http://hdl.handle.net/10379/251 2017-10-29T22:02:44Z http://hdl.handle.net/10379/3631 Examining Customer Focus in Agile Systems Development Teams - Findings from Irish and Norwegian Case Studies Lohan, Garry; Conboy, Kieran; Lang, Michael While an acute, continuous focus on customer needs is often cited as a key benefit of agile approaches, very little research has examined the customer focus construct in an agile project environment, or looked at the implications or recommendations for project managers. We draw on contemporary theories on customer focus to develop a framework for understanding customer focus in an agile project management context. This framework is applied to cases in Ireland and Norway and the results suggest that while agile approaches appear to increase customer focus, this is by no means guaranteed. In fact there may be significant challenges and problems for project managers to overcome. For example, new communication issues with customer proxies may impair understanding of customer needs and requirements. The project manager needs to consider the identity, location, perceived personality of the customer, and the team s prior experience with the customer, all of which this research shows can affect the customer focus of the agile team. From this research, a new, empirically validated agile development customer focus framework is presented, providing project managers with a set of factors to be considered in becoming a truly customer focused agile IT project team. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10379/3630 The Impact of Agile Practices on Trust in Software Project Teams McHugh, Orla; Conboy, Kieran; Lang, Michael Agile software development involves self-managing teams that are empowered and responsible for meeting project goals in whatever way they deem suitable. Managers must place more trust in such teams than they do in teams following more traditional development methodologies. The authors highlight how the use of agile practices can enhance trust amongst agile team members. They also present challenges that agile teams can face as a result of using agile practices. Their results are based on the findings from three case studies of agile software development teams. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10379/3415 Using Agile Practices to Influence Motivation within IT Project Teams McHugh, Orla; Conboy, Kieran; Lang, Michael This exploratory study of IT project teams in Sweden and Ireland investigates how three agile practices, namely daily stand-ups, iteration planning and iteration retrospectives, contribute to motivation or de-motivation in an agile team. Several studies recognise that motivating staff is critically important for a project manager and have identified factors that motivate IT project staff in particular. Yet relatively little is known about motivation in an agile context and in particular how an IT project manager may use agile practices to improve team motivation. Seventeen individuals across two teams were interviewed, including both project managers and their staff. The results from both cases indicate that agile practices can contribute to team motivation and de-motivation. This study makes an important contribution in the area of motivation and agile project management by identifying factors that contribute to and inhibit motivation in agile IT project teams. It also makes a contribution to the existing literature by identifying additional factors that motivate and de-motivate IT developers, namely increased visibility and transparency on the progression of tasks, an increase in the number of meetings, lengthy meetings, use of agile practices on long-term projects and use of agile practices for complex or fragmented tasks. 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10379/3414 An Analysis of Model-Driven Web Engineering Methodologies Lang, Michael In the late 1990's there was substantial activity within the 'Web engineering' research community and a multitude of new Web approaches were proposed. However, numerous studies have revealed major gaps in these approaches, including coverage and interoperability. In order to address these gaps, the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) paradigm offers a new approach which has been demonstrated to achieve good results within applied research environments. This paper presents an analysis of a selection of Web development methodologies that are using the MDE paradigm in their development process and assesses whether MDE can provide an effective solution to address the aforementioned problems. This paper presents a critical review of previous studies of classical Web methodologies and makes a case for the potential of the MDWE paradigm as a means of addressing long-standing problems of Web development, for both research and enterprise. A selection of the main MDWE development approaches are analyzed and compared in accordance with criteria derived from the literature. The paper concludes that this new trend opens ainteresting new way to develop Web systems within practical projects and argues that some classical gaps can be improved with MDWE. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z