This diploma thesis aims at the development of agile software projects of an existing company. The main goal of this dissertation has been to identify and analyze the most frequent current problems of the company, then to summarize their impact and to propose the best possible way of dealing with them. As an integral part, the aim of the dissertation has also been the creation of an internal knowledge base which can help to prevent those problems from happening in future projects and to share mutual experiences. To fulfil this goal, it has been necessary to learn all the problems of the agile software development, to know the most widely used agile methodologies and some latest facts and recent trends in the area of agile projects. It has also been necessary to carry out the SWOT analysis of the company and analyze the results of the internal agile development survey. The next thing which had to be done was the identification and description of the most frequent problems of agile development projects and the assessment of the categories of projects which occur in the company and linking the problems with each of the categories. The content of the internal knowledge base was created to correspond with the results of my diploma thesis. The contribution of this dissertation is the identification and assessment of the most fre-quent problems of agile projects of an existing company, identification of possible impacts and recommendation of possible solutions. The other contribution is the identification of the project categories which are linked to the identified problems. Last but not least, the main benefit of this thesis is the creation of a new internal project management knowledge base which will help to share the experience among all the projects and in this way it will help to prevent the spread of these problems. This diploma thesis is divided into two main parts, theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part, there is a definition of "agile methodologies", a description of their typical examples and statistics as well as modern trends in the area of the development of agile projects. The practical part is divided into four chapters. They contain the results of the company's SWOT analysis and the results of the internal agile development survey. Then there is a presentation of the identified agile development problems, their possible impact and the recommendation how to deal with them. There is a full description of all the identified categories of projects and their identified problems with their assessment criteria as well as time-proven ways how to effectively deal with them. The last chapter contains and internal project management knowledge base which has been done by myself. The knowledge base may be very useful in the project management now and in the future.

Diploma thesis deals with SCRUM methodology and its uses in innovation management. The main objective of the thesis is creation of a specific framework which will enable to use SCRUM methodology in the innovation process. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part presents theoretical framework important for the main research. This part contains literature review and research dedicated to the SCRUM methodology and innovation process. The second part of the thesis deals with mapping of the SCRUM methodology to Hladik's innovation process. This part also contains own design of the innovation management process. The third part of the thesis is dedicated to the case study. The case study uses described innovation management process for verification of the hypothesis saying that is possible to use SCRUM methodology in the innovation process. The author's contribution lies in creation of a framework which provides agile alternative to the classical innovation management models.

This report evaluates the team-structure of three software maintenance teams in order to decide their level of featureness (a term that defines to what extent a team has the quality (the set of characteristics) of being a feature team). Simulations of changes that are expressed as beneficial in an agile environment and that could increase the teams‘ level of featureness within the team structure are performed. The results show that each team‘s level of featureness is affected differently by each change. Partly, this underlines the importance of understanding the current team-structure before implementing changes that aim to increase the level of featureness. And secondly, within the scope of the study, the change where a user expert is declared a team member is concluded as the change that increases the teams‘ level of featureness the most. Based on the results the report also concludes that it is essential to implement changes that affect different, which in combination can increase the level of featureness.

Background: Effort estimation is one of the cornerstones in project management with the purpose of creating efficient planning and the ability to keep budgets. Despite the extensive research done within this area, one of the biggest and most complex problems in project management within software development is still considered to be the estimation process. Objectives: The main objectives of this thesis were threefold: i) firstly to define the characteristics for a large project, ii) secondly to identify factors causing inaccurate effort estimates and iii) lastly to understand how the identified factors impact the effort estimation process, all of this within the context of large-scale agile software development and from the perspective of a project team.Methods: To fulfill the purpose of this thesis, an exploratory case study was executed. The data collection consisted of archival research, questionnaire, and interviews. The data analysis was partly conducted using the statistical software toolStata.Results: The definition of a large project is from a project team’s perspective based on high complexity and a large scope of requirements. The following identified factors were identified to affect the estimation process in large projects: deficient requirements, changes in scope, complexity, impact in multiple areas, coordination, and required expertise, and the findings indicate that these are affecting estimation accuracy negatively. Conclusions: The conclusion of this study is that besides the identified factors affecting the estimation process there are many different aspects that can directly or indirectly contribute to inaccurate effort estimates, categorized as requirements, complexity, coordination, input and estimation process, management, and usage of estimates.

Context: In recent years, software development teams have been adopting agile methodologies like Scrum to enhance productivity and collaboration. However, with the outbreak of COVID-19, remote working conditions have become the new norm. This shift has posed a challenge for software development teams as they struggle to maintain the same level of productivity and collaboration while working remotely. Agile methodologies like Scrum, which emphasize teamwork, communication, and collaboration, are particularly affected by remote work conditions. One critical factor that affects agile teams’ effectiveness is team familiarity, which is the degree of mutual understanding among team members. High team familiarity can lead to better communication, coordination, and performance. Objectives: The main aim of this research is to investigate the effects of geographical dispersion on team familiarity in Scrum teams due to pandemic restrictions. The research aims to identify the facets that contribute to the concept of team familiarity, investigate how geographical dispersion has affected team familiarity during the pandemic, and explore how Scrum practices have been impacted by changes in team familiarity under remote working conditions. Methods: The research employed a literature review as a research method and interviews as a data collection technique. The first phase involved conducting a comprehensive literature review by analyzing various research papers using the forward snowballing technique to identify the facets contributing to the concept of team familiarity. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 software professionals from various software companies who had experience working in Scrum teams during the pandemic. The interview questions focused on how remote working conditions had affected team familiarity and Scrum practices. The data collected during the interviews were analyzed using a deductive thematic analysis, which guided the identification of common patterns and themes. Results: From the literature review, nine facets of team familiarity were identified: Shared work experience, Communication, Team coordination, Team cohesion, Interpersonal knowledge, Shared knowledge, Trust, Team collaboration, and Member diversity. The interview data revealed that the geographical dispersion did pose a few challenges due to the remote work setup and had negatively affected team familiarity. The correlation between team familiarity facets and scrum practices was also explored, along with how they were affected due to geographical dispersion. However, the interviewees suggested several strategies to mitigate the challenges posed by geographical dispersion, such as regular communication and virtual team-building activities.  The results of the literature review were then compared with the interview results to determine the consistency of the findings. The comparison showed that most of the team familiarity facets identified in the literature review were also relevant to the interviewee's experiences. One important theme that emerged from the comparison of the literature review and interview findings is the interdependence of team familiarity facets, where a change in one facet could affect other facets as well. Trust and communication were found to be the most interconnected facets, with links to other team familiarity facets. Conclusions: This research highlights the importance of team familiarity in Scrum teams and the effect of geographical dispersion on team familiarity. The study identified nine facets that contribute to the concept of team familiarity and discussed their interdependence. The research findings suggest that mitigation strategies can help maintain team familiarity under remote work conditions. It was also concluded that maintaining team familiarity is crucial for effective Scrum practices and team performance. Organizations should consider these factors while implementing Scrum practices in geographically dispersed teams. The study recommends further research to explore the impact of team familiarity on other aspects of team performance. Moreover, the scope of the research could be expanded to include other agile methodologies aside from Scrum. Additionally, investigating the role of leadership in promoting team familiarity and collaboration in geographically dispersed Scrum teams is another potential avenue for future research.

Organizations has become more hybrid enabling the workers to work partially from the office and partially from home. As remote work was found to have an impact on team collaboration, communication, productivity, and performance, concerns have been raised about Agile Software Development (ASD) teams working remotely. Thus, the purpose of the study is to understand the impact hybrid work has on productivity in ASD teams. The study aims to contribute with knowledge regarding the relationship with hybrid work and productivity. A single case study was conducted, with the use of a sequential mixed method research design. The SPACE framework was utilized to define productivity in software development and was also utilized to support the distributed survey. Moreover, three dimensions of SPACE were selected; job satisfaction, performance, collaboration and communication. Additionally, a focus group interview was conducted to provide a deeper understanding of the survey findings. The empirical findings indicate the hybrid work to impact job satisfaction, and collaboration and communication positively. While the performance was high, there was a low impact of hybrid work. The empirical findings imply that investments in the tools and resources are crucial for the job satisfaction. Furthermore, meetings that involve high participation in collaboration and communication should require physical presence. By allowing for continuous meetings regarding the well-being of workers, a sustainable work-life balance can potentially be achieved. Limitations can be found in the study where the findings are restricted to the context of a single case study. Thus, further research can be conducted to enrich the findings with other settings and strategies. / Organisationer har blivit mer hybrida vilket gör det möjligt för arbetarna att arbeta delvis från kontoret och delvis hemifrån. Eftersom distansarbete har visat en inverkan på samarbete, kommunikation, produktivitet och prestanda i team, har det väckts rädsla om att team i agil mjukvaruutveckling (ASD), ska arbeta på distans. Syftet med studien är att förstå vilken inverkan hybrid arbete har på produktiviteten i ASD-team. Studien syftar till att bidra med kunskap om sambandet med hybrid arbete och produktivitet. En enskild fallstudie genomfördes med användning av en sekventiell forskningsdesign med blandad metod. SPACE-ramverket användes för att definiera produktivitet i mjukvaruutveckling och användes dessutom för att underbygga den distribuerade undersökningen. Dessutom valdes tre dimensioner av SPACE ut; arbetsglädje, prestation, samarbete och kommunikation. Vidare genomfördes en fokusgruppsintervju för att skapa en djupare förståelse av resultaten från undersökningen. De empiriska resultaten indikerar hybrid arbetet har en positiv inverkan på arbetstillfredsställelse, samarbete och kommunikation. Det visade sig att prestandan i arbetet var hög men att hybrid arbete inte längre påverkade dess resultat. De empiriska resultaten tyder på att investeringar i verktyg och resurser är avgörande för arbetstillfredsställelsen. Dessutom bör möten med högt engagemang i samarbete och kommunikation kräva fysisk närvaro. Genom att införa kontinuerliga möten angående arbetarnas välbefinnande kan en hållbar balans mellan arbete och privatliv potentiellt uppnås. Begränsningar kan hittas i studien där resultaten är begränsade till sammanhanget för en enskild fallstudie. Således kan ytterligare forskning utföras för att berika resultaten med andra miljöer och strategier.

This study explores operationalizing UX practices in agile software development teams to integrate accessibility in B2B software products. We conducted a qualitative case study, collecting data through a user-centered approach with interviews, a workshop, prototyping, and user testing. Our findings highlight that the sporadic involvement of UX professionals, the B2B context’s restriction of communication with end-users, and the perception of accessibility as a non-critical concern, all limit the operationalization of UX practices. Additionally, the importance of implementing structured approaches to integrate UX practices. This study contributes theoretically by broadening the literature on integrating accessibility through UX practices within agile processes, providing insights into the challenges and strategies of B2B environments, and practically by introducing a prototype ecosystem to help product teams embed UX practices into their workflow for enhancing accessibility.

Agile software engineering has been a popular methodology to develop software rapidly and efficiently. However, the Agile methodology often favors Functional Requirements (FRs) due to the nature of agile software development, and strongly neglects Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs). Neglecting NFRs has negative impacts on software products that have resulted in poor quality and higher cost to fix problems in later stages of software development. This research developed the CEP “Capture Elicit Prioritize” methodology to effectively gather NFRs metadata from software requirement artifacts such as documents and images. Artifact included the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) artifact which gathered metadata from images. The other artifacts included: Database Artifact, NFR Locator Plus, NFR Priority Artifact, and Visualization Artifact. The NFRs metadata gathered reduced false positives to include NFRs in the early stages of software requirements gathering along with FRs. Furthermore, NFRs were prioritized using existing FRs methodologies which are important to stakeholders as well as software engineers in delivering quality software. This research built on prior studies by specifically focusing on NFRs during the early stages of agile software development. Validation of the CEP methodology was accomplished by using the 26 requirements of the European Union (EU) eProcurement System. The NORMAP methodology was used as a baseline. In addition, the NERV methodology baseline results were used for comparison. The research results show that the CEP methodology successfully identified NFRs in 56 out of 57 requirement sentences that contained NFRs compared to 50 of the baseline and 55 of the NERV methodology. The results showed that the CEP methodology was successful in eliciting 98.24% of the baseline compared to the NORMAP methodology of 87.71%. This represents an improvement of 10.53% compared to the baseline results. of The NERV methodology result was 96.49% which represents an improvement of 1.75% for CEP. The CEP methodology successfully elicited 86 out of 88 NFR compared to the baseline NORMAP methodology of 75 and NERV methodology of 82. The NFR count elicitation success for the CEP methodology was 97.73 % compared to NORMAP methodology of 85.24 %which is an improvement of 12.49%. Comparison to the NERV methodology of 93.18%, CEP has an improvement of 4.55%. CEP methodology utilized the associated NFR Metadata (NFRM)/Figures/images and linked them to the related requirements to improve over the NORMAP and NERV methodologies. There were 29 baseline NFRs that were found in the associated Figures/images (NFRM) and 129 NFRs were both in the requirement sentence and the associated Figure/images (NFRM). Another goal of this study was to improve the prioritization of NFRs compared to prior studies. This research provided effective techniques to prioritize NFRs during the early stages of agile software development and the impacts that NFRs have on the software development process. The CEP methodology effectively prioritized NFRs by utilizing the αβγ-framework in a similarly way to FRs. The sub-process of the αβγ-framework was modified in a way that provided a very attractive feature to agile team members. Modification allowed the replacement of parts of the αβγ-framework to suit the team’s specific needs in prioritizing NFRs. The top five requirements based on NFR prioritization were the following: 12.3, 24.5, 15.3, 7.5, and 7.1. The prioritization of NFRs fit the agile software development cycle and allows agile developers and members to plan accordingly to accommodate time and budget constraints.

Submitted by Caroline Xavier (caroline.xavier@pucrs.br) on 2017-06-30T18:19:05Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_GREICE_DE_CARLI_ROMAN_COMPLETO.pdf: 9835425 bytes, checksum: aa605361de91b916006af4710a54365b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-30T18:19:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DIS_GREICE_DE_CARLI_ROMAN_COMPLETO.pdf: 9835425 bytes, checksum: aa605361de91b916006af4710a54365b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-15 / Em fevereiro de 2001, o Manifesto ?gil foi proposto tendo como princ?pio equipes pequenas e co-localizadas. No entanto, ao longo destes 16 anos, a agilidade tamb?m foi posta em pr?tica em outros contextos, como por exemplo: equipes distribu?das e sistemas complexos, utilizando-se o termo "Desenvolvimento ?gil em Larga Escala". N?o h? uma defini??o clara e compreensiva de como a agilidade est? presente neste contexto. Assim, nosso trabalho preenche essa lacuna com o objetivo de caracterizar a agilidade no Desenvolvimento ?gil em Larga Escala. Neste trabalho, realizou-se um estudo organizado em duas fases. Na Fase 1, denominada Base Te?rica, realizamos um estudo do estado-da-arte da ?rea. Na Fase 2, denominado Estudo Emp?rico, n?s realizamos duas investiga??es: um estudo de campo em uma empresa ?gil em larga escala, para identificar o desenvolvimento durante o processo de transforma??o da empresa para esta nova abordagem e, um grupo focal, para identificar como as equipes ?geis em larga escala que v?m utilizando os m?todos ?geis o quanto se percebem em termos de aspectos de maturidade ?gil. Estes resultados contribuem para os pesquisadores e profissionais entenderem melhor como a agilidade e definida e percebida nestes grandes ambientes. O conhecimento e ?til para aqueles que querem entender como o desenvolvimento ?gil se adapta a tais ambientes e para pesquisadores com o objetivo de se aprofundar sobre o tema. / The Agile Manifesto was proposed in February 2001 having in mind small and collocated teams. However, agile has also been put in practice in other settings (e.g. large teams, distributed teams, complex systems) under the term ?Large-Scale Agile Development' (LSAD). There is no clear definition for and understanding of how agility is present in this setting. Thus, our work fills in this gap aiming to characterize agility in LSAD. We conducted a study organized in two phases. In Phase 1, named Theoretical Base, we conducted the state-of-the-art of the area. In Phase 2, named Empirical Study, we conducted two investigations: a field study in a large-scale agile company to identify how agility was developed during the transformation process of the company to this new approach, and a focus group to identify how large-scale agile teams that have been using agile for a certain while perceive themselves in terms of maturity in agile aspects. Findings contribute to researchers and professionals better understand how agility is defined and perceived in large settings. This knowledge is useful for those who want to enter the agile journey in such similar environments and for researchers aiming to further explore the topic.

Broadly, agile software development is an approach where code is frequently built, tested and shipped, leading to short release cycles. Extreme version is the DevOps approach where the development, testing and deployment pipelines are merged and software is continuously tested and updated. In this context our work focuses on identifying spots where the participants should be more aware of the performance and offers approaches and tools to improve their awareness with the ultimate goal of producing better software in shorter time. In general, the awareness is raised by testing, documenting, and monitoring the performance in all phases of the development cycle. In this thesis we (1) show a framework for writing performance tests for individual components (e.g. libraries). The tests capture and codify assumptions about the performance into runnable artifacts that simplify repeatability and automation. For evaluation of the performance tests we (2) propose new methods, which can automatically detect performance regressions. These methods are designed with inherent variation of performance data in mind and are able to filter it out in order to detect true regressions. Then we (3) reuse the performance tests to provide the developers with accurate and up-to-date performance API documentation that steer them...