Five Agile Factors: Helping Self‐Management to Self‐Reflect

Leiden University. The university to discover. Leiden University. The university to discover.

Christoph J. Stettina ([email protected]) Werner Heijstek ([email protected])

Five Agile Factors Helping Self-‐Management to Self-‐Reflect EuroSPI 2011, Roskilde, Denmark

This research has been kindly supported by the EDAFMIS project

Leiden University. The university to discover.

Contents

l  Introduc*on l  Objec*ves l  Related work l  Methodology l  Results l  Discussion


IntroducKon

Agile collaboraKve self-‐managing teams

l  High-‐produc*vity (Guzzo and Dickson, 1996) l  Increased problem solving (Tata and Prasad,1996) l  Redundancy and backup behavior (Salas et al. 2005)

But, self-‐management is difficult to implement

l  Human and social factors (Moe et al. 2009, 2010) l  Company cultures, context dependency l  Greater exposure, impression management → Awareness necessary


Related Work

Five dimensions of agile teamwork (Moe et al.,2009)

l  Shared Leadership Shared mental model and decision authority, transfer of leadership l  Team Orienta*on Team cohesion, team goals over individual goals l  Redundancy Avoids bottlenecks, shift workloads, mutual assistance l  Learning Interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition, self-optimization in environment l  Autonomy External influences, low: encourage group think

Qualita*ve framework build on theore*cal and empirical ground of ac*on research studies


ObjecKves

To what extent can we use the findings of Moe et al. (2009) to measure self-‐management in order to support reflec@on in agile teams?

l  Quan*ta*ve: anonymous and easy to deploy l  Test alignment to original research l  Provide feedback for the team l  Create awareness

→ Strengthen agile teams


Methodology

Shared Leadership – Team OrientaKon – Redundancy – Learning -‐ Autonomy l  I feel everyone is involved in the decision-‐making process l  I feel team members make important decisions without consul:ng other team

members l  I feel the team vision is well defined and presented l  I feel the team is designed (and redesigned) according to its purpose Team Orienta@on l  I feel the team takes into account alterna:ve sugges:ons in team discussions l  I feel the team values alterna:ve sugges:ons l  I feel team members relate to the tasks of individuals l  I regularly comment on a co-‐worker's work Redundancy l  I feel it is easy to complete someone else's task l  I feel I get help if I get stuck l  I help others when they have problems l  I feel it is easy to subs:tute a person if someone leaves the team# Learning I feel the team keeps what works well in the development process I feel the team improves the development method when so@ware development problems are iden:fied I feel the team gives feedback on all aspects of each others work {Autonomy I feel the team looses resources to other projects I feel people and groups outside the team have influence over important opera:onal decisions in the project I feel decisions made by the team are respected by people and groups outside the team

QuanKtaKve quesKonnaire: team data QualitaKve interviews: project environment


Methodology: Data CollecKon

ParKcipant and team idenKficaKon: l  SNS, Google Groups, SlideShare, Flickr, etc. l  Ac:vely involved in Scrum at collec:on :me

l  Unique IDs to iden:fy team results


Roles

Data: 79 individuals, 13 countries, 8 teams

Experience (in years) Country


Results: Team Sample

T1 (UK) MMO Game back-‐end T2 (US) Collabora*ve SW for construc*on T3 (UK) Digital media agency T4 (NO) Smart Card key solu*ons T5 (NL) Corporate sites and web shops T6 (SE) News guide, community website T7 (IN) E-‐commerce T8 (NZ) State insurance company → Representa*ve mul*na*onal sample




Results: Team Factors

Learning: High Autonomy: Low


Results: Team Agreement

T1 (UK) & T7 (IN): Both collocated teams → Max agreement

T4 (NO) & T8 (NZ): Diversified teams with different roles → Max disagreement



Agile Values l  Low: Autonomy → consistent with Moe et al. l  High: Learning → not consistent Team Agreement l  Most: Autonomy, Team Orienta*on l  Least: Redundancy, Shared Leadership

→ Does not reflect on agile values BUT: Correlates to team consistency


Results: Global Sample

All 79 par*cipants Agile Factors l  Low Autonomy l  No significant difference among other factors on a global level


Discussion

Results l  Low Autonomy → consistent with Moe et al. l  Individual, Team and Organiza*onal level l  Context dependency of agile implementa*ons

Tool l  Ques*onnaire met with interest (79/150) l  Should be executed on team ini*a*ve, not to be used by organiza*onal control


RecommendaKons

Shared Leadership l  Share decision authority Team OrientaKon l  Culture of trust Redundancy l  Job rota*on, team colloca*on Learning l  Apprecia*on of generalists (Fægri et al. 2010)

Autonomy l  “One project at a *me” (Moe et al. 2009)


Validity & Future Work

Validity ConsideraKons

l  Consistency of data → Likert scales l  Low amount of data → Team agreement l  Socially Desirable Responding → Anonymity

Future Work

l  Dedicated tool l  7 point Likert scales for more details l  Improved ques*ons for Learning l  Further tes*ng with a small student team


Conclusions

To what extent can we use the findings of Moe et al. (2009) to measure self-‐management in order to support reflec@on in agile teams?

l  Qualita*ve Framework → Quan*ta*ve Tool l  Par*al consistency with original findings l  Introduced a measure for team agreement l  Found as a useful tool to improve discussion l  Recommenda*ons to prac*ce


QuesKons?

Thank you for your agen*on! [email protected]


References Fægri, T.E., Dyb˚a, T., Dingsøyr, T.: Introducing knowledge redundancy prac*ce in sokware development: Experiences with job rota*on in support work. Inf. Sokw. Technol. 52, 1118–1132 (2010) Guzzo, R.A., Dickson, M.W.: Teams in organiza*ons: Recent research on performance and effec*veness. Annual Review of Psychology 47(1), 307–338 (1996) Moe, N., Dingsøyr, T., Røyrvik, E.: Pupng agile teamwork to the test – an preliminary instrument for empirically assessing and improving agile sokware development. In: Abrahamsson, P., Marchesi, M., Maurer, F. (eds.) Agile Processes in Sokware Engineering and Extreme Programming. LNBIP, vol. 31, pp. 114–123. Springer, Heidelberg (2009) Moe, N., Dingsøyr, T., Dyba, T.: Overcoming barriers to self-‐management in sokware teams. IEEE Sokware 26, 20–26 (2009) Moe, N.B., Dingsøyr, T., Dyba, T.: A teamwork model for understanding an agile team: A case study of a scrum project. Inf. Sokw. Technol. 52, 480–491 (2010) Salas, E., Sims, D., Burke, C.: Is there a big five in teamwork? Small Group Research 36(5), 555–599 (2005) Tata, J., Prasad, S.: Team Self-‐Management, Organiza*onal Structure and Judgments of Team Effec*veness. Journal of Managerial Issues 16(2), 248+ (2004)


Results: Global Sample

Education

Five Agile Factors: Helping Self‐Management to Self‐Reflect