investment, better software quality, and higher customer satisfaction. To date however, there is no structured process (at least that is published in the public domain) that guides organizations in adopting agile practices. To address this situation, we present the Agile Adoption Framework and the innovative approach we have used to implement it. The framework consists of two components: an agile measurement index, and a 4-Stage process, that together guide and assist the agile adoption efforts of organizations. More specifically, the Sidky Agile Measurement Index (SAMI) encompasses five agile levels that are used to identify the agile potential of projects and organizations. The 4-Stage process, on the other hand, helps determine (a) whether or not organizations are ready for agile adoption, and (b) guided by their potential, what set of agile practices can and should be introduced. To help substantiate the "goodness" of the Agile Adoption Framework, we presented it to various members of the agile community, and elicited responses through questionnaires. The results of that substantiation effort are encouraging, and also suggest further avenues for improvement. / Ph. D.

Today, organisations are increasingly using project-based activities, as projects can aid organisations to deal with unique and complicated assignments, as well as achieving strategic and operational goals. Two extensive project management methodologies exist, those being Traditional Project Management and Agile Project Management. Agile methods trademark change, adaptability, and flexibility, and are today used across industries and business, as the characteristics of the methodology make it suitable in today’s dynamic business environment. Even though projects are increasingly being used, it is inconsistent with the remarkably low project success rates found. It has been found that only 30 per cent of projects are successful within the technology field. Consequently, this stress the need to understand the inconsistencies found as well as generating suggestions for how to improve them. It is arguable that the inconsistencies may be caused by the difficulty to define project success. Researchers argue that the definition of project success is difficult to pinpoint as it varies depending on both individual perspectives and situational factors such as the organisation and the project type. It is also questionable whether or not appropriate methods have been used to evaluate the success of a project, and that the use of inappropriate methods may have contributed to the low success rates. Researchers argue that the traditional way of evaluating project success, by adhering to schedule, cost, and scope, is outdated and incomplete, and some have therefore developed new models that they consider more accurate for evaluating project success. One of these researchers is Highsmith, one of the founders of the Agile Manifesto. Highsmith has developed the Agile Triangle to better correspond to the agile trademarks of change, adaptability, and flexibility when evaluating success on agile projects. This study aimed to contribute with new insights into theoretical and practical aspects of agile project success by studying agile project success from a project manager perspective. This thesis also aimed to generate an understanding of project managers’ perception of the Agile Triangle as a success criterion. We interviewed seven Swedish project managers who have all worked with agile projects. After thoroughly analysing the results we could create a definition of agile project success as well as develop an Agile Project Success Criteria Model, representing the view of Swedish project managers. Agile project success was defined as a project that generates value in a sustainable manner. The agile project success criteria found important within this study are: Value, Team Success, Quality, Business Benefits, and Constraints. It was also found that Flexibility, even though it should not be included as a success criterion itself, is still a key ingredient when using Agile Project Management methodologies, as it affects all important success criteria. These findings highlight the insufficiency of the Agile Triangle as a success criterion, as Team Success and Business Benefits, criteria additional to those within the Agile Triangle, were found important. It was also found that the project managers question the practical applicability of the Agile Triangle and consider it to be similar to the Iron Triangle.

Agile software development approaches have emerged as a response to perceived frustrations of more heavyweight plan-driven methods, and have now become well established within the information systems field. More recently, there has been a tremendous growth in applying agile methods in globally distributed settings. In light of this, there is a pressing need to understand how agile practices are adapted which were originally conceived for collocated settings, and now actually being used in globally distributed settings, taking into account the challenges posed by such contexts. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to this research gap, with a quest to better understand and unpack the "black-box" of how collaborative practices evolve within global agile settings. The value of this research lies in improving and advancing our understanding of the challenges the team members go through in adapting agile practices in global contexts. The research also explores how collaborative practices can support agility in globally distributed settings. In order to contribute to knowledge and increase conceptual clarity, there is a need to carry out in-depth and in-situ research within an organisational context. By taking a socio-technical perspective this study intends to extend our existing knowledge on how collaborative practices are evolving in real-time practice within globally distributed agile settings. The empirical evidence is drawn from a globally distributed team, operating in a global financial bank with offices based in London and Delhi. Interpretive research methods including semi-structured interviews and observations are used to understand team members' experiences of developing collaborative practices in a globally distributed context. Although existing literature on agile software development acknowledges the intrinsic significance of collaboration for effective functioning of agile methods, current studies fail to demonstrate a situated practice perspective on how collaborative practices are adapted in globally distributed settings. This study enlists the analytical concepts of boundary objects and Pickering's "mangle of practice" to better understand the process of how collaborative practices evolve in globally distributed agile teams. The resulting analysis provides us with a much more nuanced understanding of how interactions take place in developing collaborative practices in globally distributed contexts. The findings reveal that collaborative practices within such settings tend not to follow from pre-set expectations of how agile practices should work, but are temporally emergent. Team members have to revise collaborative practices through an ongoing process of mutual "tuning" within their situated contexts, in order to achieve a gradual state of interactive stability or a steadiness of practices. The results demonstrate how actors address the challenges in developing shared understandings to drive forward the joint software development process across global locations and move towards supporting agility within the projects. The thesis presents a pluralistic conceptual framework called the Collaborative Tuning Approach, which aids in gaining critical insights of issues related to adapting agile practices and also demonstrates how collaborative practices can act as enabler to achieving agility in such settings. The framework explains the challenges the team members face and how these are overcome when attempting to modify practices and indeed how these evolve through an ongoing state of flux and uncertainty leading to hybrid agile practices.

<p>This research paper discusses the software development through agile approaches. In which we see that most of the time, agile approaches cannot use for all type of projects. But this paper is exploring the new ideas that how we can use the agile methodologies with the help of traditional approach and PSP/TSP/Software CMMI. So, the over all paper is giving the whole idea, that we can develop any type of software projects through the new agile methodology guidelines which we are describing here. As well as for solving this paper we adopted different ways in which we focused on literature study & also published research paper on agile methodology. In addition, we did this work on the base of hybrid ideology where we combined the best ways of different approaches and achieved our goals.. Where we proved that by the combination of these approaches, we can manage our projects as well as team personals in the organization successfully. And this concept for team management comes from PSP/TSP and Software CMMI. The benefit for management of this is also to get our projects with agility and personnel's training for project management.</p>

Transitioning to the Agile style of software development has become an increasing phenomenon among software companies. The commonly perceived advantages of Agile, such as shortened time to market, improved efficiency, and reduced development waste are among key driving motivations of organizations to Agile. Each year a considerable number of empirical studies are being published, reporting on successful or unfavorable outcomes of enacting Agile in various organizations. Reusing this body of knowledge, and turning it into a concise and reachable source of information on Agile practices, can help many software organizations which are at the edge of transition to Agile, dealing with the uncertainties of such a decision. One of the early steps of transitioning to Agile (or any other process model) is to confirm the adaptability of new process with the current organization. Various Agile adoption frameworks have proposed different checklists to test the readiness of an organization for becoming Agile, or to identify the required adaptation criteria. Transitioning to Agile, as a significant organizational initiative, is a strategic decision, which should be made with respect to key objectives of the target organization. Having a reliable anticipation of how a new process model will impact the strategic objectives helps organizational managers to choose a process model, which brings optimum advantage to the organization. This thesis introduces a framework for evaluating new Agile practices (compartments of Agile methods) prior to their adoption in an organization. The framework has two distinguishing characteristics: first, it acts strategically, as it puts the strategic model of organization at the center of many decision makings that should be performed during Agile adoption; and second, it is based on a repository of Agile practices that allows the framework to benefit from the empirical knowledge of Agile methods, in order to improve the reliability of its outcomes. This repository has been populated through an extensive literature review of empirical studies on Agile methods. The framework was put in practice in an industrial case, at one of the R&D units of Ericsson Company in Italy. The target R&D unit was proposed with a number of Agile practices. The application of framework helped R&D unit managers to strategically decide on the new process proposal, by having a better understanding of its strategic shortcomings and strengths. A key portion of framework’s analysis results were evaluated one year after the R&D unit made the transition to Agile, showing that over 75% of pre-adoption analysis results came to reality after the enactment of new process into the organization.

This research paper discusses the software development through agile approaches. In which we see that most of the time, agile approaches cannot use for all type of projects. But this paper is exploring the new ideas that how we can use the agile methodologies with the help of traditional approach and PSP/TSP/Software CMMI. So, the over all paper is giving the whole idea, that we can develop any type of software projects through the new agile methodology guidelines which we are describing here. As well as for solving this paper we adopted different ways in which we focused on literature study & also published research paper on agile methodology. In addition, we did this work on the base of hybrid ideology where we combined the best ways of different approaches and achieved our goals.. Where we proved that by the combination of these approaches, we can manage our projects as well as team personals in the organization successfully. And this concept for team management comes from PSP/TSP and Software CMMI. The benefit for management of this is also to get our projects with agility and personnel's training for project management.