In the context of Covid-19, significant changes have occurred in the way people work. This qualitative study investigates how individuals working in agile software development have been affected by the transition to remote work as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Using thematic analysis and a comparative case study as the methodology, the study focuses on areas such as communication, collaboration, cohesion, performance, and outcomes. A summary of the results from the semi-structured interviews in this study reveals that the transition to remote work has not had a negative impact on the outcomes in agile software development. These findings suggest that despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, agile teams have been able to maintain their high levels of performance and results despite the shift to remote work. These conclusions can assist organizations in developing effective strategies to manage and adapt to changes in the work environment, including the transition to remote work.

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.

Software development projects took an important turn after the emergence of agilesoftware development methods. Indeed, this kind of projects has always been managed in atraditional way that requires an elaborate effort of planning. A way considered as inflexibleand that goes against the constantly changing and hardly predictable nature of softwaredevelopment projects. Agility offers more flexibility as far as requirements and changemanagement are concerned. In this study, the focus is placed on one of the most popularagile software development methods, namely Scrum. It investigates the challenges relatedto the adoption of Scrum, and for this the case of a company operating in the financial ITsector and that has been using Scrum for 5 years is examined. This case displays that thenature of Scrum makes that there is not a single way of adopting it. Adopting Scrum ismore a process of continuous adaptation and improvement, therefore facing challenges isan inseparable part of this process.

The budgeting debate concerns that traditional budgets have become dysfunctional in today’s volatile business environment. Thus, it can seem logical that organisations would implement alternatives, and beyond budgeting has become popular. Nevertheless, knowledge of beyond budgeting’s practical implications is limited, and future research needs to study organisations that have implemented beyond budgeting. This study, therefore, investigates beyond budgeting in practice through a qualitative multiple case study with eight semi-structured interviews, whose respondents come from four retail organisations. The study intends to research reasons for choosing beyond budgeting, how the beyond budgeting solution is designed and what consequences beyond budgeting implies. The study finds that organisations choose to implement beyond budgeting for several reasons, some similar, such as budgets being time-consuming and aiming for higher adaptability, and some more organisation specific. The study also finds that the beyond budgeting solutions differ, for example, the companies’ management processes are designed differently. However, no organisation intentionally implemented all beyond budgeting principles, and all have a high focus on the management processes. Further, the study finds that the company's consequences implies some similarities and differences. For example, higher adaptability was a consistent outcome. Moreover, the study shows that all companies experienced consequences that were unanticipated. Lastly, the study implies that an organisation’s contingencies affects reasons, beyond budgeting solution and outcomes as beyond budgeting should be adjusted to its situation.

When it comes to using agile methods in safety critical application development, there is a limited amount of empirical findings. To learn more about how people in this field perceives the use of working with these methods, it is of interest to take part of their experiences and opinions. The purpose of this thesis is to discover advantages, disadvantages and improvement factors of working with the agile method Scrum in combination with safety critical application development. The study was limited to the roles of developers and verifiers working in two anonymized companies in the defence and railway industry. A qualitative approach was used which included a multiple case study where each of the involved company were considered a case. Empirical data was collected through semi structured interviews with the employees from the two companies. The collected data was categorized, coded and analyzed using comparative analysis. The data was coded based on one of the seven areas documentation, organization, communication, education, development, verification and planning. The interviewed developers and verifiers pointed out various advantages, disadvantages and improvement factors within the areas mentioned above. The majority of the opinions among the interviewees varied. However, some common aspects were pointed out. The most frequently mentioned factor to improve for the developers was in the communication area, while the verifiers raised educational aspects as the most common factor to improve. The findings from this study can be used to point out sections that the investigated companies should consider when using the agile method Scrum in combination with safety critical application development. The thesis also provides empirical evidence of how people in the in-spected companies consider difficulties and opportunities in their work. / När det kommer till användadet av agila metoder vid säkerhetskritisk applikationsutveckling finns det begränsat med empiriska fynd. För att få veta mer om hur personer som arbetar inom detta område uppfattar användandet av dessa metoder, är det av intresse att ta del av deras erfarenheter och åsikter. Syftet med denna uppsats är att identifiera fördelar, nackdelar och förbättringsmöjligheter när det kommer till att arbeta agilt med Scrum vid säkerhetskritisk applikationsutveckling. Studien inkluderade rollerna utvecklare och verifierare som arbetade i två anonymiserade företag inom försvarsrespektive järnvägsindustrin. En kvalitativ metod användes vilket inkluderade en fallstudie, där de involverade företagen behandlades som varsitt fall. Empirisk data samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med anställda från de två företagen. All insamlad data kategoriserades, kodades och analyserade med hjälp av komparativ analys. Kodningen utfördes baserat på de sju olika områdena dokumentation, organisation, kommunikation, utbildning, utveckling, verifikation och planering. De intervjuade utvecklarna och verifierarena pekade ut diverse fördelar, nackdelar och förbättringsfaktorer inom områdena som nämndes ovan. Majoriteten av åsikterna varierade, däremot kunde några gemensamma åsikter påvisas. Den mest förekommande förbättringsfaktorn bland utvecklarna var inom kommunikationsområdet, medan verifierarna tog upp utbildningsrelaterade aspekter som den vanligaste förbättringsfaktorn. Resultaten från denna studie kan användas för att peka ut delar som de undersökta företagen bör beakta vid användning av den agila metoden Scrum i kombination med säkerhetskritisk applikationsutveckling. Uppsatsen tillhandahåller empiriska bevis på hur personer som arbetar på de granskade företagen ser på svårigheter och möjligheterinom sitt arbete.

The last decade has seen an emergence of various types of cloud services and development frameworks offered by leading companies in the software industry. While each of these services has been used to solve specific tasks, their specifications have changed over time as they have matured. Therefore, integrating these components to solve a whole new task tends to get tricky due to their incompatible and experimental nature. While some technology components might continue to be developed, others might deprecate. In this thesis, using a user-centered design and agile development approach, we have attempted to develop a cloud solution using microservice software architecture by integrating state-of-the-art technology components to solve a totally new task of providing a non-intrusive technology experience during walking meetings. We present our results based on interaction with the research group, user studies as a part of the research study “Movement of the mind”, and expectations of the working prototype within the context of walking meetings. We also present the features of the prototype and our motivation for choosing the tools to develop them. Finally, we discuss the development challenges faced during our attempt and conclude whether it is plausible to integrate various components of bleeding-edge technology to solve complex real-life problems or rather wait for these technologies to mature. / Under det senaste decenniet har marknaden erbjudits en mängd olika typer av molntjänster och utvecklings-ramverk framtagna av ledande företag inom mjukvaruindustrin. Dessa tjänster har ofta använts för att lösa specifika uppgifter. Olika komponenterna som ingår i dessa specifika lösningar har med tiden utvecklats ändrats allteftersom de har mognat. Att integrera dessa komponenter för att lösa en helt ny uppgift tenderar därför att bli svårt på grund av deras instabila, inkompatibla och experimentella karaktär. Medan vissa teknikkomponenter kan fortsätta att utvecklas kan andra avstanna och utgå. Vi har närmat oss detta problemområde genom agil och iterativ utveckling samt användar-centrerad design-metod. En moln-baserad lösning som bland annat integrerat bleeding-edge teknikkomponenter har utvecklats och utvärderats med syfte att ge en icke-påträngande tekniskt support för gå-möten. De resultat som här presenteras och diskuteras baseras på interaktion med forskargruppen inom projektet "Med rörelse i tankarna", användarstudier och användartesteter i fält på olika arbetsplatser där den prototyp som utvecklats sökt motsvara användarnas utryckta förväntningar på tekniskt support för gångmöten. Vi diskuterar också prototypens egenskaper och vår motivation för val av metoder för att utveckla den. Slutligen diskuterar vi de utvecklingsutmaningar vi ställdes inför under vårt försök och om det är rimligt att integrera olika bleeding-edge komponenter för att lösa komplexa verkliga problem eller huruvida man hellre bör vänta på att dessa teknologier nått en stabilare mognadsgrad.

Examensarbetet har inneburit iterationer för att ta reda på hur sektionen Research & Development, Truck layout (RTL) på Scania kan förbättra planering och styrning för att säkra hög leveransprecision. RTL består av sju grupper som arbetar med chassiutveckling. Fler av grupperna på sektionen har börjat resan mot ett agilt arbetssätt för att öka sin flexibilitet och säkra sina leveranser. Det agila arbetssättet visar sig ha en positiv inverkan på leveranssäkerheten hos de grupper som lyckats med implementeringen. Inledningsvis observerades den dagliga styrningen, en gång hos varje grupp. För att ta reda på mer om gruppernas olika förutsättningar intervjuades respektive gruppchef. Fler av grupperna besöktes igen för att komplettera data om nuläget. En enkät skickades ut till medarbetarna på sektionen, svarsfrekvensen blev drygt 70 % och det konstateras att majoriteten svarade positivt i frågor om hur det är att arbeta i sin grupp. Däremot var de inte lika positiva kring hur stor nytta den dagliga styrningen bidrar med. En sprintplanering följdes hos den grupp som kommit längst med att arbeta agilt för att se hur planering av en fyra veckors sprint går till. Intervjuer hölls med sakkunniga för att få reda på mer om agilt arbete samt daglig styrning. Daglig styrning är ett av de forum som finns för planering och styrning, efter att ha studerat daglig styrning, sprintplanering samt teorier om agilt arbetssätt valde vi att fokusera examensarbetet på att optimera den dagliga styrningen. Utifrån observationer, intervjuer och teori kring agilt arbete samt daglig styrning användes kvalitetsverktyg. Utifrån två områden som kvalitetsverktygen resulterade i upptäcktes förbättringspotential för den dagliga styrningen. Syftet med daglig styrning måste klargöras samt regelbundet diskuteras hos samtliga grupper på RTL. De behöver även arbeta med fokus och hålla sig till sådant som är relevant för den dagliga styrningen / In order to find out how the Scania section RTL can improve planning and management to ensure high delivery precision this thesis work has consisted of iterations. The section Research Truck Layout (RTL) consists of seven groups that are working with chassis development. In order to increase their flexibility and secure their deliveries some of the groups have begun working towards agile methodologies. The agile methodologies has proven to have a positive impact on the delivery precision in the groups that succeeded with implementation. Initially, once in every group, the groups daily meetings was observed. In order to find out more about the groups different pre-requisite interviews were conducted with the group managers. Several of the groups were visited again to complete data about their current state. A survey was sent to the employees on the section, the response rate was over 70% and it showed that most employees had positive feeling towards working in their group. However, they were not as positive in regards to the benefits of daily management meetings. A followup was made on the group that was furthest along in working agile, the follow-up was made by observing the planning of a sprint. Interviews was held with experts to find out more about agile work as well as daily meetings. Daily management is a forum for planning and management, after studying daily management, sprint planning and theories of agile working methods, we chose to focus this thesis work on optimizing daily management. Based on observations, interviews, theories about agile methodologies and with the support of quality tools, two areas emerged which both have an improvement potential for a day-to-day management. The first area is the purpose of daily management, it has to be clarified and regularly discussed within all groups. The other area is focus, it needs to be worked on so that the meetings only contain topics that is relevant.

Planning and estimating are important parts of Agile methodologies. Estimating aproject or sprint backlog for Agile teams is often quite challenging but there are many benefits of doing accurate estimations. Teams do not want to spend too much time esti-mating backlog items and are usually doing this by adopting methods such as planning poker. To estimate the size of the sprint backlog, the amount of work required for eachitem needs to be set, and also what pace the team is working with (Velocity) must betaken into consideration. This thesis is about finding guidelines for developing a tool toassist with sprint planning and to ease planning decisions such as how much work shouldbe included in each sprint and what kind of metrics should be visualized for influencingthe Scrum team and to increase team efficiency. The planning tool was evaluated byconducting user studies and collecting data from several sprints across different Scrumteams. The conducted user studies show that many teams did become more efficient byusing the planning tool. Although more extensive research would have to be made tofurther support this claim.

The most common approach in system development is agiledevelopment methods that are based on the team membersworking physically close to each other and face-to-facecommunication. Which contributes to increased efficiency andimproved team cohesion and motivation to work for each other.Although agile system development methods are best suited forteams that are co-located, many organizations apply the agileapproach even if they work distributed. Distributed work is anestablished form of work that is used all over the world to createthe opportunity for a flexible way of work where geographicallimitations are reduced. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020several agile development teams were forced into distributedwork, which meant working from home and face-to-facecommunication became more difficult as the team was spread outin different places. As the restrictions ceased after the Covid-19pandemic, people began to return to their workplaces, severalpeople wanted to continue working from home if the opportunityarose. A hybrid form of work is considered to be the new way ofwork, which means a flexible way of working where the workplaceis site-independent and employees can choose whether they wantto work from the office, work from home or other locations.The purpose of this study was to identify factors that affect theagile work process of hybrid teams. To fulfill the purpose aqualitative approach where used and semi-structured interviewswere conducted with five respondents from an IT company incentral Sweden. The identified factors were, Work ethic,Communication, Cohesion, Adaptability, Work environment andWell-being. These impact factors contribute to how the workprocess within hybrid teams works. By taking all the impact factorsinto consideration, the conditions can increase to achieve asuccessful work process in hybrid teams and increase efficiencywithin the team / Agil systemutveckling anses vara det vanligaste arbetssättet inomsystemutveckling. Agil systemutveckling anses kunna bidra tilleffektivare resultat genom att teammedlemmar arbetar fysiskt näravarandra och kommunicerar med varandra ansikte mot ansikte.Trots att agila systemutvecklingsmetoder lämpar sig bäst för teamsom är samlokaliserade är det många organisationer som tillämpardet agila arbetssättet även om de arbetar distribuerat. Distribueratarbete är en etablerad arbetsform som används över hela världenför att skapa möjligheten till ett flexiblare arbetssätt därgeografiska begränsningar minskar. På grund av Covid-19-pandemin som utbröt år 2020 tvingades flera agila utvecklingsteamtill distribuerat arbete, vilket innebar att arbeta hemifrån ochkommunikation ansikte mot ansikte försvårades då teamet blevutspritt på olika platser. Allt eftersom restriktionerna upphördesom Covid-19-pandemin medfört och människor börjat återgå tillsina arbetsplatser är det flera som vill fortsätta arbeta hemifrån ommöjligheten finns. En hybrid arbetsform anses vara det nyaarbetssättet som innebär ett flexibelt arbetssätt där arbetsplatsen ärplatsoberoende och medarbetare får välja om de vill arbeta frånkontoret, hemifrån eller från annan plats.Syftet med denna studie var att identifiera faktorer som påverkarhybrida teams agila arbetsprocess. För att uppfylla syftet användeskvalitativ ansats där semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördesmed fem respondenter från ett IT-företag i mellansverige. Sexpåverkansfaktorer identifierades, Arbetsmoral, Kommunikation,Gemenskap, Anpassningsbarhet, Arbetsmiljö och Välmående.Dessa påverkansfaktorer bidrar till hur arbetsprocessen inomhybrida team fungerar. Genom att ta samtliga påverkansfaktorer ibeaktning kan förutsättningarna öka för att ett hybridteamsarbetsprocess ska fungera samt öka effektiviteten inom teamet.

Decision-making by one or more individuals to select a course of action is predicated on the values and preferences to identify, choose options, and finally select the option that is evaluated to be the “best option.” Decision theory provides the means to model and analyze both the processes and options available to the decision-makers. This dissertation assembled in three phases: 1) An effort to collect and review existing literature relating to the concept of expanding decision analysis options to provide a model of decision-making made with time-dependent factors along with uncertainty and risk. Further, adding the concept of a decision to update time-dependent decision data in a Bayesian fashion aids in modeling decision-making thought processes. This review included a total of 395 research artifacts. 2) Development of a technical approach using the information gathered in the literature review to guide planning for a decision-making simulation of individuals and organizations. The approach emphasizes creating a decision-making simulation framework with capabilities to model time-dependent factors, information processing and communication, and fuzzy-stochastic data. 3) Use of the technical approach to develop a simulation framework to simulate complex decision-making and work packages at multiple levels in an organization using time-dependent factors, information processing and communication, and fuzzy-stochastic data. Using a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and Agent-Based Models (ABM) to simulate people and their interactions, this framework was then be used to simulate decision-making and work processes within an organization. Ultimately, the Agile Enterprise Simulation (AES) capability was created and demonstrated.