Date and time: 25 November, 11:00-11:30
Meeting link (Zoom): https://NTNU.zoom.us/j/97338220699?pwd=eTFIUlpHd0cxb1N1TDhHSyt5M0VOQT09
Abstract
Following the highly pervasive and effective use of agile methods at the team level, many software organisations now wish to replicate this success at the organisational level, adopting large-scale agile methods such as SAFe, Scrum-at-Scale, and others. However, this has proven significantly challenging. An analysis of the extant literature reveals a disparate set of studies across each individual method, with no cross-method comparison based on empirical evidence. This systematic literature review compares the main large-scale agile methods, namely SAFe, LeSS, Scrum-at-Scale, DAD, and the Spotify model. It is the first study to analyse and compare each of the method’s principles, practices, tools, and metrics in a standardised manner. For each method, it presents not just the original method specifications but also all extensions and modifications to each method proposed by subsequent empirical research. It includes in this comparison not just commercial large-scale methods but also those that have been custom-built in organisations such as Nokia, Ericsson, and others. Based on the findings reported in this study, practitioners can make a more informed decision as to which commercial method or method component or, indeed, custom-built method is better suited to their needs. Our study reveals a number of theoretical and practical issues in the current literature, such as an emphasis on the practices of commercial frameworks at the expense of their underlying principles, or indeed any of the custom method. A set of challenges and success factors associated with the use of large-scale agile methods are identified. The study also identifies a number of research gaps to be addressed across methods.
Speaker Bio:
Henry Edison is an assistant professor of software engineering at the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at the University of Southern Denmark. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy in 2017. His main research are within the empirical software engineering in the areas of software product innovation, software startups and agility, and human factors in software engineering. His research examines current and future practices and trends of software development processes and tailor them to suit different contexts from startup and emerging to large and established organisations. He actively publishes in software engineering venues including IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Journal of Systems and Software, Information and Software Technology, etc. He is also active in serving various software engineering conferences and workshops. In 2018, he was awarded a two-year grant of Marie Curie Fellowship COFUND programme at Lero, NUI Galway, Ireland. The programme was co-funded by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme and the Science Foundation Ireland through Lero.