http://guide13.jazoon.com/#/submissions/149

1. Successful Collaboration in
Agile Software Teams
Martin Kropp & Magdalena Mateescu
University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland
School of Engineering & School of Applied Psychology

2. A Study Report
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Interviews in 11 agile IT companies
10 two-hour group interviews - group size of 3 to 5
3 one-hour individual interviews
Total of 44 interviewed people
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3. Interview Methodology
• Development of interview guide
• Semi-structured interviews
• 10 Group interviews, 3 individual interviews - Two
interviewers
• All interviews were recorded and transcribed
• A coding system was developed accordingly to research
questions and the interviews were coded using
MAXQDA
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4. No successful agile project
without agile collaboration
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5. What is Agile Collaboration?
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6. Agile Collaboration is …
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Face-to-face
Regular
Often
Informal
Openly
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Under equals
Focused
Transparent
Respectful
Flexible

7. 1. Put People Together
• Open work place
• not only for work 
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8. … and distributed teams?
• Always a compromise
• Generates extra effort – think about if it’s worth it
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9. What you can do…
• Integrate into daily stand-up
• Use video-conferencing, skype, chat …
• Organize face-to-face work phases (3-5 days)
• fly them in or fly to them
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10. 2. Make Team Self-Organized
• No “hidden” leader
• Can be difficult if the team leader is part of the agile
team
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11. 3. Establish Continuity
• Apply “Standard” meetings – all
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Iteration planning, stand-ups, review, retro
Keep them focused
Keep them short
Adapt as necessary
• Keep on with Retrospectives
• Also in long lasting projects
• Introduce variations (different locations, thematic retros)
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12. 4. Foster Informal Meetings
• Technical meetings
• As needed architecture, design meetings
• Pair programming
• See 1.
• Others
• User Story Groomings
• Code Reviews (Git)
• Test competitions
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13. 5. Make Information Transparent
• Use Boards
• Physical or digital
• Instant availability
• All-in-one view
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14. How about Agile Collab Tools?
Yes, but …
Jeff Langr in Pragmatic
Programmer Magazine
http://pragprog.com/magazines
/2011-09/the-only-agile-toolsyoull-ever-need
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15. The Agile Tool Set is more …
General development Tools
Agile Tools
Communication and collaboration
tools
Physical Tools
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16. Role of Email
“…. however it is similar with the Email, frankly
spoken, you cannot sent any assignments per
email, it simply does not work. I must construe
it (the meaning of the message), there is no
feedback possible as to what and about the
accuracy. This is similar to Daily, one has to
interpret assets. I have to look the others in the
eye. This is extremely important.” I11:362
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17. The Agile Tool Set is more …
• Automation Infrastructure
CI, VCS, Automation, Test (unit and acceptance),
Deployment
• Collaboration Infrastructure
Issue Tracker, Collaboration Platforms (wiki, forums),
Instant messenger
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18. Physical boards
In some things unbeatable
• Flexible
• Touchable
• Transparent
• All-in-one view
• Usually in the office
But…
• Not revisable
• Not persistent
• Not distributable
• No links to the digital
information

19. How about Agile PM Tools?
• Used in combination with physical boards
• Always extra effort
• Think about benefit
• E.g. for accounting, needed persistency
• Master-Slave problem
• All variations applied
• Just make clear which way you go
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20. Digital Master
• Meetings with Beamer
• One “writer”
• Print out new US, tasks for physical board
• Print customized overviews
• Physical task board for detailed task planning
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21. Physical Master
• Team works with the physical board
• Changes are added to digital tools afterwards by one
person (mostly PO)
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22. Pro- and Cons of digital Agile PM
Tools
Pros
• Persistence
• Historization
• Distributed
• Traceability
• Concurrent editing
Cons
• Lack flexibility
• Lack haptic experience
• Not suited for team work
• Lack visibility
• Lack instant availability
• Lack easy overview

23. The Future?
Project SI-ATAM
“Agile Technologies for Agile Methods”
http://www.fhnw.ch/technik/imvs/forschung/projekte/si-atam/si-atam
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24. Thanks for your attention!
martin.kropp@fhnw.ch
magdalena.mateescu@fhnw.ch
www.fhnw.ch
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