Sai Datta Vishnubhotla’s research while affiliated with Blekinge Institute of Technology and other places

Context: In the light of the swift and iterative nature of Agile Software Development (ASD) practices, establishing deeper insights into capability measurement within the context of team formation is crucial, as the capability of individuals and teams can affect team performance and productivity. Although a former Systematic Literature Review (SLR) synthesized the state of the art in relation to capability measurement in ASD with a focus on selecting individuals to agile teams, and capabilities related to team performance and success, determining to what degree the SLR's results apply to practice can provide progressive insights to both research and practice. Objective: Our study investigates how agile practitioners perceive the relevance of individual and team level measures for characterizing the capability of an agile team and its members. Furthermore, to scrutinize variations in practitioners' perceptions, our study further analyzes perceptions across stratified demographic groups. Method: We undertook a Web-based survey using a questionnaire built based on the capability measures identified from a previously conducted SLR. Results: Our survey responses (60) indicate that 127 individual and 28 team capability measures were considered as relevant by the majority of practitioners. We also identified seven individual and one team capability measure that have not been previously characterized by our SLR. The surveyed practitioners suggested that an agile team member's responsibility and questioning skills significantly represent the member's capability. Conclusion: Results from our survey align with our SLR's findings. Measures associated with social aspects were observed to be dominant compared to technical and innovative aspects. Our results can support agile practitioners in their team composition decisions.

Context In the light of the swift and iterative nature of Agile Software Development (ASD) practices, establishing deeper insights into capability measurement within the context of team formation is crucial, as the capability of individuals and teams can affect team performance and productivity Although a former Systematic Literature Review (SLR) synthesized the state of the art in relation to capability measurement in ASD – with a focus on selecting individuals to agile teams, and capabilities related to team performance, productivity and success determining to what degree the SLR’s results apply to practice can provide progressive insights to both research and practice. Objective Our study investigates how agile practitioners perceive the relevance of individual and team level measures for characterizing the capability of an agile team and its members. Here, the emphasis was also on selecting individuals to agile teams, and capabilities associated with effective teams in terms of their performance, productivity and success. Furthermore, to scrutinize variations in practitioners’ perceptions, our study further analyzes perceptions across stratified demographic groups. Method We undertook a Web-based survey using a questionnaire built based on the capability measures identified from a previously conducted SLR. Results Our survey responses (60) indicate that 127 individual and 28 team capability measures were considered as relevant by the majority of practitioners. We also identified seven individual and one team capability measure that have not been previously characterized by our SLR. The surveyed practitioners suggested that an agile team member’s responsibility and questioning skills significantly represent the member’s capability. Conclusion Results from our survey align with our SLR’s findings. Measures associated with social aspects were observed to be dominant compared to technical and innovative aspects. Our results can support agile practitioners in their team composition decisions.

Context Previous research found that the performance of a team not only depends on the team personality composition, but also on the interactive effects of team climate. Although investigation on personalities associated with software development has been an active research area over the past decades, there has been very limited research in relation to team climate. Objective Our study investigates the association between the five factor model personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) and the factors related to team climate (team vision, participative safety, support for innovation and task orientation) within the context of agile teams working in a telecom company. Method A survey was used to gather data on personality characteristics and team climate perceptions of 43 members from eight agile teams. The data was initially used for correlation analysis; then, regression models were developed for predicting the personality traits related to team climate perception. Results We observed a statistically significant positive correlation between openness to experience and support for innovation (r = 0.31). Additionally, agreeableness was observed to be positively correlated with overall team climate (r = 0.35). Further, from regression models, we observed that personality traits accounted to less than 15% of the variance in team climate. Conclusion A person's ability to easily get along with team members (agreeableness) has a significant positive influence on the perceived level of team climate. Results from our regression analysis suggest that further data may be needed, and/or there are other human factors, in addition to personality traits, that should also be investigated with regard to their relationship with team climate. Overall, the relationships identified in our study are likely to be applicable to organizations within the telecommunications domain that use scrum methodology for software development.

A significant number of studies reported models for competence profiling, measuring capabilities of professionals and recommendation systems for roles within agile software development (ASD). These models coordinated in human resource management within ASD. However, in the light of swift, incremental and iterative nature of ASD practices, designing solutions that easily integrate capability measurements with ongoing project management routines, is an important area for investigation. With the support of interviews, grounded theory procedure and workshops, we identified the aspects valued by our industrial collaborator while allocating professionals to tasks. This information was further utilized towards devising a framework for capability-centric Web tool. This tool provides a one-stop solution for project managers to create projects, keep track of capabilities and execute allocation routines.

Background: Previous studies investigated key characteristics of software engineers and factors influencing the performance of individuals, productivity of teams and project success within agile software development (ASD). They aided in the active investigation of human aspects in ASD. However, capability measurement and prediction with respect to agile workforce, owing to its importance, is an area that needs spotlight. Objective: The objective of this paper is to present the state of the art relating to capability measurement of software engineers and teams working in ASD projects. Method: We carried out a systematic literature review (SLR) focused on identifying attributes used for measuring and predicting the capabilities of individual software engineers and teams. Results: Evidence from 16 studies showed attributes that can measure capabilities of engineers and teams, and also attributes that can be used as capability predictors. Further, different instruments used to measure those attributes were presented. Conclusions: The SLR presented a wide list of attributes that were grouped into various categories. This information can be used by project managers as, for example, a checklist to consider when allocating software engineers to teams and in turn teams to a project. Further, this study indicated the necessity for an investigation into capability prediction models.