Agile Challenges in Practice: A Thematic Analysis

Gregory, Peggy; Barroca, Leonor; Taylor, Katie; Salah, Dina; Sharp, Helen

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-18612-2_6

Cited by 39 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…This paper is an extension of an earlier publication [7]. Additional empirical data from the case study adds depth of analysis and the survey extends and validates the previous findings.…”

Section: Limitationssupporting

confidence: 70%

“…This paper is an extended version of Gregory et al [7], which presented a snapshot of challenges gathered from practitioners using a Challenge Wall and discussed how the challenge landscape has changed. This extended paper continues and deepens that discussion by bringing in empirical data from an organisational Case Study and a Survey and exploring challenge characteristics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The challenges that challenge: Engaging with agile practitioners’ concerns

Gregory

Barroca

Sharp

et al. 2016

Information and Software Technology

Self Cite

105

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Context: There continues to be concern that research is not addressing the challenges that practice faces. For the benefit of academia and industry, researchers need to be aware of practitioners' challenges and their context so that relevant and applicable research is undertaken.Objective: This paper investigates two research questions: what challenges do agile practitioners face?and, how do practitioner challenges manifest themselves in an organisational setting? It aims to map the practitioner challenge landscape, explore challenge characteristics, compare findings with previous literature and identify implications for research that is relevant to practice.Method: A combination of methods was used: elicitation of practitioner challenges collected using a Challenge Wall at a series of practitioner events; organisational Case Study using interviews, document analysis and observation; and online Survey. Findings were then compared to previous publications. Results:Challenges collected from the Challenge Wall were grouped under 27 subthemes and seven themes: Claims and Limitations, Organisation, Sustainability, Culture, Teams, Scale, and Value.Investigating one challenge in the Case Study uncovered a set of new challenges, which were interrelated. Over 50% of survey respondents experienced challenges highlighted in the Case Study. Conclusion:The landscape of agile practitioner challenges is complex and intertwined. Some challenges, such as doing agile in a non-agile environment, are multi-dimensional, affect many aspects of practice, and may be experienced simultaneously as business, organisational, social and adaptation problems. Some challenges, such as understanding cultural change or measuring agile value, persist and are hard to address, while others, such as adoption, change focus over time. Some challenges, such as governance and contracts, are under-researched, while others, such as business and IT transformation, have been researched but findings have not had the expected impact. Researchers wishing to address practitioner challenges need to treat them in context rather than in isolation and improve knowledge transfer.

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“…This paper is an extension of an earlier publication [7]. Additional empirical data from the case study adds depth of analysis and the survey extends and validates the previous findings.…”

Section: Limitationssupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenges that challenge: Engaging with agile practitioners’ concerns

Gregory

Barroca

Sharp

et al. 2016

Information and Software Technology

Self Cite

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…• Lack of management/stakeholder commitment (Gregory et al, 2015). It only works if all stakeholders get involved and support the Agile process • Organizational culture being too political (Gregory et al, 2015). Traditional management may see Agile as just another IT method that can be implemented and structured to "fit" existing organizational norms.…”

Section: Case Study Objective and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on grounded theory approach Waardenburg and Vliet, (2013) investigated challenges caused by the co-existence of Agile methods and plan-driven development from two large enterprises in the Netherlands and categorized the challenges under two categories: increased landscape complexity and lack of business involvement. Gregory et al (2015) used thematic analysis approach to identify 193 challenges and categorized them into seven themes namely: claims and limitations (misconceptions, shortcomings, hype, failure); organisation; culture (organisational, changing mindsets, national, distributed teams, trust); teams; sustainability; scaling (large projects, governance); and value (business value and measurement). Dikert et al (2016) conducted a review on how Agile methods and lean software development has been adopted at scale, focusing on reported challenges and success factors in the transformation.…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Agile Development and Implementation in a Developing Country: A Zambia Case Study

Kunda¹,

Mulenga²,

Sinyinda³

et al. 2018

Journal of Computer Science

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Agile development is a software development process that advocates adaptive planning, early delivery, evolutionary development and continuous betterment and supports rapid and flexible response to change. The purpose of Agile development is minimize project failure through customer interactions and responding to change. However, Agile development is vulnerable to failure because of a number of factors and these factors can be categorized under four dimensions, namely; organizational, people, process and technical. This paper reports the result of a study aimed at identifying factors that influence success and/or failure of Agile development in a developing country, Zambia. A multiple case study approach and grounded theory approach was used for this case study. The study shows that there are challenges that are unique to developing countries and therefore measures should be developed to address these unique problems when implementing Agile projects in developing countries.

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“…Participants can fill out the cards anonymously and attached it to the wall next to the poster for others participants to read. Similar data collection approach is used in earlier studies [13].…”

Section: Data Collection and Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%