Enhancing product and service capability through scaling agility in a global software vendor environment

Abstract

Agile software development has become increasingly common in software vendor organisations, and their impact on practices and roles is now extending beyond the project level across the entire organisation. In this study, we investigate how a major Australiabased multi-site global software vendor transitioned from a structured to a Scaled Agile approach.We demonstrate how practices and roles in a distributed software vendor evolved over time across the organisation in an on-going process of their global agile transformation. Through this elaboration, we identify three major agile transitions and the contribution of a scaled agile approach in the building of market driven capabilities. We theorised a relationship between increased dynamic capabilities of the firm and a scaled agile transition. Supporting our view, we noted that agile practices and roles across the organisation contributed as expected to improved internal process capability. More surprisingly, they were also found to increase our vendor's ability both to identify and take advantage of opportunities and to innovate in global product and service development and delivery. CCS CONCEPTS• Software and its engineering → Software creation and management → Software development process management → Software development methods → Agile software development •

Toward Unveiling How SAFe Framework Supports Agile in Global Software Development

“…Based on the reviewed studies [61], [108], [109] and in SAFe [10] for geographically distributed teams, the event may occur through video and audio conferences which proves that the AGSD practice could be combined with the SAFe. Second, Iteration planning (IP) intends to plan how much backlog items the teams will develop in an iteration to deliver a new system integrated increment at the end [32], [36], [61], [62], [64], [69], [78], [79], [82], [87], [88], [90], [92], [94], [96], [100], [103] [35], [106], [108], [109], [115], [117] P12 Maintain Backlog (16)…”

THINKING ISSUESGlobal software engineering and scaled agile

“…Lal recently-researching developments in global software engineering (GSE) supported by scaled agile development methods [10,11]-has raised questions for me about the tunnel vision of our curricula. We need a broader roadmap!…”

“…With its highly technical focus, the CS 2013 curriculum [1] has far less coverage (e.g., eight curriculum hours allocated to HCI, three hours to software process, two hours to software project management and four hours to requirements engineering). Referring to global software engineering, Matthes [10] in 2011 had observed that universities were struggling with the challenges:…”

“…Driving these needs, there are some critical underlying trends that characterize the incipient combination of global software engineering and scaled agile methods. First-the need to work globally and cope with the challenges of global distance (cultural, temporal, and geographic) that poses [5,14]; second-the need to work in a more value driven context, where the purpose of the enterprise, the goals of the customers, and the focus of the software need to more tightly align [6,10]; and third-the concurrent need for developers to be more proficient with working in multi-skilled teams, collaborating with customers and colleagues across the enterprise [11].…”

Open CrowdRE Challenges in Software Ecosystems

“…[4]. Participating in a SECO benefits both the platform provider and the collaborating software producers by facilitating these producers to adapt to opportunities and create new products and markets [6]. A network of innovation created by a SECO eases the barrier of entry for software producers and facilitates the creation of new products.…”