he Application of agile software development process to engineering software projects has shown good progress over the years. However, in a globally connected world having an entire team working on developing the software from one location does not typically happen. Agile techniques and processes are successful when teams are co-located. This project tries to find a solution to this problem by using virtual reality to fill the gap between remote located teams and fast paced development environment. This provides an immersive feeling of being in office with colleagues even if the participants are not in same room physically. This can greatly improve the collaborative work. A Virtual Reality (VR) environment is developed for the team members to interact in. We used Oculus DK2 as the headset and Leap Motion to interact within that world. We have explored Implementation of pair programming. The VR application developed has a browser which can be interacted with VR controls. The browser syncs itself across all windows and users. When this feature of browser is used with cloud services, it helps to provide a screen sharing without actually sharing the screen. This application features a board where people can come and discuss meeting agenda. The participants in the meeting can walk to different virtual rooms. The participants can go to virtual outdoors from the virtual office. The application works with both VR headset and without VR headset. This application was tested among few students to get the feedback. The programmers reported that this application could really improve communication. Future The project can be developed in different stages in future. The first step will be adding leap motion controls to move around in the virtual office. More browser controls will be moved to leap motion interactable buttons from gaze based interaction. In the future, the project will be developed to have multiple platforms such as android and iOS. The project must be updated frequently to use new and better VR devices and its controls.

1. Collaborative Agile
Development
in Virtual Reality
By Talal Shaikh

2. SPONSORS & PARTNERS

3. HELLO!
Talal Shaikh
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Heriot Watt University
Dubai Campus
Research Interest in Agile Software
Development , Robotics , IOT and AI

4. VR Project
developed
by Rahul
Vijayakumar
Had previous experience working
as a developer in a Software
Development Firm and had some
interest in 3D Graphics Design

5. Whats the Problem?
Lets see…

6. 80%
Companies are not happy with there GSE activities

7. “80% of the companies are not satisfied
with their global software activities. One of
the major reason of failure of
“Global Software Engineering (GSE) is
distance and lack of communication”
(C.Ebert et al. 2016)

9. All agile principles and processes suggest
the requirement close proximity or co-
location of team. The communication
between the team is so important in case
of agile development model
(J.Highsmith and A.Cockburn 2001).

10. 1,000,000,000,000$
Companies spend more than
45%
(dogheadsimulations.com , 2017 )
work remotely and still follow agile methods even though
agile was developed for co-located teams.
On travel

11. Teams and Clients are spread across the world
our office

12. Communication in a Digital
World
Communication
Non Immersive
Communication
Email
Instant
Messaging
VOIP
Immersive
Communication
AR VR MR

15. What are the other
companies doing for this?

19. Is Agile Software Development
possible with teams who are
not collocated in VR?

20. AGILE
In Virtual Reality
We looked at developing a prototype for
Agile Development in VR

21. Hardware Used

23. Software Architecture

26. Internal User View

27. Experiment
› Two users tasked to implement a
java class where the other one can
act as an observer and help the other
› If not coding can explore the
environment together

28. Collaborative Coding
› Code in virtual environment. Using a
virtual collaborative browser… in virtual
space !!!

29. Black Board
› A black board area to discuss agenda.

30. The meeting room

31. Explore
• Go around see places in
the virtual world after meeting.

32. Evaluation
› Masters students who work in software
development companies.
› Pilot Study and Main Study.
› Users can back out anytime.

34. Evaluation Results

35. Evaluation Results

36. Evaluation Results

37. Is Agile Software Development
possible with teams who are
not collocated in VR?
Yes, but still a long way to go.

38. Conclusion
› Agile Development possible in VR but
might have health risk. Need more study
over longer periods.
› People are willing to try new
technology.
› Prototype needs to be tested over
larger groups of people.
› Hardware is not cheap.

39. Demo

40. Demos

42. THANKS!
Any questions?
You can find us at:
@talalshaikh
E: t.a.g.shaikh@hw.ac.uk
rahul.vijayakumar.pr@gmail.com