A Survey on Agile Practices and Challenges of a Global Software Development Team

Abstract

The Agile Manifesto describes that the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is through face-to-face conversation. However that is not always possible when teams are working in a Global Software Development (GSD) environment. Based on this scenario, this study presents an exploratory data analysis using survey results to explore agile practices and challenges of a global software development team that uses Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which is designed for the need of larger organizations. The goal of this study is to understand the team’s level of knowledge in some agile practices and which types of communication are usually prioritized. As in GSD environments team members are geographically spread across multiple regions and time zones, we aim to identify challenges this environment can present. As a result of this exploratory analysis, it has been identified that communication is one of main challenges in GSD environment and that phone calls are considered to be the most efficient type of communication. Additionally, we have also identified that professionals have different levels of confidence in Agile practices and concluded that knowledge transfers among the professionals could help those team members that are not confident in some agile practices to increase their overall confidence and knowledge.

A Appendices

1.1 A.1 Agile Survey

Objective: The objective of this survey is to assess the level of knowledge in agile practices of the professionals and how communication barriers are overcome.

• 1. What is your role?

  Options: Developer, Scrum Master, Product Owner, QA - Tester, Tech Lead, Software Analyst, Development Manager, Architect, Other

• 2. How many years of experience with Agile Software Development do you have?

  Options: 1 year or Less, 1 to 3 years, 4 to 7 years, 8 years or more

• 3. Which agile methodologies do you have experience with? (Select all that apply)

  Options: Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Lean, Crystal, Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Feature Driven Development (FDD), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), Others

• 4. Have you ever attended any training on any Agile Methodology?

  Options: Yes, No

• 5. How familiarized do you feel with agile methodologies?

  Options: Extremely familiarized, Very familiarized, Familiarized, Not so familiarized, not at all familiarized

• 6. How familiarized do you feel with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?

  Options: Extremely familiarized, Very familiarized, Familiarized, Not so familiarized, not at all familiarized

• 7. How would you classify your degree of knowledge in each Agile Practice/Term?

  Options: Extremely confident, Very confident, Confident Not so confident, Not at all confident Practices and Terms: Iteration Planning, Retrospective, Iteration Review, Behavior Driven Development, Test Driven Development, Coding Standards, Estimation, Pair programming, Continuous Integration, Refactoring

• 8. Which means of communication do you prioritize to interact with other scrum teams, product owners or other teams involved in the project delivery?

  Options: (Select all that apply) E-mail, Phone, Skype Chat, Video Call, Face-to-face whenever possible

• 9. If the answer to the previous question was e-mail or Skype chat, what is the biggest impediment for having more phone, face-to-face or video calls communication?

  Options: (Select all that apply) Language barrier, Time zone constraints, Agenda conflicts (For example: not being able to find available time in the person’s agenda to have a phone call), Others

• 10. How efficient would you classify communication via e-mail?

  Options: Extremely efficient, Very efficient, Somewhat efficient, Not so efficient, Not at all efficient

• 11. How efficient would you classify communication via Skype Chat?

  Options: Extremely efficient, Very efficient, Somewhat efficient, Not so efficient, Not at all efficient

• 12. How efficient would you classify communication via Phone Call?

  Options: Extremely efficient, Very efficient, Somewhat efficient, Not so efficient, Not at all efficient

• 13. How often do you discuss project related items or request feedback on features/stories developed with your Product Owner?

  Options: Almost on a daily basis, Once or twice per iteration, Every other iteration, Only during the PI Planning

• 14. How often do you have retrospective meetings with your scrum team?

  Options: Once per iteration, Once a month, Rarely, Never

• 15. Are your retrospective meetings resulting in actionable items to bring improvements? If your team never has retrospective meetings, please select ‘Not Applicable’

  Options: Yes, No, Not applicable

• 16. How is your team planning each iteration’s capacity according to the team’s velocity?

  Options: We are usually over 100% capacity, We are usually at 100% capacity, We are usually around 80% capacity, We are usually below 80% capacity, We are not planning capacity according to team’s velocity

• 17. How would you control/track the costs/budgets of an Agile project?

  Options: Through planned and defined budget to cover the life cycle of the project, Through initial budget to cover MVP and the remaining budget to be discussed depending on MVP results, Through incremental budget aligned in each phase, Not sure

• 18. In your opinion, what is/are the main challenge(s) of running an Agile development project with remote teams? This is a open ended question and response on this is optional.