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On Some Challenges in Assessing the Implementation of Agile Methods in a Multisite Environment

Authors:
Harri Kaikkonen
Pilar Rodríguez
Pasi Kuvaja

Keywords: organizational change; global software development; agile methods; Scrum; process assessment.

Abstract:
Organizations utilize agile development methods and multisite environments with the intent to reduce costs and development time. Assessing the results of utilizing and adopting such methods is also frequent. An assessment survey instrument was used to analyze the transformation of a multisite software development organization from waterfall-type development into agile development. The transformation was done in two globally distributed sites in Finland and India around 12 months apart. The assessment survey was conducted in the Finnish site 6 months after it had changed its working methods and again 12 months later in both sites. The site in India had adopted similar methods after the previous assessment survey was conducted. The results of the assessment survey in the Finnish site indicated regression between the two assessment rounds, while the results in India appeared to be better compared to Finland in the second round. Analysis of the results suggests that cultural differences and time elapsed from the organizational transformation may have influence in the assessment results and should be taken into account when assessing the implementation of development methods.

Pages: 179 to 184

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2014

Publication date: October 12, 2014

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-61208-367-4

Location: Nice, France

Dates: from October 12, 2014 to October 16, 2014