Exploring Workflow Mechanisms and Task Allocation Strategies in Agile Software Teams

Masood, Zainab; Hoda, Rashina; Blincoe, Kelly

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_19

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Our preliminary work conducted on a dataset of 12 agile practitioners from four teams of a single company based in India confirmed five main types of task allocation approaches in agile teams: manager-driven, manager-assisted, team-driven, team-assisted, and or self-directed (Masood et al 2017a). With time and experience, agile teams seem to dispose of the command and control attitude and are instead seen to move towards managerassisted or team-assisted assignment and, in some cases, towards practicing self-assignment over time (Hoda and Noble 2017;Masood et al 2017a). As a part of that preliminary work, we also identified some motivational factors that agile developers take into account while selfassigning tasks such as technical complexity, business priority, previous experience with similar tasks, and others (Masood et al 2017b).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…Self-assignment in new agile teams is seen to happen as a gradual process, retaining a manager's role at the beginning for tasks delegation (Hoda and Noble 2017). Our preliminary work conducted on a dataset of 12 agile practitioners from four teams of a single company based in India confirmed five main types of task allocation approaches in agile teams: manager-driven, manager-assisted, team-driven, team-assisted, and or self-directed (Masood et al 2017a). With time and experience, agile teams seem to dispose of the command and control attitude and are instead seen to move towards managerassisted or team-assisted assignment and, in some cases, towards practicing self-assignment over time (Hoda and Noble 2017;Masood et al 2017a).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…Agile methods are seen to term this self-assignment differently such as "volunteering", "signing up", "committing", and "pulling" (Beck 2005;Lee 2010;Deemer et al 2012). Empirical studies have been conducted on novice (Almeida et al 2011;Lin 2013) and experienced agile teams (Masood et al 2017a;Masood et al 2017b) to study task allocation decisions, strategies and workflow mechanisms. These studies inform us that tasks assignment in Agile teams is not the sole responsibility of the manager or other team members.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result of data analysis, different concepts from similar codes emerged, one the most prominent of which was task allocation through self-assignment. Others included managerdriven, manager-assisted, team-driven, and team-assisted task allocation (Masood et al 2017a). The results of phase1 directed us to focus on self-assignment as the substantive area of the study in the next phase.…”

Section: Data Collection and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is to be noted that other aspects such as the self-assignment process which includes how and when self-assignment is practiced in agile teams, in what form teams and individual self-assign tasks, and factors individuals keep into account while self-assigning work items are part of the complete doctoral study on selfassignment. Some of the data from phase1 of this study has been published (Masood et al 2017a;Masood et al 2017b) and reported as preliminary research on self-assignment in related works in this paper (in Section 2 and 5.1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How agile teams make self-assignment work: a grounded theory study

2020

Self Cite

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Self-assignment, a self-directed method of task allocation in which teams and individuals assign and choose work for themselves, is considered one of the hallmark practices of empowered, self-organizing agile teams. Despite all the benefits it promises, agile software teams do not practice it as regularly as other agile practices such as iteration planning and daily stand-ups, indicating that it is likely not an easy and straighforward practice. There has been very little empirical research on self-assignment. This Grounded Theory study explores how self-assignment works in agile projects. We collected data through interviews with 42 participants representing 28 agile teams from 23 software companies and supplemented these interviews with observations. Based on rigorous application of Grounded Theory analysis procedures such as open, axial, and selective coding, we present a comprehensive grounded theory of making self-assignment work that explains the (a) context and (b) causal conditions that give rise to the need for self-assignment, (c) a set of facilitating conditions that mediate how self-assignment may be enabled, (d) a set of constraining conditions that mediate how self-assignment may be constrained and which are overcome by a set of (e) strategies applied by agile teams, which in turn result in (f) a set of consequences, all in an attempt to make the central phenomenon, self-assignment, work. The findings of this study will help agile practitioners and companies understand different aspects of self-assignment and practice it with confidence regularly as a valuable practice. Additionally, it will help teams already practicing self-assignment to apply strategies to overcome the challenges they face on an everyday basis.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Collection and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How agile teams make self-assignment work: a grounded theory study

2020

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Facilitators and inhibitors of Agile methods adoption: Practitioners view

Mishra

Abdalhamid

2023

Systems Engineering

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This study provides empirical evidence to the body of knowledge in Agile methods adoption in small, medium, and large organizations in the global context. This research explores facilitators and inhibitors of Agile methods adoption in software development organizations. A survey was conducted among Agile professionals to gather survey data from 52 software organizations in seven countries across the world. This study found many facilitators of Agile adoption to be significant such as customers’ dominant issues, encouragement, project champion, highly competent team, use of tools, etc. Similarly a correlation analysis revealed multiple inhibitors as significant: absence of a full set of right Agile practices, absence of customer presence, absence of tracking mechanisms during Agile progress, and failure to determine the role of the client. The present study identifies that an Agile team with high expertise and competence leads to higher quality in software, customer satisfaction along with return on investment (ROI) while a small Agile team increases ease in handling changing requirements, customer satisfaction, reduced delivery time, and increased ROI. Frequent delivery accelerates better control over work, adds to software quality, customer satisfaction, and in shortening delivery time along with increase ROI. It has also been observed that providing essential features early leads to increase in software quality and customer satisfaction. This study confirms that active customer focus leads to better control over work. Further, absence of customer decreases dealing with changing requirements, and customer satisfaction while absence of progress tracking lowers customer satisfaction.

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