More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

article

Evaluating the impact of an agile transformation: a longitudinal case study in a distributed context

Author:

Kirsi KorhonenAuthors Info & Claims

Software Quality Journal, Volume 21, Issue 4

Pages 599 - 624

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-012-9189-4

Published: 01 December 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Many software-development organizations have recently started to adopt agile practices in order to benefit from the improvements they clearly bring, in terms of production speed and software quality, for example. However, in a large, distributed organization, such as Nokia Siemens Networks, an agile transformation may be a long-term, complex process, and therefore, evaluating the benefits achieved, and measuring the success of the change, can be difficult, especially in the early phases of the transformation. This paper is based on the results of a case study on the impact introducing agile practices actually had in a large, software-development organization, part of Nokia Siemens Networks. The impact of this agile transformation was evaluated in terms of how well it succeeded in achieving the goals set by the management before the transformation started. This longitudinal study included two separate analyses, made at 6 monthly intervals, which measured what agile practices were really in use in the organization, and what effects, if any, were visible in terms of the goals which had been set by the management The 6 monthly analyses included defect data metrics and opinion surveys of the personnel directly involved in the transformation. The study showed two things: firstly, that the introduction of agile practices does have the beneficial effects that one would expect, and secondly, that, using this kind of study, it is not only possible to evaluate the impact that the adoption of agile practices has in a large, established software-development company, but also that the effects are visible at a surprisingly early stage.

References

[1]

Auvinen, J., Back, R., Heidenberg, J., Hirkman, P., & Milovanov, L. (2005). Improving the engineering process area at Ericsson with agile practices. A case study. TUCS Technical report No 716.

[2]

Begel, A., & Nagappan, N. (2008). Pair programming: What's in it for me? In Proceedings of the second ACM-IEEE international symposium on empirical software engineering and measurement (ESEM '08), IEEE (pp. 120-128).

[3]

Benefield, G. (2008). Rolling out agile in a large enterprise. In Proceedings of the 41st annual Hawaii international conference on system sciences (p. 462).

[4]

Ceschi, M., Sillitti, A., Succi, G., & Panfilis, S. D. (2005). Project management in plan-based and agile companies. IEEE Software, 22(3), 21-27.

Digital Library

[5]

DeClue, T. H. (2003). Pair programming and pair trading: Effects on learning and motivation in a CS2 course. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 18(5), 49-56.

Digital Library

[6]

Goeschl, S., Herp, M., & Wais, C. (2010). When agile meets OO testing--A case study. In Proceedings of the 1st workshop on testing object-oriented systems (ETOOS '10).

[7]

Hartmann, D., & Dymond, R. (2006). Appropriate agile measurement: Using metrics and diagnostics to deliver business value. In Proceedings of agile 2006 (pp. 128-134).

[8]

Ileva, S., Ivanov, P., & Stefanova, E. (2004). Analyses of an agile methodology implementation. In Proceedings of euromicro conference (pp. 393-407). IEEE Computer Society Press.

[9]

Kettunen, P., & Laanti, M. (2007). Combining agile software projects and large-scale organizational agility. Published online 13 July 2007 in Wiley InterScience.

[10]

Korhonen, K. (2009). Migrating defect management from waterfall to agile software development in a large-scale multi-site organization: A case study. In Proceedings 10th international conference on agile processes and eXtreme Programming in software engineering (XP 2009), Italy, LNBIP 31 (pp. 73-82). Springer.

[11]

Korhonen, K. (2010). Exploring defect data, quality and engagement during agile transformation at a large multisite organization. In 11th international conference on agile processes and eXtreme Programming in software engineering XP 2010 (pp. 88-102). Springer, Berlin.

[12]

Korhonen, K. (2011). Evaluating the impact of agile adoption on the software defect management practices. Software Quality Professional, 14(1), 23-33.

[13]

Korhonen, K. (2012). Supporting agile transformation with defect management in large distributed software development organisation. Dissertation at Tampere University of Technology. Publication 1032.

[14]

Korhonen, K., & Salo, O. (2008). Exploring quality metrics to support defect management in multi site organization--A case study. In Proceedings of the 19th international symposium on software reliability engineering (ISSRE 2008), Seattle, WA (pp. 213-218). IEEE Computer Society.

[15]

Laanti, M. (2010). Agile transformation study at Nokia--One year after. Lean Enterprise Software and Systems, 65, Part 1, 3-19.

[16]

Laanti, M., Salo, O., & Abrahamsson, P. (2011). Agile methods rapidly replacing traditional methods at Nokia: A survey of opinions on agile transformation. Information and Software Technology, 53(3), 276-290.

Digital Library

[17]

Li, J., Moe, B., & Dybå, T. (2010). Transition from a plan-driven process to Scrum: A longitudinal case study on software quality. In Proceedings of the ACM-IEEE international symposium on empirical software engineering and measurement (ESEM 2010).

[18]

Lifshitz, G., Kroskin, A., & Dubinsky, Y. (2008). The story of transition to agile sw development. In Proceedings of XP 2008 (pp. 212-214), Ireland.

[19]

Lindvall, M., Muthig, D., Dagnino, A., Wallin, C., Stupperich, M., Kiefer, D., et al. (2004): Agile software development in large organizations. IEEE Computer 37(12), 26-34.

Digital Library

[20]

McDowell, C., Werner, L., Bullock, H., & Fernald, J. (2002). The effects of pair-programming on performance in an introductory programming course. In Proceedings the 33rd SIGCSE technical symposium on computer science education (pp. 38-42).

[21]

Nagappan, N., Maximilien, E. M., Bhat, T., & Williams, L. (2008). Realizing quality improvement through test driven development: Results and experiences of four industrial teams. Empirical Software Engineering, 13(3), 289-302.

Digital Library

[22]

Petersen, K., & Wohlin, C. (2010). The effect of moving from a plan-driven to an incremental software development approach with agile practices: An industrial case study. Empirical Software Engineering, 15, 654-693.

Digital Library

[23]

Poppendieck, M., & Poppendieck, T. (2007). Lean software development. Addison-Wesley.

[24]

Royce, W. (1970). Managing the development of large software systems. In Proceedings of the IEEE WESCON 26 (pp. 1-9). http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf.

[25]

Schatz, B., & Abdelshafi, I. (2005). Primavera gets agile: A successful transition to agile development. IEEE Software, 22, 36-42.

Digital Library

[26]

Schwaber, K., & Beedle, M. (2002). Agile software development with Scrum. Prentice Hall.

[27]

Sfetsos, P., & Stamelos, I. (2010). Empirical studies on quality in agile practices: A systematic literature review. In Proceedings of QUATIC 2010.

[28]

Sillitti, A., Ceschi, M., Russo, B., & Succi, G. (2005). Managing uncertainty in requirements: A survey in documentation-driven and agile companies. In Proceedings of the 11th IEEE international symposium on software metrics (METRICS 2005) (p. 17).

[29]

van Solingen, R., & Berghout, E. (1999). The Goal/Question/Metric method: A practical guide for quality improvement of software development. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

[30]

Vilkki, K. (2009). Impacts of agile transformation. Flexi Newsletter 1/2009.

[31]

Yin, R. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods. Sage Publishing.

Cited By

Itzik DRoy G(2023)Does agile methodology fit all characteristics of software projects? Review and analysisEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-023-10334-728:4Online publication date: 14-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-023-10334-7
Gren LRalph PDwyer MDamian DZeller A(2022)What makes effective leadership in agile software development teams?Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3510003.3510100(2402-2414)Online publication date: 21-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510003.3510100
Stray VFlorea RParuch L(2022)Exploring human factors of the agile software testerSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-021-09561-230:2(455-481)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11219-021-09561-2
Show More Cited By

Evaluating the impact of an agile transformation: a longitudinal case study in a distributed context
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management

Recommendations

Challenges in Agile Transformation Journey: A Qualitative Study
SBES '20: Proceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering

Context: The agile transformation of an organization is influenced by different factors that can hinder the initiative's success, such as lack of adaptation of agile practices to the organizational context, selection of agile alternatives without using ...
Agile transition and adoption human-related challenges and issues

Agile methods in software development have been introduced to cope with the inherent problems of the traditional methods. The increasing prevalence of using these methods reflects their important role in the future of software development. However, ...
Adopting agile practices in teams with no direct programming responsibility - a case study
PROFES'11: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Product-focused software process improvement

To respond to the need for flexibility in reacting to customer needs, the agile practices have been introduced in the software development organizations. In order to get full benefit of agile, it is proposed that the agile and lean practices should be ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Software Quality Journal

Software Quality Journal Volume 21, Issue 4

December 2013

95 pages

ISSN:0963-9314

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Copyright © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 December 2013

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

8
Total Citations
View Citations
0
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)0
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 12 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Itzik DRoy G(2023)Does agile methodology fit all characteristics of software projects? Review and analysisEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-023-10334-728:4Online publication date: 14-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-023-10334-7
Gren LRalph PDwyer MDamian DZeller A(2022)What makes effective leadership in agile software development teams?Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3510003.3510100(2402-2414)Online publication date: 21-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510003.3510100
Stray VFlorea RParuch L(2022)Exploring human factors of the agile software testerSoftware Quality Journal10.1007/s11219-021-09561-230:2(455-481)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11219-021-09561-2
Stray VMemon BParuch L(2020)A Systematic Literature Review on Agile Coaching and the Role of the Agile CoachProduct-Focused Software Process Improvement10.1007/978-3-030-64148-1_1(3-19)Online publication date: 25-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-64148-1_1
Küpper SPfahl DJürisoo KDiebold PMünch JKuhrmann M(2019)How has SPI changed in times of agile development? Results from a multi‐method studyJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.218231:11Online publication date: 15-Nov-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/smr.2182
Heikkilä VPaasivaara MLasssenius CDamian DEngblom C(2017)Managing the requirements flow from strategy to release in large-scale agile developmentEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-016-9491-z22:6(2892-2936)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-016-9491-z
Olszewska MHeidenberg JWeijola MMikkonen KPorres I(2016)Quantitatively measuring a large-scale agile transformationJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2016.03.029117:C(258-273)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2016.03.029
Diebold PDahlem MShepperd MHall TMyrtveit I(2014)Agile practices in practiceProceedings of the 18th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/2601248.2601254(1-10)Online publication date: 13-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2601248.2601254

View Options

View options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents