Coordination of Teams in Large-scale Agile Software Development Projects - An exploratory case study

Abstract

Agile software development methods value individuals and interactions, working software and customer collaboration. These methods have been believed to suit small, co-located projects best. Success in small projects has lead to application of agile methods in larger projects as well. However, since these methods initially were developed for small projects, fundamental assumptions of the agile software development are challenged when used in large-scaled projects.

One main issue in large-scale projects raised in several scientific publications, is the challenge of coordination of teams. The overall aim of this thesis was to study how large organisations can manage inter-team coordination of large-scale agile software development projects in practice.

This study was conducted as a literature review focused on providing background information and historical interpretation of the subject, and a single case study; that was considered as one of the largest agile software development projects taking place in Norway at this time. The investigated project was expected to have duration of about two years. It consisted of four co-located development teams and involved a total of 132 people. The case study included an analysis of 12 semi-structured interviews and documents, with a total of 188 transcribed pages. Data provided through the analysis was qualitatively categorised according to a predefined model of coordination based on prevailing theory by Van de Ven.

Findings showed that large-scale agile software development projects can handle inter-team coordination through the use of widespread informal communication, hierarchical meeting structure, a central unit responsible for coordination, structure and standardisation of tasks and work from the beginning, specialised and co-located teams, and maintaining the agility and flexibility of the project.