Abstract
In agile software development, proper team structures and sprint estimations are crucial aspects to reach high-performance outcomes. Performance can vary due to the influence of social-driven team factors. Resulting in team dynamics with the focus on human factors are usually difficult to capture and thus often not monitored. However, their impact can impede the planning and fulfillment of sprints.
Data on team behavior should be simplified to track, analyze, and interpret as sprint influences are important to understand. We provide a centralized solution that extends JIRA functionally and continuously captures sprint characteristics in the daily working environment of teams.
In this paper, we describe a JIRA plugin that enables the assessment of team behavior in combination with exploratory analyses. The tool became approached with six software projects and a total of 53 undergraduate students. Characterizations made with the plugin can reveal sprint and team dynamics over time, involving development performance and team-related measures. The feature comes with a feedback mechanism for teams that visualize and implicates the sprint dependencies.
The approach reveals a set of team-related sprint dynamics, its systematically capturing, and characterization. With the achieved solution, team leader and developer can be supported to understand the ongoing sprint and team-driven dynamics better. Thus, they can keep track of their habits for future sprint planning and team adjustment impacts.
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
Basili, V.R., Reiter Jr., R.W.: An investigation of human factors in software development. Computer 12, 21–38 (1979)
Bostock, M., Ogievetsky, V., Heer, J.: D\(^3\) data-driven documents. IEEE Trans. Visual Comput. Graph. 17(12), 2301–2309 (2011)
Cockburn, A., Highsmith, J.: Agile software development, the people factor. Computer 34(11), 131–133 (2001)
Jermakovics, A., Sillitti, A., Succi, G.: Mining and visualizing developer networks from version control systems. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, pp. 24–31. ACM (2011)
Kauffeld, S., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N.: Meetings matter: effects of team meetings on team and organizational success. Small Group Res. 43(2), 130–158 (2012)
Klünder, J., Kortum, F., Ziehm, T., Schneider, K.: Helping teams to help themselves: an industrial case study on interdependencies during sprints. In: Bogdan, C., Kuusinen, K., Lárusdóttir, M.K., Palanque, P., Winckler, M. (eds.) HCSE 2018. LNCS, vol. 11262, pp. 31–50. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05909-5_3
Klünder, J., Schneider, K., Kortum, F., Straube, J., Handke, L., Kauffeld, S.: Communication in teams - an expression of social conflicts. In: Bogdan, C., et al. (eds.) HCSE/HESSD -2016. LNCS, vol. 9856, pp. 111–129. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44902-9_8
Kortum, F., Klünder, J., Brunotte, W., Schneider, K.: Sprint performance forecasts in agile software development - the effect of futurespectives on team-driven dynamics. In: 31st International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering. KSI Research Inc. (2019)
Kortum, F., Klünder, J., Schneider, K.: Don’t underestimate the human factors! Exploring team communication effects. In: Felderer, M., Méndez Fernández, D., Turhan, B., Kalinowski, M., Sarro, F., Winkler, D. (eds.) PROFES 2017. LNCS, vol. 10611, pp. 457–469. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69926-4_36
Kortum, F., Klünder, J., Schneider, K.: Behavior-driven dynamics in agile development: the effect of fast feedback on teams. In: 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software and System Processes (ICSSP). IEEE (2019)
Kuhrmann, M., Tell, P., Klünder, J., Hebig, R., Licorish, S., MacDonell, S. (eds.): HELENA Stage 2 Results. ResearchGate (2018)
Lee, G., Xia, W.: Toward agile: an integrated analysis of quantitative and qualitative field data on software development agility. MIS Q. 34(1), 87–114 (2010)
Lehtonen, T., Eloranta, V.P., Leppanen, M., Isohanni, E.: Visualizations as a basis for agile software process improvement. In: 2013 20th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC), vol. 1, pp. 495–502. IEEE (2013)
Li, P.: JIRA Essentials. Packt Publishing Ltd., Birmingham (2015)
Martin, R.C.: Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River (2002)
Moe, N.B., Dingsøyr, T., Dybå, T.: A teamwork model for understanding an agile team: a case study of a scrum project. Inf. Softw. Technol. 52(5), 480–491 (2010)
Reshef, D.N., et al.: Detecting novel associations in large data sets. Science 334(6062), 1518–1524 (2011)
Ross, J.A.: The reliability, validity, and utility of self-assessment (2006)
Salo, O., Abrahamsson, P.: Empirical evaluation of agile software development: the controlled case study approach. In: Bomarius, F., Iida, H. (eds.) PROFES 2004. LNCS, vol. 3009, pp. 408–423. Springer, Heidelberg (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24659-6_29
Schneider, K., Klünder, J., Kortum, F., Handke, L., Straube, J., Kauffeld, S.: Positive affect through interactions in meetings: the role of proactive and supportive statements. J. Syst. Softw. 143, 59–70 (2018)
Schneider, K., Liskin, O., Paulsen, H., Kauffeld, S.: Media, mood, and meetings: related to project success? ACM Trans. Comput. Educ. (TOCE) 15(4), 21 (2015)
Vetro, A., Dürre, R., Conoscenti, M., Fernández, D.M., Jørgensen, M.: Combining data analytics with team feedback to improve the estimation process in agile software development. Found. Comput. Decis. Sci. 43(4), 305–334 (2018)
Watson, D., Clark, L.A., Tellegen, A.: Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 54(6), 1063 (1988)
Whitworth, E., Biddle, R.: The social nature of agile teams. In: Agile (AGILE 2007), pp. 26–36. IEEE (2007)
Williams, L.A., Cockburn, A.: Agile software development: it’s about feedback and change. Computer 36, 39–43 (2003)
Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Höst, M., Ohlsson, M.C., Regnell, B., Wesslén, A.: Experimentation in Software Engineering. Springer, Heidelberg (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29044-2
Acknowledgment
This work was funded by the German Research Society (DFG) under the project name Team Dynamics (2018–2020). Grant number 263807701.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kortum, F., Karras, O., Klünder, J., Schneider, K. (2019). Towards a Better Understanding of Team-Driven Dynamics in Agile Software Projects. In: Franch, X., Männistö, T., Martínez-Fernández, S. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11915. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35333-9_56
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35333-9_56
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-35332-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-35333-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)