The Role of Stand Up Meetings in Agile Software Development - Essay Example

? CHAPTER 5 DISCUSION This chapter consists of a discussion to the findings of the study. Like the results chapter, it is organized in terms of the study objectives with results for every objective discussed according to the theme in the objective. These main objectives of study include a critical evaluation of the conduct of agile teams in their daily stand-up meetings, how practitioners view the benefits and drawbacks of stand-up meetings and, the practitioners’ experiences of stand-up meetings. 5.1 Conduct of Daily Stand-up Meetings by practitioners According to Kathleen (2007), agile Software Development Methods are highly iterative and incremental thereby providing a suitable platform for both stakeholders and developers to communicate and working together with a broader understanding of concepts and processes. This study investigated one of the most important elements of the Agile approach, daily stand-up meetings. Over 40 percent of all the respondents were developers, the other bigger proportions were made up of project managers, analysts, software testers and solution architects. This can probably be attributed to the fact that in any process of software development, developers play the greatest role as they are directly involved in the technical processes. According to Martin (2003), an Agile development team needs sufficient software development personnel with deep experience and good working relationship to succeed. Project managers also formed a substantial proportion of all respondents; this too can be explained by the fact that every Agile team has got to be led by a project manager. Sometimes we have a larger project split into smaller project tasks each with a project manager (Larman, 2004). Other roles represented by respondents included Team Leads, Scrum Masters, CEOs, Testers, Delivery Managers, Agile coaches and Product owners. Many responses were not obtained from these groups, probably because they did not play huge roles in their team or they happened to be in leadership positions e.g. CEOs and Team Leads.The software development process function better at optimal conditions; this can only be made possible with the right number of members in a team, each playing a key role. Depending on the company and software development requirements of a project, Agile team sizes differ from project to another, Scrum and DSMD recommend that an ideal project team should have about 10 or twelve people. XP does not have a particular preferred number but recommends that teams be as small as possible. Over 83.8 percent of the respondents indicated that they worked in a team of between one and ten members - these are relatively small groups. Many software developers prefer to carry out projects in small flexible and manageable groups as recommended by the Agile methodology. Agile software development is particularly very iterative and participative and requires excellent communication, consultations and interaction between the members. For such teams to work effectively they require a moderate to minimum number of members for flexibility and greater team bonding, for example, stand-up meetings can be more effective and practical with fewer members in the team rather than a large number of members (Larman, 2004). A number of different Agile methods are used in software development. These include Scrum, DSDM, Extreme Programming, and Lean-Kanban. The choice of method is largely determined by software development needs as well as preference. According to Larman (2004), project needs sometimes dictate the choice of method between the various Agile methods. - Developer preferences also play a large part in determination of the methods to be adopted, in most cases once a method is adopted it is used by a company consistently for all other projects. This study found that scrum is the most preferred Agile method with over 59 percent of the respondents using it. The popularity of scrum can be attributed to its ease of use and flexibility. According to Rising and Janoff (2000), Scrum remains the most preferred Agile method for software development because of its ease of use and flexibility. The remaining methods have different of preferences among developers, but Extreme Programming and DSDM are the least preferred methods particularly due to their complexity (Kaner et al., 2002). As has been indicated previously, the Agile software development method is very participative and thrives on interaction, sharing of information and close monitoring of progress. One of the main reasons for daily stand-up meetings is to encourage a participative and interactive approach in the development process (Highsmith, 2002).This study established that Agile team members in which most of the respondents participate meet quite regularly. About 86 percent of the respondents indicated that their teams carried out stand-up meetings on a daily basis. This is the proper way in which such meetings should be held because they are designed to ensure daily interaction, sharing of project ideas, and project progress appraisal. Although the daily meetings in Agile software development are generally referred to as daily stand-up meetings, Williams and Cockburn (2003) indicate that the most important factor about the conduct of the meetings is that they should be regular, most preferably daily. This implies that as long as team members meet on a daily basis, their method of meeting may not be very important. However, there are several methods of meeting including co-located stand-up meeting, co-located sit down meeting, electronic communication (skype/ phone) and other method. According to the majority of the respondents in the survey (64.8 percent), their teams carry out co-located stand-up meetings. This may be attributable to the fact that the teams are relatively small in size, they work from the same premises - they prefer this method of meeting, or it saves time. Co-located stand-up meetings utilize the least time and quite convenient if well organized (Williams and Cockburn, 2003). Daily stand-up meetings are generally expected to be brief and concise in nature. However, the length of the team meeting may vary depending on a number of factors including time management skills of the team, frequency of meetings, and nature of project. The length of meeting also plays a role in determining the effectiveness of the meeting, most long meetings may become boring and repetitive and consequently less productive. This study revealed that most meetings take between 11 and 20 minutes - these are relatively short meetings. This can be attributed to the fact that most of the teams meet frequently and consequently have lesser issues to discuss every day. However, it may also be due to a deliberate effort by the members to keep the meetings brief and concise to make them effective. Over 62 percent of the meetings were conducted for 11 to 20 minutes while longer meetings were fewer (About 8.1 percent). About 30 percent of the meetings took 10 minutes or less. This indicates that most project teams like to hold short daily stand-up meetings but they prefer an average of about 15 minutes for the meetings to be effective. Agile team meetings can only be effective when most team members attend and contribute. According to Highsmith and Cockburn (2002), it is better when all team members participate fully in the meetings as it enhances the effectiveness of the meetings. This study revealed that member contribution is high in the team meetings with approximately 73 percent of the respondents indicating that all their team members contribute during meetings. This result can be attributed to the understanding of the importance of participative contribution in the daily stand-up meetings by most Agile team members. One of the important functions of daily stand-up meetings for Agile development teams is to monitor and appraise project progress (Whirtworth, 2008).Questions such as “what did you do yesterday?”, “what will you do today?”, and “do you have any problems?” are particularly important in stand-up meetings as they help monitor project progress. Over 81 percent of the respondents indicated that members in their team answer these questions, the result can be attributed to the seriousness with which team members link monitoring of project development progress through learning what each other is doing on a regular basis. The remaining 19 percent indicated that they did not answer such questions, some of the respondents indicated that the information derived from these questions was expected of the members as part of their contribution and so there was no need to ask them individually. Meeting progress documentation is not norm in Agile team meetings and Agile software development stand-up meeting would be expected to follow the same pattern. However, it has been observed in many studies that most Agile teams do not keep progress records of their stand-up meetings (e.g. in Madhu et al., 2010; Cockburn, 2007). This has been attributed to the fact that these meeting are mostly brief and carried out while standing, which discourages taking of minutes. Compilation of members’ notes is also difficult as each member notes down only what they want. In this study, about 65 percent of the respondents in the study indicated that they never carry out documentation. This can be attributed to the brief nature of the meetings. However, about 22 percent of the respondents indicated that their teams always document the meetings. Summary This study established that the conduct of Agile daily stand-up meetings is very much like has been stipulated by the Agile methods. Although the meetings are as short as possible, the need to optimize their effectiveness ensures that they take what can be termed at moderate time, between ten and twenty minutes. The team are mostly characterized by a small number of members, about a dozen and they meet on a daily basis. It has also been established that most of the members not only attend but are also active in participation as required in daily-stand up meetings. 5.2 Benefits and Drawbacks of Stand-up Meetings Regular Agile team meetings are associated by a number of benefits towards software development process as well as to project team members as individuals. Some of the benefits of stand-up meetings include problem identification and solving, and they also serve as a good avenue for feedback on the current processes. Teams are faced with problems, which need to be identified and addressed from time to time; stand-up meetings are good avenues for identification and solution of such problems (Madhu et al., 2010). Project progress also needs regular feedback; these meetings help members to give feedback about their progress. About half of respondents (48.7 percent) indicated that regular team meetings helped in problem solving because they agree with the general problem solving approach while 16 percent indicated that the meetings are important because members get the opportunity to give feedback about current progress, this agrees with the general logic of the meetings given by Madhu et al. (2010). Stand-up meetings also have their own challenges to the project teams. The greatest challenge of the meetings was that frequent stand-up meetings become repetitive. Bluedorn and Turban (1999) point out that there is the tendency of members to find themselves without much new to report on a daily basis and therefore become repetitive in meetings. This can be due to the regular schedule of the meetings and shortage of new ideas or progress to report. The next greatest challenge was highlighted as non-participation of some members even though they attend the meeting, this makes their presence non-beneficial. Summary Daily stand up meetings have their benefits for Agile teams, however they also bring with them some challenges to the teams. The main benefits identified in this study include that the meetings provide a good platform for problem identification and resolution. They are also good for the members to keep up to date with project progress. The main challenge identified by the study is that daily stand-up meetings tend to become repetitive with time and this may compromise their effectiveness in the long run. 5.3 Practitioners’ Experiences of Stand-up Meetings Stand-up meetings are important for several different reasons, all aimed towards the effectiveness of project teams and efficiency in software development. Some of the important factors that the meetings are supposed to help members improve include communication ability, staying up to date, improved knowledge sharing, improved knowledge coordination, and development of new ideas (Bluedorn and Turban, 1999). Two categories came up very strongly in the findings in this study, improvement of communication ability and staying up to date are the best experiences that respondents benefited from. Regular stand-up meetings have been pointed out to be good platforms on which members can be able to practice their project communication skills and be able to develop their communication ability (Cockburn, 2007). This is because they are expected to participate actively and be articulate and concise in their contributions. Similarly, since the meetings take place regularly, members are able to keep up to date with project progress and all related issues quite easily (Elsayed-Elkhouly, et al. 1997), this has been established in this study with where a substantial proportion of respondents have indicated that the meetings help them keep up to date. Stand-up meetings also serve as a good platform for knowledge sharing as indicated by Cockburn (2007). This study established that majority of the respondents participating in team stand-up meetings recognize them as being either excellent or above average in terms of their importance in sharing knowledge. Basically, when members meet, knowledge is freely shared between all participants and members have the opportunity to learn new things they may not have had the opportunity to (Dyba and Dingsoyr, 2008). Stand-up meetings are also associated with the ability to enhance coordination of knowledge between team members, when team members meet they are able to share information in a much more structured and organized way so that each member gets information relevant to them. Majority of the participants in this study indicated that the meetings had average and above average relevance for knowledge coordination. Interactive meetings in Agile software development projects have been noted for their ability to help members develop new ideas (Elsayed-Elkhouli et al., 1997). In this study, a total of over 92 percent of the respondents indicated that regular meetings were either average, above average, or excellent in helping them come up with new project ideas (Whirtworth, 2008). Summary This study has established that daily stand-up meetings have several benefits for Agile teams both at the team level and individual member level. The greatest benefits that members derived include improvement of communication ability and staying up to date with project progress. However, they also benefited from improved knowledge coordination, and development of new ideas. Limitations of the Study Like any other study, this research had its own limitations. The first limitation was that the study could not be able to reach as many respondents as possible. There were only 37 respondents in for the study. A large sample produces results that are easier and more valid to generalize. On the other hand, the smaller sample could have resulted to smaller representation of certain team roles in the responses. The second limitation of the study is that deeper information could not be gained through questionnaire responses. Interviews would have been more suited to produce more qualitative data for analysis. Read More