Extreme programming explained: embrace change
Extreme programming explained: embrace change
Agile Software Development with Scrum
Agile Software Development with Scrum
Customising agile methods to software practices at Intel Shannon
European Journal of Information Systems - Including a special section on business agility and diffusion of information technology
Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
A Preliminary Roadmap for Empirical Research on Agile Software Development
AGILE '08 Proceedings of the Agile 2008
Information Systems Research
Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum
Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum
Comparing decision making in agile and non-agile software organizations
XP'07 Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Agile processes in software engineering and extreme programming
Foundations of agile decision making from agile mentors and developers
XP'06 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering
Hi-index | 0.00 |
The obstacles facing decision making in Agile development are critical yet poorly understood. This research examines decisions made across four stages of the iteration cycle: Iteration Planning, Iteration Execution, Iteration Review and Iteration Retrospective. A mixed method approach was employed, whereby a focus group was initially conducted with 43 Agile developers and managers to determine decisions made at different points of the iteration cycle. Subsequently, six illustrative mini cases were purposefully conducted as examples of the six obstacles identified in these focus groups. This included interviews with 18 individuals in Agile projects from five different organizations: a global consulting organization, a multinational communications company, two multinational software development companies, and a large museum organization. This research contributes to Agile software development literature by analyzing decisions made during the iteration cycle and identifying six key obstacles to these decisions. Results indicate the six decision obstacles are unwillingness to commit to decisions; conflicting priorities; unstable resource availability; and lack of: implementation; ownership; empowerment. These six decision obstacles are mapped to descriptive decision making principles to demonstrate where the obstacles affect the decision process. The effects of these obstacles include a lack of longer-term, strategic focus for decisions, an ever-growing backlog of delayed work from previous iterations, and a lack of team engagement.