Agile Software Development – Adoption and Maturity: An Activity Theory Perspective

Abstract

Abstract. This paper suggests that Activity Theory is a useful lens for examining aspects of agile software development adoption and maturity. Implementing agile approaches is influenced by many factors and attention is focused on individual and collective software development activity within an organisation's socially constructed environment. The research aim is to examine specific organisational, historical, cultural and social hindrances and facilitators that impact individual and collective learning opportunities and subsequent implementation of agile practices. This paper reports on the initial stages of research that consisted of a series of interviews and a survey. The results indicate that socially constructed hindrances and tensions are wide spread and vary in the levels at which they occur. They also correlate with many of the factors that influence agile maturity that have already been identified within the literature. This study contributes to research by integrating elements of learning theory and agile software development practice.

Episodic organizational learning in system development

“…CHAT offers a philosophical and cross-disciplinary perspective that is used as both experimental and analytic method in different settings and to elaborate with different units of analysis (as in our case individuals, teams, organizations and between organizations). The theory has been used in software development contexts (Vakkayil, 2010; Chita, 2018; Chita, Cruickshank, Smith, & Richards, 2020). We will use CHAT as a frame of analysis by reveling the ASs new models enters and express potential contradictions and tensions that give rise to dilemmas that either enhance or restrict learning on the organizational level.…”

Non Verbal Communication in Software Engineering – An Empirical Study

“…Distributed cognition explains collaborative work practices as distributed and cognitively enhancing activities taking place among team members [74], [75]. As such it seems like a very powerful tool in our arsenal to make sense of the many potential cognitively-enhancing interactions that happens at several stages (both in presence and online) in the development of software programs.…”

Business process management approach for improving agile software process and agile maturity

“…As a strategic process in many organizations, an agile software process is influenced by various factors such as size of team, geographical situation, size and complexity of software, type of project, business strategy, engineering capability of the team, and cultural values 9,28–30 . Hence, full achievement of agility, a complete adoption of agile practices is still not perfected yet.…”

“…Many organizations are now implementing agile practices like daily stand ups, short iterations, sprint planning, retrospectives, sprint review, and test‐driven techniques; however, the adoption of agile approaches to market conditions is still evolving and maturing. Specific organizational and structural factors, internal operations and processes, and even culture and social values may have effects on the implementation of agile software process and the maturity level of an organization 9 . Because of the fact that software processes are mainly human based, changes performed on a software process may result with significant costs which should be considered carefully (Münch et al, 2012) 69 .…”