Abstract
Context and motivation: Due to their emphasis on communication, agile methods and requirements engineering activities seem to mutually support each other in software development. Question/Problem: But how do agile teams manage the collaboration required to perform requirements related activities, especially when their members work from geographically distributed locations? Principle Ideas/Results: In this paper we investigated the requirements-driven collaboration translated as communication and awareness among agile teams from four distributed projects. We identified some collaboration patterns that are similar to those reported in the literature for the traditional, non-agile teams, but also some more specific to agile teams. For instance, we found that the number of team members involved in actual collaboration is different than the number of assigned members, that little communication exists with members outside the team, and that project managers are still key players in knowledge sharing patterns. We also found that distance does not matter for knowledge management, that familiarity from past projects facilitates awareness, and communication is still an important source of awareness. Contributions: Our results suggest an exploration on the role of project managers as the key players in agile teams. Also, the correlation of distance and communication needs to be investigated in largely distributed agile teams.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cao, L.C.L., Ramesh, B.: Agile requirements engineering practices: an empirical study. IEEE Softw. 25(1), 60–67 (2008)
Martakis, A., Daneva, M.: Handling requirements dependencies in agile projects: a focus group with agile software development practitioners. In: International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science, Paris, France, pp. 1–11. IEEE (2013)
Damian, D., Izquierdo, L., Singer, J.: Awareness in the wild: why communication breakdowns occur. In: International Conference on Global Software Engineering, New Delhi, India, pp. 81–90 (2007)
Damian, D., Kwan, I., Marczak, S.: Requirements-driven collaboration: leveraging the invisible relationships between requirements and people. In: Mistrík, I., Grundy, J., Hoek, A., Whitehead, J. (eds.) Collaborative Software Engineering, pp. 57–76. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Damian, D., Marczak, S., Kwan, I.: Collaboration patterns and the impact of distance on awareness in requirements-centred social networks. In: International Requirements Engineering Conference, New Delhi, India, pp. 59–68. IEEE (2007)
Pikkarainen, M., Haikara, J., Salo, O., Abrahamsson, P., Still, J.: The impact of agile practices on communication in software development. Empirical Softw. Eng. 13(3), 303–337 (2008)
Cataldo, M., Ehrlich, K.: The Impact of the Structure of Communication Patterns in Global Software Development: An Empirical Analysis of a Project Using Agile Methods, pp. 1–17. IRS, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (2011)
Bjarnason, E., Sharp, H.: The role of distances in requirements communication: a case study. Requirements Eng. (2015)
Marczak, S., Damian, D.: How interaction between roles shapes the communication structure in RDC. In: 19th International Conference on Requirements Engineering, Trento, Itlay, pp. 47–56. IEEE (2011)
Watts, D.J., Strogatz, S.H.: Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature 393(6), 440–442 (1998)
Inayat, I., Marczak, S., Salim, S.S.: Studying relevant socio-technical aspects of requirements-driven collaboration in agile teams. In: International Workshop on Empirical Requirements Engineering, in Conjunction with International Requirements Engineering Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. IEEE (2013)
Ehrlich, K., Chang, K.: Leveraging expertise in global software teams: going outside boundaries. In: International Conference on Global Software Engineering, Florianópolis, Brazil, pp. 149–158. IEEE (2006)
Ehrlich, K., Cataldo, M.: The communication patterns of technical leaders: impact on product development team performance. In: International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Baltimore, USA, pp. 733–744 (2014)
Holmstrom, H., Fitzgerald, B., Agerfalk, P.J., Conchuir, E.O.: Agile practices reduce distance in global software development. Inf. Syst. Manag. 23(3), 7–18 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Inayat, I., Marczak, S., Salim, S.S., Damian, D. (2017). Patterns of Collaboration Driven by Requirements in Agile Software Development Teams. In: Grünbacher, P., Perini, A. (eds) Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. REFSQ 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10153. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54045-0_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54045-0_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54044-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54045-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)