A case study on tool support for collaboration in agile development

Calefato, Fabio; Giove, Andrea; Lanubile, Filippo; Losavio, Marco

doi:10.1145/3372787.3390436

Cited by 19 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Another notable result is the usage of digital communication tools in agile teams. We noted that the use of Slack was perceived as positive by the testers and increased team transparency-supporting recent studies stating that the use of Slack makes communication more transparent in agile projects (Calefato et al, 2020).…”

Section: Implications For Practicesupporting

confidence: 84%

Exploring human factors of the agile software tester

2021

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Although extensive research has been conducted on the characteristics of the agile developer, little attention has been given to the features of the software-testing role. This paper explores the human factors of the software testers working in agile projects through a qualitative study focusing on how these factors are perceived. We interviewed 22 agile software practitioners working in three international companies: 14 testers, five developers, and three designers. Additionally, we observed 11 meetings and daily work of 13 participants in one of the companies. Our findings show that the views on the human factors shaping the agile software tester’s role were crystallized into seven traits, which the agile team members saw as central for the software-testing role: the ability to see the whole picture, good communication skills, detail-orientation, structuredness, creativeness, curiosity, and adaptability. The testers spent half their day communicating and learned how to mitigate the fact that they had to bring bad news to other project members. They also facilitated communication between the business side and development. Based on our results, we propose the seven traits as dimensions to consider for organizations recruiting agile software testers, as well as a reference for IT and non-IT professionals considering a software-testing career.

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Section: Implications For Practicesupporting

confidence: 84%

Exploring human factors of the agile software tester

2021

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“…Communication tools: The team uses several applications for communication such as Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Zimbra, and Microsoft Outlook. Communication tools are frequently used in colocated agile teams (Calefato et al 2020), the team always uses communication tools when the team is working remotely or virtually: "When I first started, I always paid attention to how team members did Scrum planning, daily standup, coordination via chat or email, and used Jira so that it could be used as an example." [DEV2].…”

Section: Support Tools and Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Onboarding Model to Integrate Newcomers into Scrum Team at an Insurance Company

Pramudya Mahardhika,

Budiardjo,

Mahatma

et al. 2024

J. Sistem Inf. (J. Inf. Sys.)

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PT XYZ applies the Scrum framework to meet application’s user demands quickly. The average percentage of IT employee turnover that occurred at PT XYZ from 2020 to 2022 was 14.5%. Every time a company recruits a new employee, the company must help that employee to adapt the Scrum method used for the company's system development process. However, PT XYZ information technology division does not yet have a specific onboarding method to help new employees adapt to the implementation of Scrum effectively without disrupting the ongoing sprint. Qualitative methods are used in the case study to collect data from a hybrid working Scrum team through interviews. The interview data was analyzed thematically with a determined model from an existing onboarding theory. Onboarding practices and adjustments are described and delivered consisting of onboarding activities, newcomer adjustments, and workplace adjustments. A combination of general and specific onboarding practices related to agile helps the successful onboarding of new members to a Scrum team. A practical guide is also described to improve successful onboarding practices into Scrum teams.

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“…More recently there has been an improvement in communication tools, such as Slack 5 , an enterprise social networking tool that relies on instant messaging between individuals and among groups. Slack has been adopted in GSD, fostering communication transparency and acting as a hub that allows frequent communication and collaboration among distant team members [11,68]. Time-bounded collaborative events can also take advantage of other similar communication tools, such as Discord 6 which is typically used in game jams.…”

Section: Synchronous Distributed Collaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-technical constraints and affordances of virtual collaboration -- A study of four online hackathons

Mendes¹,

Albert²,

Tillo³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Hackathons and similar time-bounded events have become a popular form of collaboration in various domains. They are commonly organized as in-person events during which teams engage in intense collaboration over a short period of time to complete a project that is of interest to them. Most research to date has thus consequently focused on studying how teams collaborate in a co-located setting, pointing towards the advantages of radical co-location. The global pandemic of 2020, however, has led to many hackathons moving online, which challenges our current understanding of how they function. In this paper, we address this gap by presenting findings from a multiple-case study of 10 hackathon teams that participated in 4 hackathon events across two continents. By analyzing the collected data, we found that teams merged synchronous and asynchronous means of communication to maintain a common understanding of work progress as well as to maintain awareness of each other's tasks. Task division was self-assigned based on individual skills or interests, while leaders emerged from different strategies (e.g., participant experience, the responsibility of registering the team in an event). Some of the affordances of in-person hackathons, such as the radical co-location of team members, could be partially reproduced in teams that kept open synchronous communication channels while working (i.e., shared audio territories), in a sort of "radical virtual co-location". However, others, such as interactions with other teams, easy access to mentors, and networking with other participants, decreased. In addition, the technical constraints of the different communication tools and platforms brought technical problems and were overwhelming to participants. Our work contributes to understanding the virtual collaboration of small teams in the context of online hackathons and how technologies and event structures proposed by organizers imply this collaboration.

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A case study on tool support for collaboration in agile development

Cited by 19 publications

References 16 publications

Exploring human factors of the agile software tester

Exploring human factors of the agile software tester

Onboarding Model to Integrate Newcomers into Scrum Team at an Insurance Company

Socio-technical constraints and affordances of virtual collaboration -- A study of four online hackathons

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