Investigating the Applicability of Agility Assessment Surveys: A Case Study
(2014) In Journal of Systems and Software 98. p.172-190- Abstract
- Context
Agile software development has become popular in the past decade without being sufficiently defined. The Agile principles can be instantiated differently which creates different perceptions of Agility. This has resulted in several frameworks being presented in the research literature to evaluate the level of Agility. However, the evidence of their actual use in practice is limited.
Objective
The objective is to identify online surveys that assess/profile Agility in practice, and to evaluate the surveys in an industrial setting.
Method
The Agility assessment surveys were identified through searching the web. Then, they were explored and... (More) - Context
Agile software development has become popular in the past decade without being sufficiently defined. The Agile principles can be instantiated differently which creates different perceptions of Agility. This has resulted in several frameworks being presented in the research literature to evaluate the level of Agility. However, the evidence of their actual use in practice is limited.
Objective
The objective is to identify online surveys that assess/profile Agility in practice, and to evaluate the surveys in an industrial setting.
Method
The Agility assessment surveys were identified through searching the web. Then, they were explored and two surveys were identified as most promising for our objective. The selected surveys were evaluated in a case study with three Agile teams in a software consultancy company.
Results
Each team and its customer separately judged the team's Agility. This outcome was compared with the two survey results in focus-group meetings, and finally one of the surveys was agreed to provide a more holistic assessment of Agility.
Conclusions
Different surveys may judge Agility differently, which supports the viewpoint that Agile is not well defined. Therefore, practitioners must decide what Agile means to them and select the assessment survey that matches their definition.
Abbreviations
CI, Continuous integration;
GSD, Global software development;
PP, Pair programming;
RQ, Research question;
S1, Survey 1;
S2, Survey 2;
TDD, Test driven development;
TR, Trouble report;
T1, Team 1;
T2, Team 2;
T3, Team 3;
XP, Extreme programming (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5104462
- author
- Jalalia, Samireh ; Wohlin, Claes and Angelis, Lefteris
- publishing date
- 2014
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Agile, Assessment, Survey
- in
- Journal of Systems and Software
- volume
- 98
- pages
- 172 - 190
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:84908296633
- ISSN
- 0164-1212
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jss.2014.08.067
- project
- Embedded Applications Software Engineering
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 486cc416-1cca-4a81-ba13-3ddbe0c3cb9b (old id 5104462)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 12:56:23
- date last changed
- 2022-01-27 08:23:52
@article{486cc416-1cca-4a81-ba13-3ddbe0c3cb9b, abstract = {{Context<br/><br> <br/><br> Agile software development has become popular in the past decade without being sufficiently defined. The Agile principles can be instantiated differently which creates different perceptions of Agility. This has resulted in several frameworks being presented in the research literature to evaluate the level of Agility. However, the evidence of their actual use in practice is limited.<br/><br> <br/><br> Objective<br/><br> <br/><br> The objective is to identify online surveys that assess/profile Agility in practice, and to evaluate the surveys in an industrial setting.<br/><br> <br/><br> Method<br/><br> <br/><br> The Agility assessment surveys were identified through searching the web. Then, they were explored and two surveys were identified as most promising for our objective. The selected surveys were evaluated in a case study with three Agile teams in a software consultancy company.<br/><br> <br/><br> Results<br/><br> <br/><br> Each team and its customer separately judged the team's Agility. This outcome was compared with the two survey results in focus-group meetings, and finally one of the surveys was agreed to provide a more holistic assessment of Agility.<br/><br> <br/><br> Conclusions<br/><br> <br/><br> Different surveys may judge Agility differently, which supports the viewpoint that Agile is not well defined. Therefore, practitioners must decide what Agile means to them and select the assessment survey that matches their definition.<br/><br> <br/><br> <br/><br> Abbreviations<br/><br> CI, Continuous integration; <br/><br> GSD, Global software development; <br/><br> PP, Pair programming; <br/><br> RQ, Research question; <br/><br> S1, Survey 1; <br/><br> S2, Survey 2; <br/><br> TDD, Test driven development; <br/><br> TR, Trouble report; <br/><br> T1, Team 1; <br/><br> T2, Team 2; <br/><br> T3, Team 3; <br/><br> XP, Extreme programming}}, author = {{Jalalia, Samireh and Wohlin, Claes and Angelis, Lefteris}}, issn = {{0164-1212}}, keywords = {{Agile; Assessment; Survey}}, language = {{eng}}, pages = {{172--190}}, publisher = {{Elsevier}}, series = {{Journal of Systems and Software}}, title = {{Investigating the Applicability of Agility Assessment Surveys: A Case Study}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2014.08.067}}, doi = {{10.1016/j.jss.2014.08.067}}, volume = {{98}}, year = {{2014}}, }