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Agile software development methods are characterized by developer’s empowerment through self-organization, incremental requirements and constant knowledge sharing. Despite some effort to elaborate how successfully agile methods can be applied in co-located development teams, little is known on how the same is done when the development teams are distributed. Our research focus is to uncover factors that influence the successful application of agile methods in distributed development teams using a software development company as our case study. With three distributed teams applying different agile methods, we conducted focused ethnography alongside interviews to comprehend what and how various factors under distributed development teams influence successful agile methods application. It seems, all that matters is team structure, team spirit, effective communication, product requirements, and knowledge sharing. The team structure has more influence than other factors and therefore our suggestions for successful application of agile methods in distributed software development is to focus on the development team, above all factors. The analysis shows that the development methods themselves have little to do with the successful application of agile methods in distributed software development teams.

Very little research in software engineering has focused on the model of a programmer working alone. These so-called cowboys are disdained for not working in teams to build software. In reality many cowboys work by themselves due to the circumstances of their work environment, not because they are unable or unwilling to work with well with others. These solo programmers could benefit from a methodology to assist them in consistently developing reliable software on time and within budget while satisfying the customer's needs. Cowboy was designed to help fill this void. This agile-based system incorporates the benefits of agile methodologies into a lightweight, customer-centered approach to software development for the lone developer. This thesis describes Cowboy and its successful application in developing a prototype for a web application.

Agila metoder och modeller ses ofta som nytänkande och används idag flitigt av företag och organisationer runt om i värden. I realiteten är grunden till det agila metoderna idag 13 år och mycket har hänt, både teknisk och kring sättet vi arbetar, sedan 2001. Den agila metodiken baseras på två dokument, det agila manifestet och de agila principerna, där principerna är till för att konkretisera manifestet. Eftersom principerna är konkreta anser vi att de har en stark koppling till hur agil utveckling de facto bedrivs. Vi har därför valt att undersöka hur principerna står sig bland utvecklarna över ett decennium efter att de skrevs samt om utvecklarna ser ett behov av revidering och vilka delar de i så fall skulle vilja förändra. För att ta reda på detta genomförde vi fyra intervjuer med utvecklare som alla hade olika erfarenhet av agilt arbete samt utgick från en tidigare kvantitativ undersökning i ämnet. Slutsatsen av undersökning är att de agila principerna fortfarande står sig bra bland utvecklarna men att det finns ett behov av revidering. Original utformningen är dock så pass väl fungerande att behovet inte är omedelbart. Det finns flera ämnen som våra respondenter tagit upp som är viktiga att ta hänsyn till där kvalitet och dokumentation är de ämnen som står ut i mängden. I mångt och mycket överensstämmer vårt resultat med den undersökning vi utgått från vilket tyder på att den bild som förmedlas av de båda undersökningarna har en god förankring hos utvecklarna, även om det finns områden där våra resultat skiljer sig från varandra. / Agile methodology and models has a wide group of supporters among organizations and companies and is often seen as innovative. The agile methods are now 13 years and a lot has happened since then, both in our ways of working and in the technology we use. The agile methodology is based on two documents, the agile manifesto and the agile principles. The principles embodies the manifesto and in our view creates a strong connection with reality and by that a strong connection with how software is developed. To find out if the principles still are viable and used among developers and if a revision of them is needed we performed a survey based on four interviews and a previously conducted quantitative study. The conclusion of this survey is that the principles are used and works well in development projects and are well thought of by the developers but there is still a need for a revision. How this revision would look and when it should be done is hard to say, the need for it aren’t urgent because of the general support of the original principles are still strong. There are a couple of different areas that our respondents point out as important where quality and documentation stands out as the most important that organizations working agile have to focus on in their daily work. Our survey and the study we used as an inspiration ends up in mostly the same conclusions with only few differences, which we see as a confirmation that our study reflects the developers’ view.

Detta arbete är en reflektion över ett programvaruutvecklingsprojekt, WAIS, och den arbetsmetodik som användes för detta projekt. Arbetsmetodiken för utvecklings-projektet var Extreme Programming (XP) och vi ifrågasätter om detta val var lämpligt för ett projekt som WAIS. Projektet genomfördes vid Blekinge Tekniska Högskola under våren 2004. Utvecklingsprojektet WAIS var en del av ett större projekt, AIS 42, som stöds av VINNOVA. Huvudprojektets bakgrund och syfte beskrivs för att läsaren skall förstå den roll projektet hade. Studenternas uppgift har varit att utveckla en prototyp för ett system som skall sprida information relaterad till logistik och transporter. Slutanvändarna till systemet är många och de tillhör olika organisationer som är spridda både fysiskt och verksamhetsmässigt. Arbetsmetodiken XP faller in under paraplybegreppet Agile manifesto vilkas principer beskrivs i detta arbete. Paralleller dras till arbetsprocessen och dess resultat som projektgruppen har utfört. Vi reflekterar över projektarbetet och arbetsmetodiken utifrån det perspektiv som växt fram under våra år på MDA-programmet. Synsättet bygger bland annat på particpatory design och människa-datorinteraktion där användarmedverkan har en central roll vid utvecklingsprocesser. Vår slutsats visar att utvecklingsprojektet gått miste om flera av de fördelar som arbetsmetodiken XP kan ge. De orsaker som identifierades var: tidsaspekter, tillgång till aktörer och avsaknaden av en tydlig gemensam målbild. / This thesis is a reflection over a software engineering project, WAIS, and the work methodology that has been used within the project. Extreme Programming (XP) was the work methodology used during the process of development. We question if the choice of work methodology is suitable for this kind of project. The project was running by student during spring 2004 at Blekinge Institute of technology (BTH). The project WAIS was a part of a larger project named AIS 42 that runs with funds from VINNOVA. The main projects background and purpose are described in thesis so that the reader can understand the students’ part in the projects as a whole. The students’ main task was to develop a prototype for a system that disseminates information about logistics and transports. The system has many different end users and they come from various organizations that are spread out both physical and organizational. XP is treated as a methodology with in Agile manifesto, which principles are being explained in the thesis. Parallels are being drawn between the work process and the result from the work done. We reflect over the process and the work methodology from a perspective that has been brought forth from our years of education at BTH. The approach is built up upon theories from participatory design and human computer interaction where the user has an essential part of the process of development. The conclusion shows that the project has missed some of the advantages that XP brings. The reasons that we identified were; timeaspects, access to users and the lack of a joint objectiv.

The present work is focused on project management and the relationship of this discipline to agile approaches. The aim was to design a generic agile project management methodolo-gy, which is based on Agile values and attitudes. Although the proposed methodology is mainly based on agile software development methodologies, it is also applicable to any type of project. The secondary objective was to propose possible ways of using this generic agile project management methodology in teaching 4IT414 - ICT Project Management, including the creation of documents to support this application. The work is divided into theoretical and practical. First the author defined the basic terms and knowledge of project management and subsequent-them, then also agile approaches and methodologies. In the practical part was introduced generic methodology for agile pro-ject management and proposed a possible way of involving the teaching methodology, including the design documents to serve. The objectives were met. Work can serve students agile approaches and project management, their teachers and the general public. The proposed methodology may be used for studies and real environments in various companies and institutions.

Agile Methoden sind in der industriellen Anwendung Stand der Technik, wobei Scrum das am häufigsten verwendete Prozess-Framework zur effektiven Entwicklung komplexer Produkte ist. Entworfen wurde Scrum von Ken Schwaber und Jeff Sutherland, die ebenfalls 2001 das agile Manifest mitentwickelten, welches die vier Werte und zwölf Prinzipien für die Arbeit mit agilen Methoden definiert. Scrum zeichnet sich unter anderem durch flache Hierarchien aus. Hierdurch erhalten Mitarbeitende zunehmend Verantwortung und es entsteht aufgrund der vermehrt stattfindenden Kommunikation eine erhöhte Transparenz in allen Prozessen. Diese Eigenschaften bringen viele Vorteile aber auch Herausforderungen mit sich. Einerseits kann hohe Transparenz durch Offenlegung der Arbeit zu Unsicherheit seitens der Mitarbeitenden führen, andererseits sorgt die erhöhte Verantwortung auch für einen größeren Einfluss der einzelnen Team-Mitglieder auf das Ergebnis der Arbeitsprozesse. Die Motivation und Leistungsbereitschaft der Mitarbeitenden sind demzufolge ausschlaggebend für die erfolgreiche Produktentwicklung mit Scrum. Gamification ist ein neuer, vielversprechender Ansatz zur Steigerung der Motivation und wird dabei definiert als „die Verwendung von Spiel-Designelementen in Nicht-Spielkontexten“. Die dieser Veröffentlichung zugrundeliegende Forschung bildet die Grundlage zur Entwicklung von dedizierten Gamification-Strategien mit dem Ziel der Optimierung von Motivation und folglich der Leistung der Mitarbeitenden im Scrum-Entwicklungsprozess.

In the modern world, Scrum is widely adopted by many companies for software development, no matter the size of the company. As Scrum provides rapid development and meets the customer needs in a faster and efficient way, many companies want to move towards Scrum but moving towards Scrum is difficult and challenging due to different barriers for example cost, lack of experience, and so on. This thesis is to address the barriers which are involved during the Scrum adoption for software start-up companies such as communication, team mindset, backlog refining, daily stand up, and retrospective meetings. In this research report, these issues are divided based on the factors such as organization, people, process, and tools. We have figured out these barriers using action research based on the observation done during the Scrum team meetings and through interviews and surveys.

Many organizations from and outside of the IT industry are trying to implement Agile in their ways of working via large scale transformations. The organizations feels the need to become Agile in order to increase their client satisfaction, deliver their product faster, and compete in the rapidly changing market. This Master's thesis was conducted at one of the largest energy utilities in the north of Europe, Company C, in order to analyze their R\&D organization after implementing their large scale Agile transformation. The thesis main research question focused on studying how did the large scale Agile transformation effect the organization ambidexterity, knowledge transfer capabilities, and ability to innovate. The question was analyzed qualitatively via an ethnographic design and a set of semi-structured interviews. The results have shown various challenges within the organization that were introduced after the large scale Agile transformation, such as focusing only on customer satisfaction as a measure of success, and the reduction of knowledge transfer capabilities with the department. The analysisand discussions evaluated the connection between those challenges and the large scale Agile transformation. The main takeaways from the Thesis suggested that the Agile transformation provided the necessary tool for the organization to become more exploitative, however, there was no clear connection between the transformation and the diminishing exploratory practices. Moreover, the large scale Agile transformation supported incremental innovations, but did not negatively impact other types of innovation. Finally, the knowledge transfer capabilities were reduced due to the minimal documentation approach that the organization has implemented. / Många organisationer från och utanför IT-branschen försöker implementera Agile i sina arbetssätt genom storskaliga transformationer. Organisationerna känner behov av att bli Agila för att öka sin kundnöjdhet, leverera sina produkter snabbare och konkurrera på den snabbt föränderliga marknaden. Detta masterarbete genomfördes på ett av de största energiföretagen i norra Europa, Company C, för att analysera deras FoU-organisation efter att ha implementerat sin storskaliga agila-transformation. Arbetets huvudsakliga forskningsfråga fokuserade på att studera hur den storskaliga agila-transformationen påverkade organisationens förmåga till ambidextri, kunskapsöverföring och innovationsförmåga. Frågan analyserades kvalitativt genom en etnografisk design och en uppsättning semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultaten har visat olika utmaningar inom organisationen som introducerades efter den storskaliga Agile-transformationen, såsom att fokusera endast på kundnöjdhet som en måttstock för framgång och minskningen av kunskapsöverföringsförmågan inom avdelningen. Analysen och diskussionerna utvärderade sambandet mellan dessa utmaningar och den storskaliga Agile-transformationen. Huvudpunkterna från arbetet föreslog att Agile-transformationen gav organisationen de nödvändiga verktygen för att bli mer exploaterande, men det fanns ingen tydlig koppling mellan transformationen och minskningen av utforskande praktiker. Dessutom stödde den storskaliga Agile-transformationen inkrementella innovationer men påverkade inte negativt andra typer av innovation. Slutligen minskade kunskapsöverföringsförmågan på grund av den minimala dokumentationsansatsen som organisationen genomfört.