An approach to agile management of virtual student teams in smart environment development

Abstract

This paper studies the problem of coordination and supervision of virtual teams and their capabilities. The goal is to develop a model suitable for managing virtual student teams specialized in the development of smart environments. The developed model is based on SAFe and DevOps, which when combined provide us with a framework for the evaluation of team capabilities in an academic environment. Additionally, DevOps principles can be more efficiently leveraged through an agile methodology to provide students with a better understanding of continuous value delivery. Through the application of the proposed model, virtual student teams gained practical experience in self-organization and virtual team management while being efficiently monitored and guided through the project lifecycle. Virtual student teams were likewise encouraged to be more agile, as this change in mindset is imperative in business, and as such must also be adopted in academic environments. By incorporating best practices of the corporate environments into the existing curriculum, we have proven that by adopting the proposed model these changes can be feasibly incorporated to the satisfaction of both the students and their future employers.