TY - GEN
T1 - Scaling agile across the global organization
T2 - 13th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Global Software Engineering, ICGSE 2018, collocated with the International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2018
AU - Razzak, Mohammad Abdur
AU - Richardson, Ita
AU - Noll, John
AU - Canna, Clodagh Nic
AU - Beecham, Sarah
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 ACM.
PY - 2018/5/27
Y1 - 2018/5/27
N2 - The adoption, scaling and tailoring of agile methods depends on several factors, such as the size of the software development organization, business goals, and operative model. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) was developed to support organizations in scaling agile practices across the enterprise. Large multi-national enterprises report that adoption of SAFe led to significant productivity and quality gains. However, whether these benefits translate to small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is unknown. As such, in this study we ask: To what extent can SAFe practices be implemented in a global SME? We administrated three surveys to members of the development organization of an Irish SME, to identify and evaluate the adoption rate of SAFe practices in the Global environment. We found teams and program level personnel are transitioning well towards SAFe. But the Portfolio level personnel appear not to have, as yet, adopted many SAFe practices. In an SME context it might not be necessary for Portfolio level members to fully adopt SAFe providing they are supportive of their teams. The SAFe self-assessment highlighted where training is required, to improve the vertical communication between teams, program level and upper management.
AB - The adoption, scaling and tailoring of agile methods depends on several factors, such as the size of the software development organization, business goals, and operative model. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) was developed to support organizations in scaling agile practices across the enterprise. Large multi-national enterprises report that adoption of SAFe led to significant productivity and quality gains. However, whether these benefits translate to small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is unknown. As such, in this study we ask: To what extent can SAFe practices be implemented in a global SME? We administrated three surveys to members of the development organization of an Irish SME, to identify and evaluate the adoption rate of SAFe practices in the Global environment. We found teams and program level personnel are transitioning well towards SAFe. But the Portfolio level personnel appear not to have, as yet, adopted many SAFe practices. In an SME context it might not be necessary for Portfolio level members to fully adopt SAFe providing they are supportive of their teams. The SAFe self-assessment highlighted where training is required, to improve the vertical communication between teams, program level and upper management.
KW - Global Software Development
KW - Portfolio level
KW - Program level
KW - Scaled Agile Framework
KW - Scaling agile
KW - Team level
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85051477353&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3196369.3196373
DO - 10.1145/3196369.3196373
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85051477353
SN - 9781450357173
T3 - Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering
SP - 121
EP - 130
BT - Proceedings - 2018 ACM/IEEE 13th International Conference on Global Software Engineering, ICGSE 2018
PB - IEEE Computer Society
Y2 - 27 May 2018 through 29 May 2018
ER -