Whole Team Thinking and Success Factors in Large Scale Agile Development

130 Pages·2016·1.52 MB·English

by  Tina Christin Syversen

Whole Team Thinking and Success
Factors in Large Scale Agile
Development
An Exploratory Case Study
Tina Christin Syversen
Master of Science in Computer Science
Submission date: May 2016
Supervisor: Torgeir Dingsøyr, IDI
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Department of Computer and Information Science

Abstract
Agile software development has been the preferred method since it was introduced as
a software development method in 2001. It was originally intended for small co-located
teamsbutinlateryearsithasexperiencedwidespreadacknowledgementalsoinlargescale
developmentprojects. Onethingthatisnotknownishowtobestachievesuccessinthese
kindsofprojects.
Inthisthesiswehaveexploredtwodifferentcasesoflargescaleprojects. Becauseofthe
complexitywhichariseinlargescaleprojectsitisdifficulttoknowhowtheycanbecon-
ductedinthebestpossibleway.Thenumberofpeopleinvolved,theneedforcoordination,
andlocatingthedifferentteamsaresomeofwhatcomplicatesalargescaleagiledevelop-
mentprojectanditisthereforehardtoknowhowtobestachievesuccesswhenconsidering
thesenewcomplexities. Fromtheliteratureresearchwethereforefoundseveralpossible
successfactors,andthefactorwholeteamthinkingbecamethefocus. Thereasonforthis
is that there is a difference when working in a project with one team and a project with
severalteamswhichdependoneachother. Wholeteamthinkingisaboutallteamsthink-
inginthesamedirectionandhavingthesamegoalsthroughouttheprojects, e.g. having
shared mental models across all teams involved. These factors were investigated in the
twocasesanditwasdiscoveredhowtheyaffectedthedifferentcases;OmegaandTellus.
Fromtheresultswecouldseethatwholeteamthinkingwasoneofthefactorsholdingthe
twoprojectstogether.Thiswasnoticablewhentheteamsintheprojectconsideredthefact
that they were working together and not competing against each other. When the teams
noticedhowimportantitwastocollaboratetheyweremorehelpfultowardtheotherteams
andtheyunderstoodthewholeprojectmorethanwhentheyjustthoughtabouttheirown
teamandtheirownpartoftheproject. Whentheydidnotconsidertheprojecttheywere
morequicktoblametheotherteamsandhindertheproject’sprogress.
Keywords: Agile, large scale, multiteam system, shared mental models, success, whole
teamthinking.
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ii
Sammendrag
Smidigutviklingharværtdenforetruknemetodensidendenbleintrodusertsomenmetode
iprogramvareutviklingi2001. Opprinneligsa˚ vardentenktforsma˚ samlokaliserteteam,
menidesenerea˚rhardetblittmerogmerutbredtogsa˚ istørreprosjektermedflereteam.
Noesomharværtuvisstera˚ finneuthvordanmankanoppna˚ likestorsuksessidestore
prosjektenesomidesma˚.
I denne studien har vi sett pa˚ to ulike stor-skala prosjekter. Pa˚ grunn av kompleksiteten
som oppsta˚r i stor-skala prosjekter er det vanskelig a˚ vite hvordan disse kan lykkes pa˚
best mulig ma˚te. Antall personer involvert, behovet for koordinering og det a˚ lokalisere
alleteameneernoeavdetsomkomplisererstor-skalasmidigeprosjekterogsomgjørdet
vanskeliga˚vitehvordanenkanoppna˚suksessna˚renvurdererdisseaspektene.Fralittera-
turenharviderforfunnetfleremuligsuksessfaktorer,ogviharvalgta˚fokuserepa˚”whole
teamthinking”. Dennefaktorenga˚rutpa˚ atalleteamskaltenkeisammeretningoghade
sammema˚lenegjennomheleprosjektet,foreksempelveda˚hafellesmentalemodellerpa˚
tversavalleteamene. Dissefaktoreneharblittsettsammenmeddetocasene;Omegaog
Tellus,oghvordandepa˚virketprosjektene.
Fraresultatenekanviseat”wholeteamthinking”varenavfaktorenesomholdtprosjek-
tenesamlet. Dettevarspesieltmerkbartna˚rteameneikkekonkurrertemothverandre,men
jobbetsammen. Na˚rteamenesa˚ hvorviktigdetvara˚ samarbeidevardemerhjelpsomme
medtankepa˚andreteamogdeforstohelheteniprosjektetogtenkteikkebarepa˚sinegen
delavprosjektet. Na˚rdeikketenktepa˚helhetensa˚varderaskeretila˚skyldepa˚hverandre
na˚rtingikkefungerteoghindretfremgangentilprosjektet.
Nøkkelord: Smidig, stor-skala, multiteam systemer, felles mentale modeller, suksess,
helhetligtenkning
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Preface
This paper was written as the master thesis in my final year on the Master Program in
Computer Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU. My
specializationhasbeenonsoftwaresystems,whereIhavelearnedmuchfromthedifferent
coursestakenovertheyears. Agiledevelopmenthasbeeninterestingthroughtheseyears
andIhavebeenabletousethisknowledgeinsomeoftheprojectcourses,andinmysum-
merjobforAvanadein2015.
ThereasonforchoosingthesubjectofsuccessfactorsinlargescaleagilewasbecauseIfelt
therewaspossibletocontributesomething.Thisareaisstillrelativelynewandthereforeit
isexcitingtoresearchsomethingnotmanyelsehavehadthepossibilityofdiscoveringyet.
This author would like to thank the supervisor of this paper, Torgeir Dingsøyr. With his
helpIwasabletoinvestigateactualcases,andwithouthissupportandknowledgeonthis
subjectthisthesiswouldnotbepossible. Thereisalsonecessarytothanksomeotherstu-
dentswhohavealsocontributed. ThethesisofEspenAndreassenwashelpfulthroughout
thisprojectbecauseoftheknowledgeofthesubjectandOmegacase,andtheobservations
ofAravinthanYogarajahwashelpfulintheinvestigationoftheTelluscase.Theworkwith
this thesis is related to the Agile 2.0 project funded by the Research council of Norway
through grant 236759, and supported by the companies Kantega, Kongsberg Defence &
Aerospace,SopraSteria,andSticos.
Trondheim,May31,2016
TinaChristinSyversen
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Table of Contents
Abstract i
Sammendrag iii
Preface v
TableofContents ix
ListofTables xii
ListofFigures xiii
Abbreviations xiv
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 ProblemDescriptionandBackground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 ScopeandLimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 TargetAudience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6 ReportOutline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Theory 7
2.1 AgileSoftwareDevelopment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 AgileMethods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.2 TeamPerformance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.1.3 ResearchonAgile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 LargeScaleProjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.1 LargeScaleAgile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.2 Example: Spotify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.3 MultipleTeams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.4 Co-LocatedvsDistributed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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2.2.5 FrameworksandScalingMethods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3 SuccessFactors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.2 CustomerCollaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.3 AgileSoftwareEngineeringTechniquesandAgileEvangelist . . 26
2.3.4 RespondingtoChange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.5 TheTeam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.6 Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.7 Bridgehead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.8 Co-Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.9 ProductOwner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3.10 WholeTeamThinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4 WholeTeamThinkingandSharedMentalModels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4.1 SharedMentalModelsTheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4.2 AgilePracticesandSharedMentalModelsTheory . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.3 WhyisWholeTeamThinkingImportant? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3 Method 39
3.1 LiteratureReview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.1 PartsandObjectivesofaLiteratureReview . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1.2 SelectionStrategyandResearchQuestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2 CaseStudy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.1 DataCollection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.2 DataAnalysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4 Results 49
4.1 TheCases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.1.1 Omega . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.2 Tellus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2 SuccessFactors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2.1 AgileSoftwareEngineeringTechniquesandAgileEvangelist . . 52
4.2.2 RespondingtoChange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2.3 TheTeam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2.4 Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.2.5 Bridgehead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2.6 Co-Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2.7 ProductOwner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2.8 WholeTeamThinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5 Discussion 63
5.1 ResearchQuestionandSuccessFactors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1.1 ResearchQuestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1.2 RespondingtoChange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.1.3 TheTeam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.1.4 Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.1.5 Bridgehead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
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