Pre-proceedings http://bit.ly/1seNuia Due to the increasing popularity of Agile Software Development (ASD), more software development teams are planning to transit to ASD. As ASD substantially differs from the traditional Software Development (TSD), there are a number of issues and challenges that needs to be overcome when transiting to ASD. One of the most difficult challenges here is acquiring an agile “mindset”. The question arises whether it is possible to acquire this mindset with the minimum disruption of an already established TSD process. The paper tries to answer this question by developing a non-disruptive method of transition to ASD, while using a knowledge transformation perspective to identify the main features of ASD mindset and how it differs from the one of TSD. To map the current mindset and plan the movement to the mindset that is more agile, the paper suggests using a process modelling technique that considers the development process as a socio-technical system with components that correspond to the phases of the development process. The method suggested in the paper has been designed in connection to a business case of a development team interested to transit to agility in a non-disruptive manner.

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Becoming Agile in a Non-Disruptive
Ways
Is it possible?
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Ilia Bider & Oscar Söderberg
5/15/2016
18TH International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
ICEIS 2016

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Objectives
• Questions?
1. Is it possible to create an “agile team” while
staying in the frame of the traditional phase base
development
2. If yes than how?
• We will be answering the first question by
giving an answer to the second one (how) –
Design Science approach
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Objectives
• Problems to solve/questions to answer
1. What are the essential characteristics of an agile
team/agile mindset? In what way they are different
from those of a non-agile team?
2. How to measure the level of team agility achieved
to see the distance to the end-goal
3. How to plan actions to shorten the distance
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Plan
1. What are the essential characteristics of an agile
team/agile mindset? In what way they are different
from the characteristics of a non-agile team?
2. How to measure the level of team agility achieved
to see the distance to the end-goal and how to
plan actions to shorten the distance
3. Test so far
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Background: Knowledge transformation
SECI model of knowledge transformation of Nonaka:
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Nonaka, I., 1994. A dynamic theory of
organizational knowledge creation.
Organization science, 5(1), pp.14-37..
Two types of knowledge:
– Explicit
– Tacit
+ One added - embedded

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Knowledge transformation in TSD
ECEA - a model of Traditional Software Development
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Additional activities, e.g.:
• Writing manuals: embedded ->
explicit)
• Reading manuals (explicit ->tacit
Becoming obsolete

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Knowledge transformation in ASD
SEA - a model of Agile Software Development:
Avoiding explication of knowledge
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Difference:
1. Requirements:
engineering -> discovery
2. Design + Coding =
Embedment
3. One big cycle -> many
small

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Difference between ASD and TSD
Social perspective
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# ASD TSD
1 One team consisting of
“universal” members
Several specialized teams
2 Stakeholders involvement
during the duration of the project
Stakeholders involvement
during the Externalization and
Adoption phases
3 Non-contractual agreement
based on trust
Contractual agreement is
possible

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Difference between ASD and TSD
Technical perspective
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# ASD TSD
4 Possibility to identify and agree
on a core system that can be
expanded in consequent
iterations
Not mandatory, but can be
employed.
5 Architecture aimed at
expansion
Architecture aimed at fulfilling
the identified requirements
6 Employing high-level tools, e.g.
domain-specific languages,
development platforms,
libraries
Not mandatory – low level, and
universal tools can be
employed

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Summary
An agile team/agile mindset – a team (a) of
generalists (b) capable of creating an
application/software from tacit knowledge (c) acquired
via socialization with the stakeholders (d) using high-
level tools and (e) bypassing traditional phases of
requirements engineering and system design
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Plan
1. What are the essential characteristics of an agile
team/agile mindset? In what way they are different
from the non-agile team?
2. How to measure the level of team agility achieved
to see the distance to the end-goal and how to
plan actions to shorten the distance
3. Test so far
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Modeling team structure
Team-relationship model: Input-output relation
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Matrix form
BM RE AD Impl Test
BM
RE Model Bugs
AD Reqs
Impl Design Bugs
Test Software

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Modeling team structure
Team-relationship model
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Communication intensity
• High – once a day
• Average – 3 times a week
• Low – once a week
BM RE AD Impl Test
BM High Average Low
RE High Average High Low
AD High High High
Impl Low Average High
Test Low Low Average High

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Planning the next step
Team-relationship model
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Communication intensity
• High – once a day
• Average – 3 times a week
• Low – once a week
BM RE AD Impl Test
BM High Average Low
RE High High High Low
AD High High High
Impl Low High High
Test Low Low Average High

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Modeling team structure
Team-relationship model
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Cross competence
Percentage of the members of
the column team having
working knowledge of the row
phase
BM RE AD Impl. Test
BM 50% 75%
RE 75% 75% 50%
AD 75%
Impl. 50% 50% 75% 50%
Test 50%

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Planning the next step
Team-relationship model
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Cross competence
Percentage of the members of
the column team having
working knowledge of the row
phase
BM RE AD Impl. Test
BM 50% 75%
RE 75% 75% 50%
AD 75% 50%
Impl. 50% 50% 75% 50%
Test 50% 50%

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Modeling team structure
Timeline intensity
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Planning exclusion of RE & Design
New timeline intensity
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Moving towards agility
1. Intensify communication between the teams
2. Increase the level of cross-competency by mixing people from
different teams
3. Run phases in parallel
4. Adopt high-level tools – as soon as possible (will make it easy to
deal with 1,2,3 above)
5. Plan for minimum viable system when starting new development
6. Do not plan to much in each iteration
7. Increase stakeholders involvement by inviting them to review the
system under development
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20. 5/15/2016 DSV SU
Plan
1. What are the essential characteristics of an agile
team/agile mindset? In what way they are different
from the non-agile team?
2. How to measure the level of team agility achieved
to see the distance to the end-goal and how to
plan actions to shorten the distance
3. Test so far
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Business case
• The development of the method of moving to agile has
been done in parallel with a case study of an IT department
in a Swedish insurance company
• The models demonstrated in the previous slides
approximately correspond to the ones built for the business
case
• The method , the models, and suggestions for the next step
were presented to the management of the IT department
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Goals with presentations
To test whether:
1. The method could be understood by people not very
familiar with the agile practices
2. They can accept concrete suggestions based on this
method, provided that they are approved by the higher
management.
The last check (approximately) corresponds to “reediness to
use” in Technology Acceptance Model
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Questions asked after
1. Have you understood what kind of organizational changes
the transition to agile will require?
2. Have you understood the action plan for movement
towards a more agile development process?
3. Are you prepared to submit the action plan to the
upper/higher management for approval?
4. Are you prepared to set the suggested plan in action if
approved by the higher management?
Positive answers on 1,2,4. Some debates on 3 regarding how
to influence the decision maker
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Summary of the test
• The results are encouraging, but far from sufficient
• More testing is required
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25. 5/15/2016 DSV SU
Q & A
Thank you for your patience
Questions and comments
Please
Contact: ilia@dsv.su.se
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