arXiv subjects

Fabian Fagerholm

Publications and source records attributed to Fabian Fagerholm.

22 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

The Effects of GQM+Strategies on Organizational Alignment

The increasing role of software for developing products and services requires that organizations align their software-related activities with high-level business goals. In practice, this alignment is very difficult and only little systematic support is available. GQM+Strategies is a method that aims at aligning organizational goals, strategies, and measurements at all levels of an organization in a seamless way. This article describes a case study of applying GQM+Strategies in a globally op- erating industrial R&D organization developing special-purpose device products for B2B customers. The study analyzes how GQM+Strategies has helped clarify and harmonize the goal set of the organization. Results of the study indicate improved alignment and integration of different goals. In addition, the method helped to make the initially informal goal-setting more transparent and consequently enabled revising it while new, more important goals were discovered and comprehended. Moreover, several elements affecting the achievement of goals as well as impediments were identified.

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arXiv2013

Experiences and Insights from Applying GQM+Strategies in a Systems Product Development Organisation

Aligning software-related activities with corporate strategies and goals is increasingly important for several reasons such as increasing the customer satisfaction in software-based products and services. Several approaches have been proposed to create such an alignment. GQM+Strategies is an approach that applies measurement principles to link goals and strategies on different levels of an organisation. In this paper, we describe experiences from applying GQM+Strategies to elicit, link, and align the goals of an integrated systems product development organisation across multiple organisational levels. We provide insights into how GQM+Strategies was applied during a five- month period. The paper presents the enacted application process and main lessons learnt. In addition, related approaches are described and an outlook on future work is given.

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arXiv2013

How Does Kanban Impact Communication and Collaboration in Software Engineering Teams?

Highly iterative development processes such as Kanban have gained significant importance in industry. However, the impact of such processes on team collaboration and communication is widely unknown. In this paper, we analyze how the Kanban process aids software team's behaviours -- in particular, communication and collaboration. The team under study developed a mobile payment software product in six iterations over seven weeks. The data were collected by a questionnaire, repeated at the end of each iteration. The results indicate that Kanban has a positive effect at the beginning to get the team working together to identify and coordinate the work. Later phases, when the team members have established good rapport among them, the importance for facilitating team collaboration could not be shown. Results also indicate that Kanban helps team members to collectively identify and surface the missing tasks to keep the pace of the development harmonized across the whole team, resulting into increased collaboration. Besides presenting the study and the results, the article gives an outlook on future work.

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arXiv2013

Onboarding in Open Source Software Projects: A Preliminary Analysis

Nowadays, many software projects are partially or completely open-source based. There is an increasing need for companies to participate in open-source software (OSS) projects, e.g., in order to benefit from open source ecosystems. OSS projects introduce particular challenges that have to be understood in order to gain the benefits. One such challenge is getting newcomers onboard into the projects effectively. Similar challenges may be present in other self-organised, virtual team environments. In this paper we present preliminary observations and results of in-progress research that studies the process of onboarding into virtual OSS teams. The study is based on a program created and conceived at Stanford University in conjunction with Facebook's Education Modernization program. It involves the collaboration of more than a dozen international universities and nine open source projects. More than 120 students participated in 2013. The students have been introduced to and supported by mentors experienced in the participating OSS projects. Our findings indicate that mentoring is an important factor for effective onboarding in OSS projects, promoting cohesion within distributed teams and maintaining an appropriate pace.

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