Thinking Lean in Agile Software Development Projects

174 Pages·2014·2.84 MB·English

Thinking Lean in Agile Software
Development Projects
A qualitative study to Identify ways to improve productivity and
increase business value
Master of Science Thesis in the Master's Programme International
Project Management

BRISILDA KOLA

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Division of Construction Management
CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
Göteborg, Sweden 2014
Master's Thesis 2014:119
ii

MASTER’S THESIS 2014:119

Thinking lean in agile software development projects
A qualitative study to identify ways to improve productivity and increase business value

Master of Science Thesis in the Master's Programme International
Project Management

BRISILDA KOLA

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Division of Construction Management
CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
Göteborg, Sweden 2014
iii

This thesis is dedicated in loving memory of my father,
Ndue Kola (1958 – 1994).
iv

Thinking lean in agile software development projects
A Qualitative Study To Identify Factors That Can to improve productivity and increase
business value
Master of Science Thesis in the Master's Programme International Project Management
BRISILDA KOLA

© BRISILDA KOLA, 2014.

Technical report no 2014:119
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Division of Construction Management
Chalmers University of Technology
SE-412 96 Göteborg
Sweden
Telephone + 46 (0)31-772 1000

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Göteborg, Sweden 2014
v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my special gratitude to all those who supported me during my
studies, and especially during this project.
My deepest appreciation goes to the Swedish Institute for having provided me this precious
opportunity to pursue my master studies in Sweden, by awarding me a scholarship.
I would like to acknowledge with much appreciation the role of my supervisors Claudio
Benghi and Christian Koch for the valuable comments, guidance and advice.
I would like to thank all the participants of my study, for willingly sharing with me their
precious time and experience, and for giving me the permission to use and publish their
names and the information that they provided for the purpose of this master thesis. Thank
you Mattias Gustafsson, Stefan Singman, Magnus Jonsson, Andreas Sandberg, Vincent
Thavonekham, NK Shrivastava, Liang Zhang, Paul Oldfield, Steve Fenton, Tim
Vermeerschen and Johnny Herrmann.
A special thanks goes to my family for all the understanding, the unconditional support and
the endless love provided day by day.
Last but not least, many thanks go to my relatives and friends, especially to my best friend
Adelina, who made my life easier just by being there, helping and supporting me all the
way.
vi

Thinking lean in agile software development projects
A Qualitative Study To Identify Factors That Can to improve productivity and increase
business value
Master of Science Thesis in the Master's Programme International
Project Management
BRISILDA KOLA
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Division of Construction Management
Chalmers University of Technology

ABSTRACT
Background – The high rate failure of software development projects, which influences
directly the business value of the organizations in which they take place by decreasing the
revenues and affecting employees’ productivity, is the main motivation to conduct this
research.
Objective – The objective of this study is to find appropriate ways to measure and improve
the productivity of the teams and to discover to what extent the agile methods, the
integration of the lean principles and the “soft skills” of the team can be combined in order
to achieve high quality results.
Method – A qualitative study, consisting in interviews with only Scrum masters and online
questionnaires with both Scrum masters and practitioners, was done in order to observe to
what extent the views of the scholars and researchers, whose work is used to build the
theoretical framework of this dissertation, apply to real life organizations operating in
software development industry.
Results –Scrum masters and practitioners have found several ways to measure the
productivity of the teams, based on their working experiences. Agile and lean
methodologies have proved to be beneficial to software developing organizations; while
“leagile paradigm” remains a relatively new concept in this industry. To conclude, people
are the most important asset in every organization, so their superiority is recognized and
worshiped by improving the management practices.
Conclusions – The integration of both agile and lean methodologies has a positive effect
on software development project-driven organizations. Nevertheless, the process is often
associated with challenges that can affect the productivity of the teams. Therefore, it is
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worth to find an appropriate way to measure productivity while continuously considering
and improving the “people skills”.
Keywords: software development, productivity, agile, Scrum, sprint, lean, Kanban,
leagile, management
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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... vi
PREFACE ........................................................................................................................................ xi
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
1.1. Rationale for the study ................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Aim and objectives ......................................................................................................... 2
1.3. Research method ............................................................................................................ 3
1.4. Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 4
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................... 6
2.1. Software Development Productivity .............................................................................. 6
2.2. Traditional versus Agile approaches ............................................................................ 10
2.3. Embedding Lean .......................................................................................................... 23
2.4. Managing people .......................................................................................................... 32
3. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 36
3.1. Qualitative vs. Quantitative .......................................................................................... 36
3.2. Research aim ................................................................................................................ 37
3.3. Research Design ........................................................................................................... 38
3.4. Data collection .............................................................................................................. 38
3.5. Data Analysis and interpretation .................................................................................. 41
3.6. Ethical considerations .................................................................................................. 42
3.7. Limitations ................................................................................................................... 42
4. RESULTS – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................ 44
4.1. Productivity measurement and improvement ............................................................... 44
4.2. Software development life cycle .................................................................................. 46
4.3. Team size...................................................................................................................... 48
4.4. The role of agile approaches in improving the working processes .............................. 49
4.5. Moving a team to agile ................................................................................................. 51
4.6. Agile and Lean integration ........................................................................................... 54
4.7. The connections among people-technological processes-principles ............................ 56
4.8. Management actions that affect productivity ............................................................... 58
4.9. Suggestions based on the participants’ experience ...................................................... 61
5. CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................................. 66
5.1. Summary of the main findings ..................................................................................... 66
5.2. Limitation and suggestions for further research ........................................................... 69
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 70
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APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................ 86
APPENDIX 1 – Interview Questions ........................................................................................... 87
APPENDIX 2 – Participants ........................................................................................................ 89
APPENDIX 3 – Interview Transcripts ......................................................................................... 91
A. Mattias Gustafsson ........................................................................................................... 91
B. Stefan Singman ................................................................................................................ 97
C. Magnus Jonsson ............................................................................................................. 102
D. Andreas Sandberg .......................................................................................................... 108
E. Vincent Thavonekham ................................................................................................... 112
F. NK Shrivastava .............................................................................................................. 120
G. Lian Zhang ..................................................................................................................... 127
H. Paul Oldfield .................................................................................................................. 131
I. Steve Fenton ................................................................................................................... 143
J. Tim Vermeerschen ......................................................................................................... 148
K. Johnny Hermann ............................................................................................................ 154
Appendix 4 – The online questionnaire and its results .............................................................. 158
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Table of Figures
Figure 1.1. Aim and objectives .......................................................................................................... 3
Figure 1.2. Research structure of this study ....................................................................................... 4
Figure 2.1. Agile methodologies over Traditional ones according to (Beck, et al., 2001) .............. 11
Figure 2.2. Agile methods according to Lindstrom and Jeffries (2004) .......................................... 12
Figure 2.3. Feature-orientation as foundation for Agile (Kircher and Hofman, 2012, p. 217) ........ 13
Figure 2.4. Scrum meetings.............................................................................................................. 16
Figure 2.5. Factors that affect the implementation of an agile methodology (Livermore, 2008) .... 19
Figure 2.6. Question drawn from theory .......................................................................................... 22
Figure 2.7. Non-value-adding waste in business according to Liker (2004) .................................... 24
Figure 2.8. Basic principles behind lean thinking (Womack, 1996) ................................................ 25
Figure 2.9. “4-P” Model of the Toyota Way according to Liker (2004, p. 6) .................................. 25
Figure 2.10. TPS principles according to Liker (2004) .................................................................... 26
Figure 2.11. Lean methods (Peter and Lanza, 2011) ........................................................................ 28

List of Tables
Table 2.1. Benefits and Challenges of implementing Agile (Mishra and Mishra, 2011) ................. 22
Table 4.1. Management actions that affect productivity...........................................................…....59