The use of agile methods continues to increase within software development but the agile processes do not contain the necessary steps to account for the user and realize the usability of the system. It seems it is therefore necessary to integrate the UCD methodology and agile methodology. What this integration should look like is not always apparent as the integration needs to be adapted to the specific context in each organization. Accompanied by a pre-study which identified difficulties with the integration, the current study examines how UCD specialists experience the communication through boundary objects in distributed agile teams. Furthermore the study examines how the understanding of the user is communicated to the developers in the agile teams and the potential of doing so with a design rationale. A case study was therefore performed with interviews of six UCD specialists to try to answers these questions. A content analysis was performed in relation to each research question and identified a number of themes relating to the experiences concerning; (1) communication through boundary objects, (2) how an understanding of the user is communicated, and (3) opinions of using design rationale for this purpose. Some of the conclusions drawn are that boundary objects only aim at communicating the interaction with the system, that they should be viewed as communication aids as they are not stand-alone and making them comprehensive would be even more time consuming. Furthermore, personas are not deemed fitting for communicating the understanding of the user to developers. This should instead be done by allowing developers to participate in user research.

Computer science in general and software engineering in specific is changing very fast. Software engineers are constantly using more innovative and more efficient ways to develop new software than in the past. This continuous evolution of software development methodologies has a great impact on both the software developed and the environment that the developers work-in. Agile software development methodologies are used to overcome many issues in the software development processes. One of the issues which still exists and needs to be addressed is the preparation of proper documentation along with the software. The work presented in this dissertation focuses on software documentation. The work starts by a thorough literature review which focuses on different aspects of software documentation and different agile methodologies. The thesis focuses on finding out the challenges that the developers faces during their development process. Two major questions addressed in the thesis. First one is to find the motivation to document in agile envirionment, whih is based on the hypothesis that there do exist a motivation. The second question is that how should documentation be produced such that we could avoid maximum possible potential problems. These questions are addressed with the help of different perspectives of the stockholders (i.e. developers and users) and the existing methods for documentation. A questionnaire was developed based on the nine categories of documentation, like user documents and system documents etc.. It included different questions related to the types of documents created in software development processes, the software development stage at which the documents are created and the importance of the documents. Questions from this questionnaire are then posted on agile specific discussion forums. Where many experienced and fresh practitioners participated in the discussion. We had a detailed discussion on every component of documentation and problems were identified by the practitioners. The questionnaire was also sent to different companies practicing agile methodology. we received about 14 responses as it was detailed questionnaire with about 34 questions. The responses of the discussion forum and survey are then analyzed and conclusions were drawn. The conclusions include that all the participants consider software documentation very important to the success of a software development project. the question of motivation is answered from the literature and opinions we received from experienced practitioners. While seven factor are identified that affect your documentation, to help solve the question of how should documentation be done.

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.

Kravhantering inom systemutveckling utgör basen för vad som ska utvecklas. Agila systemutvecklingsmetoder blir vanligare för varje dag som går. Det har dock ofta visat sig finnas utmaningar med hur man anpassar just kravhanteringen till de agila metoderna. Verksamheter har olika förutsättningar för att arbeta agilt. Lantmäteriet i Gävle uttryckte ett behov att undersöka varför den agila praxis man hade inte följdes av alla utvecklingsteam i samband med kravhanteringen. Syftet med denna uppsats var därför att undersöka varför vissa utvecklingteam i en verksamhet arbetade agilt med sin kravhantering medan vissa inte gjorde det. För att undersöka detta utförde jag en fallstudie där jag med hjälp av enkäter och intervjuer samlade in data från både utvecklare och personer på verksamhetssidan som var inblandade i kravhanteringen. Resultaten visade att orsakerna till att en agil kravhantering fungerade så olika var flera. Genom att använda en tematisk analys kunde jag urskilja några framträdande orsaker. Kommunikation och flexibilitet samt kunskap och förståelse för olika perspektiv var teman som utgjorde positiva faktorer. De teman som istället utgjorde negativa faktorer var bland andra otydliga roller, brist på direktiv, en övertro till metoder och processer, osynk mellan verksamhet och IT, prioriteringsproblem, förvaltningsplaner, attityder och IT-arkitektur. / Requirements engineering within software development is the foundation of what needs to be developed. Agile methods in software development become more common every day. It has however often been shown that there are certain challenges with how to adopt the requirements engineering to the agile methodology. Businesses have different preconditions for agile methods. Lantmäteriet in Gävle had a need to examine why not all the developing teams followed agile methods within the requirements engineering process. The purpose with this thesis was thus to examine why some developing teams in an organization worked in an agile manner with the requirements engineering, and some did not. To do this I performed a case study where I collected data through questionnaires and interviews from both developers and people from the business side. The results showed that the reasons for these differences were multiple. Communication and flexibility, and knowledge and understanding for different perspectives were the positive factors. The themes that hindered an agile way of working were, among others, unclear roles, lack of direction, too much reliance on methods and processes, discrepancy between business and IT, prioritizing issues, management plans, attitudes and IT architecture.

Software engineering practices have experienced significant changes over the period of past two decades. Keeping in view the competitive market trends, now is the high time for many organizations to shift from traditional waterfall models to more agile technologies like Scrum [22][23]. A change of this magnitude is often not easy to undertake. The reason that both software engineering techniques are different in many respects, organizations require considerable amount of analysis of the whole transitioning process and possible scenarios that may occur along the way. Small and medium organizations are normally very skeptical to the change of this magnitude. The scale of change is not limited to only software processes, in fact, difficult part is to deal with old attitudes and thinking processes and mold them for the new agile based Scrum development. The process of change therefore need to be understood in the first place and then carefully forwarded to the implementation phase.

Syfte: Studiens syfte är att öka förståelsen för det agila ledarskapet och hur det främjar de anställdas motivation.  Metod: Vid genomförande av studien har en kvalitativ metod tillämpats där empiri samlats in med hjälp av tio semi-strukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna har, i kombination med insamlad teori från vetenskapliga artiklar, utgjort underlag för den data som har bearbetats i analysen och följaktligen lett fram till studiens slutsats.  Resultat & Slutsats: Studien visar att agilt ledarskap kan utövas i olika typer av roller med den gemensamma uppgiften att främja ett agilt arbetssätt. Agila ledare kan öka motivationen hos individen genom att delegera ansvar, uppmuntra till självständighet och se till att teamet strävar efter gemensamma mål som ligger i linje med organisationens mål.  Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Denna studie har fokuserat på ledarens perspektiv på ledarskapets relation till det agila arbetssättet. Liknande studier med medarbetarens perspektiv hade skapat ytterligare underlag för att dra slutsatser kring hur ledarens prestationer fungerar i praktiken. Det finns även ett behov av att sätta det agila ledarskapet i relation till organisatorisk agility. Med frågeställningar kring det agila arbetssättet ur ett organisatoriskt perspektiv kan nya insikter nås och forskningen inom området bli mer heltäckande.  Uppsatsens bidrag: Studien har bidragit med ökad förståelse för agilt ledarskap inom banksektorn samt hur agila ledare arbetar för att främja motivation hos de anställda. Studien riktar sig till forskare inom ledarskap som är intresserade av att erhålla en fördjupad bild av hur det agila ledarskapet inom banksektorn fungerar, samt vad det har för kopplingar till motivation. Studien är även av intresse för ledare som finner intresse för att lära sig mer om agila arbetssätt, agilt ledarskap samt motivation. / Purpose: The purpose of the study is to increase the understanding of the agile leadership and how agile leaders cultivate motivation for the employees.  Method: A qualitative method was used to collect data from ten semi-structured interviews. This data, in combination with relevant theory within the domain of the study, laid the foundation for the results and conclusions of the study.  Results and conclusions: The study shows that agile leadership can be applied in different roles with the common task of promoting agile workplaces. Agile leaders increase the motivation for individuals through delegating responsibilities, encouraging independence, and ensuring that the team strives for common goals that are in line with the organization's goals.  Future research: This study has focused on the leaders’ perspective on the leadership’s relation to the agile work method. A similar study with the employees’ perspective should contribute with additional research to draw conclusions about how well the leaders’ performance actually works in practice. We also find it interesting to put agile leadership in relation to organizational agility. With questions about the agile way of working from an organizational perspective, the research area can be enhanced with valuable insights.  Contribution: The study has contributed to an increased understanding of agile leadership in the banking sector and of how agile leaders work to promote motivation among employees. The study is directed towards the scholar who is interested in obtaining a deeper understanding of how the agile leadership in the banking sector works in practice and its links to motivation. The study is also of interest to leaders who find interest in learning more about agile working methods, agile leadership and motivation.

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 today’s knowledge-based economy, modern organisations understand the importance of technology in their quest to be considered global leaders. South African markets like others worldwide are regularly flooded with the latest technology trends which can complicate the acquisition, use, management and maintenance of software. To achieve a competitive edge, companies tend to leverage agile methods with the best possible combination of innovative supporting tools as a key differentiator. Software technology firms are in this light faced with determining how to leverage technology and efficient development processes for them to consistently deliver quality software projects and solutions to their customer base. Previous studies have discussed the importance of software development processes from a project management perspective. African academia has immensely contributed in terms of software development and project management research which has focused on modern frameworks, methodologies as well as project management techniques. While the current research continues with this tradition by presenting the pertinence of modern agile methodologies, it additionally further describes modern agile development processes tailored in a sub-Saharan context. The study also aims novelty by showing how innovative sometimes disruptive technology tools can contribute to producing African software solutions to African problems. To this end, the thesis contains an experimental case study where a web portal is prototyped to assist firms with the management of agile project management and engineering related activities. Literature review, semi-structure interviews as well as direct observations from the industry use case are used as data sources. Underpinned by an Activity Theory analytical framework, the qualitative data is analysed by leveraging content and thematic oriented techniques. This study aims to contribute to software engineering as well as the information systems body of knowledge in general. The research hence ambitions to propose a practical framework to promote the delivery of quality software projects and products. For this thesis, such a framework was designed around an information system which helps organizations better manage agile project management and engineering related activities. / Information Science / Ph. D. (Information Systems)

There are many difficulties in agile transformations, and a majority of the transformation efforts fail. However, companies continue to pursue the agile path, pushed by forces, both in their environments and internally. The purpose of this study is to explore what facilitators and inhibitors are present in an agile transformation. This is to try and understand agile transformations better, and a lens of change management and culture will be utilized to focus on some essential aspects. To succeed in this, two research questions are to be answered: How does culture facilitate or inhibit change in agile transformations in a software organization in the automotive industry? And, how does change management facilitate or inhibit change in agile transformations in a software organization in the automotive industry? This thesis is a case study on a software organization in the automotive industry, and provides a retrospect on the transformation. The firm originates from the automotive industry, resulting in the industry-related culture to continue affecting the firm today, both internally and externally. To understand the organizational context, the history of the organization, and the culture, the case study try to go in depth by exploring solely a single case. The thesis results are that multiple facilitators and inhibitors are identified for each of the aspects. However, most facilitators and inhibitors relates to both change management and culture, touching upon the interplay between these aspects. Further, the transformation effort is identified to be dependent on both the organizational culture and the organizational context, implicating that transformations efforts are rather unique.