Home // International Journal On Advances in Software, volume 8, numbers 1 and 2, 2015 // View article

Challenges in Assessing Agile Methods in a Multisite Environment

Authors:
Harri Kaikkonen
Pasi Kuvaja

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

Abstract:
Organizations utilize agile development methods in addition to multisite environments with the intent to reduce costs and development time. Assessment results and possible challenges of utilizing and adopting such methods are typically qualitative and lack concrete evidence of the challenges. 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. 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 influence the assessment results and should be taken into account when assessing the implementation of development methods.

Pages: 136 to 145

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2015. Used with permission.

Publication date: June 30, 2015

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2628