Agile Method Paper Report

1. Agile Method Paper Report 975002511 資工4A 余修丞

2. Agile methods rapidly replacing traditional methods at Nokia: A survey of opinions on agile transformation • Maarit Laanti, • Outi Salo, • Pekka Abrahamsson Information and Software Technology 53 (2011) 276–290

3. Outline • Abstract • Introduction • Research approach • Results of the study • Conclusions

4. Abstract • Despite the growing amount of anecdotal evidence on the success of agile methods of different real-life development settings, scientific studies remain scarce. • This study aims to fill that gap byproviding evidence from a large-scale agile transformation within Nokia.

5. Introduction - 1 • According to a study representingeach a different company were interviewed during September2006, around 17% of enterprises already used agilemethods, while more than half of the remaining companies wereinterested in adopting them. • Even though agile methods benefits have been recognized in the IT software industry, it has been claimed that agile adopters are often unaware of what agile adoption really means.

6. Introduction - 2 • This study aims to provide empirical evidence from a survey conducted in 2008 for a large product development organization (Nokia Corporation) during the course of its agile transformation. • The main agile model used can be defined as scaled-up Scrum. • In total, the survey data include more than 1000 responses regarding different aspects of agile development.

7. Research approach - Research aims-1 • We want to reflect the reality via thepractitioners’ opinions, attitudes, andexperience on agile methods. • In this study, we first studied how strongly a person’s backgroundaffects the perceptionsof and satisfactionwith, agile methods.

8. Research approach - Research aims-2 (R1) How does the length of practitioners’ experience using agile methods affect their opinions toward agile methods? (R2) How does the length of practitioners’ experience in using traditional methods affect their opinions toward agile methods?

9. Research approach - Research aims-3 • The second research aim: to reveal respondents’ perceptions of new,emerging challenges and benefits of agile development. • First categorizedas having negative, neutral, or positive attitude towards the adoptionof agile methods. • The goal is to detect any significant differencesbetween the two extremegroups, i.e., the negative and positive groups of respondents.

10. Research approach - Research context • The deployment method and main agile model applied amongthe survey population was scaled-up Scrum. Traditional methods in this case refer to waterfall-typeof product lines.

11. Research approach-Data collection and analysis-1 • The questionnaire consisted of multiple sections: (1) background(e.g. organizational unit), (2) agile role and experience,(3) support, site distribution, and collaboration in agiledevelopment,(4) current use and usefulness of agile methods, (5) effectsof agile methods, and (6) opinions. • This study focuses on Sections 1, 2 and 6.

12. Research approach-Data collection and analysis-2

13. Results of the study-Representative statistics-Opinions on the impact of agile development As can be seen, responses to only one of the statements were below neutral. In other words, on the average the respondents thought that agile makes work more hectic.

14. Results of the study-Representative statistics- Attitude towards the use and deployment of agile methods 1. Would you go back to the old way of working? 60%wanted to stay in an agile mode of working, while only 9% wantedto go back to traditional working methods. However, as many as31% of respondents did not see any difference

15. Results of the study-Representative statistics- Analysis of variance between agile experience and opinions onagile development-1 The null hypothesiscan be rejected if the p-value is less than a certain threshold; in thisstudy we use a threshold of 0.05. To shed light on the first research question, the nine opinionsstatements were further analyzed to find whether the length ofpractical experience with agile methods has a positive impact onrespondents’ opinions.

16. Results of the study-Representative statistics- Analysis of variance between agile experience and opinions onagile development-2 presents a plot on agile experience means on the ‘‘Agile increases the transparency of development’’ opinion (scale 0.00–120.00).

17. Results of the study-Representative statistics- Analysis of variance between non-agile experience and opinionson agile development-1

18. Results of the study-Representative statistics- Analysis of variance between non-agile experience and opinionson agile development-2

19. Results of the study Perceived benefits and challenges of agile methods: qualitativeanalysis-1 This questionwas selected for grouping as it was considered to distinguish the positive group and the negative groupfrom the survey population.

20. Results of the study Perceived benefits and challenges of agile methods: qualitativeanalysis-2 Product management, frequent changes, and the new way of managing requirements in prioritized backlog as a challenge Dailyscrum meetings as the particular reason for visibility/transparency

21. Results of the study Cluster analysis of attitude question-1

22. Results of the study Cluster analysis of attitude question-2 • To conclude, clustering analysis revealed that majority of therespondents with lengthy experience in both agile and non-agile(traditional) development have a positive attitude towards agility.

23. Results of the study Limitations • The reported benefits and problems with agile methods are scoped out from this study • The survey was done in one organization only, so it might be biased by the organizational culture • The impact of applicability of agile model to respondents’ role is also scoped out from the study

24. Conclusions-1 • As a result, it can be claimed thatthe longer experience with agile methods in practice positively affectsopinions regarding their usefulness. • the experience grew and that thischange was large enough regarding transparency and collaborationto be statistically significant. • The survey was done in one company, where agile deploymenthas been executed in a certain way, so the results may not be generallyapplicable elsewhere.

25. Conclusions-2 • The whole team needs to startusing these methods simultaneously. This means that even thoughpeople are forced to follow company policy in using agile methods,they still develop a more positive attitude towards agile methods • This survey revealed some new aspects of agility and experienceand it also raises some questions for future research and changed minds across Nokia how agile methods areseen. The idea being that once people get first-hand experiencewith agile methods they start to understand these better.