Risks to Effective Knowledge Sharing in Agile Software Teams: A Model for Assessing and Mitigating Risks

Abstract

We present an empirically-grounded and theoretically-informed model for the assessment and mitigation of risks to effective knowledge sharing in agile development. The model is anchored in empirical insights from four agile projects across two software companies and in extant research on risk-strategy analysis and knowledge sharing in software development. We develop the model as part of the long-standing tradition of presenting risk management models dedicated to specific issues in software development and confirm its practical usefulness in one of the software companies studied. The model offers concepts and processes to assess a project's knowledge sharing risk profile and articulate an overall resolution strategy plan to mitigate the risks. The results highlight how different knowledge sharing risk management profiles can lead to different project performance outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of research opportunities that the results offer software development scholarship.

The Changes in Team Cognition and Cognitive Artifact Use During Agile Software Development Project Management

“…Researchers have identified team member characteristics that lead to successful knowledge transfer as: motivation, capability, credibility, empathy, and articulation (Takpuie & Tanner, 2016). Different knowledge sharing risk management profiles can have different project performance outcomes (Ghobadi & Mathiassen, 2017). Pair programming—the agile practice of assigning two programmers to a task instead of one—has been found to not only serve as backup behavior but also to create shared mental models in the team, which increases team performance, particularly when dealing with novel tasks (Kude et al, 2019).…”

Developing a Risk Management Framework in Construction Project Based on Agile Management Approach

“…Results validated the claims that the proposed Agile based risk method is significant to identify and prioritize the risk factors in early phases project. Hind et al, presented a theoretically informed and empirically grounded model to mitigate and assess risks for effective sharing of Agile development knowledge [13]. Indeed, a quantitative approach for Agile project planning has been emphasized by Subramani and Jayalakshmi (2015) [14].…”

Interruptions in Agile Software Development Teams

“…Thereby, agile software development projects increase collaboration with different stakeholders in software development project teams (Kudaravalli et al, 2017; Majchrzak et al, 2005; Pflügler et al, 2018). This collaboration has many benefits for the agile team, as it ensures that customer needs are met (Recker et al, 2017; Rigby et al, 2016; Vidgen & Wang, 2009), it fosters knowledge sharing (Ghobadi & Mathiassen, 2017; Kudaravalli et al, 2017), and it increases employee motivation (Tripp et al, 2016).…”