Helping Teams to Help Themselves: An Industrial Case Study on Interdependencies During Sprints

Abstract

Software process improvement is a very important topic. Almost all companies and organizations face the necessity for improvement sooner or later. Sometimes, there is obvious potential for improvement (e.g., if the number of developers does not fit the project size). Nonetheless, fixing all obvious issues does not necessarily lead to a "perfect" project. There are a lot of interdependencies between project parameters that are difficult to detect -sometimes due to the influences of social aspects which can be hardly grasped. We want to support the process of improving daily work by simulating and visualizing how project parameters evolve over time. Our approach is based on building a System Dynamics model that takes into account key performance indicators as well as assumptions about social aspects. In the present case, we chose parameters of capacity, customer satisfaction, and mood. The model uncovers interdependencies between the available parameters. Furthermore, it is able to simulate consequences of different preconditions and incidents during a sprint such as change requests. In this contribution, we present our approach and apply it in a case study with three agile teams in industry. We build a System Dynamics model and use it for sprint simulations. Our analysis determined, e.g., the teams' productivity during the sprint and their workload each day. The simulation increased the teams' awareness of the negative influences due to interventions during the sprint.

The factors affecting employee retention in construction-related small-medium enterprises situating in Krung Thep Maha Nakhon

“…, 2020). Furthermore, there has been a study that task interdependence is also a useful tool for forming good behaviour among members working in an agile team (Klünder et al ., 2018). Finally, according to the study by Audet et al.…”

“…A key to agile working in most organisations is task interdependence, where cooperation among team members is vital (Ruyck et al, 2020). Furthermore, there has been a study that task interdependence is also a useful tool for forming good behaviour among members working in an agile team (Kl€ under et al, 2018). Finally, according to the study by Audet et al (2002), the author mentioned that task interdependence agile is a key to successful project management as this requires a planning process activity among team members.…”

What Makes Agile Software Development Agile?

“…General Human Factors: Projects and their progress are strongly affected by human and social factors [78]. Forecasts can support teams with information required to improve their performance in future iterations [79].…”

“…General Human Factors: Projects and their progress are strongly affected by human and social factors [78].…”

Meetings and Mood -- Related or Not? Insights from Student Software Projects

“…Research has often proven relationships between social aspects and project-related aspects (cf. [16,18]), but it remains unclear what research needs to provide in order to be applicable and useful for industry.…”