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Exploring the Role of People Capability Maturity Model and
Identifying People-Related Critical Success Factors in Large-Scale
Organization with Agile Practice
DISSERTATION
of the University of St. Gallen,
School of Management,
Economics, Law, Social Science
and International Affairs
to obtain the title of
Doctor of Philosophy in Management
submitted by
Alice Jing Lee
from
The United Kingdom
Approved on the application of
Prof. Dr. Andreas Herrmann
and
Prof. Dr. Torsten Tomczak
Dissertation no.4673
Printy Druckerei, München 2017
The University of St. Gallen, School of Management, Economics, Law, Social
Sciences and International Affairs hereby consents to the printing of the present
dissertation, without hereby expressing any opinion on the views herein expressed.
St. Gallen, May 29, 2017
The President:
Prof. Dr. Thomas Bieger
For my parents, my brother, and my boyfriend
I
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my warmest gratitude to all those persons whose comments,
questions, critics, support and encouragement, personal and academic, have left a
mark on this work.
Firstly, I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to the professors for their
guidance throughout my doctoral study. Special thanks belong to my academic
supervisor, Prof. Dr. Andreas Herrmann, who gave me the opportunity to focus on
the topics which genuinely intrigue me. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Torsten
Tomczak for his co-supervision of my dissertation. Furthermore, I appreciate the
patient guidance, valuable advice and generous support by Prof. Dr. Gerald Häubl
during my PhD studies.
I acknowledge the organization that supported my work on this dissertation. I would
like to thank the participants for sharing their insights and their precious time in this
study. Their constructive ideas and advices, interest, and enthusiasm have allowed
me to complete my research successfully. Many thanks for the time, generosity and
valuable hits.
Lastly, but most importantly, I would like to thank my family for their love and
encouragement of my pursuit of a PhD in Switzerland. This dissertation would not
have been written without their unconditional and immense support. My gratitude to
them is beyond words. I would also like to thank my boyfriend, Licheng, for his
understanding and love. His support and patience during the ups and downs of my
study were invaluable. This dissertation would not have been possible without him.
II
Abstract
Due to the dynamic and complex business and technology environments, it is
becoming increasingly challenging for software teams to respond to changes in
customer requirements and technology. Although there is an accelerating trend for
organizations to move towards agile approaches in order to respond to the changing
requirements, maintain flexibility, improve processes and increase competitiveness,
other organizations are skeptical about the benefits of adopting this methodology. In
contrast to the traditional waterfall approach, agile methodology puts more emphasis
on people factors and stress the benefits of collaboration and encourage
communication between various project stakeholders. Therefore, having the right
people in agile projects is the most critical requirement for project success.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the practices implemented in large-scale
organization to improve workforce competencies and identify the people-related
critical success factors. As people-related issues are considered to be the most
important factor influencing agile project success, a framework should be applied to
help the organization to effectively address critical people issues. Face-to-face
interviews are conducted with employees working in a large organization with IT
responsibility to identify the challenges faced when managing IT projects in agile
approach, solutions to these problems, and the criteria of employing staff. People
Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) is applied to examine how this framework can
act as a roadmap for an organization to better manage its workforce. PCMM could
help the organization to understand the importance of the practices currently
implemented, find out the problems it faced which prevent it from reaching the
highest maturity level of the model, and provide possible solutions for improvement.
Results showed that due to the strategic constraints and misalignment of standards,
there is still room for improvement in the current practices. In order to achieve
success in agile projects, it is critical for the company to strengthen the practices by
empowering and integrating workforce competencies, and to apply the practices in
the past experience in similar situation.
III
Zusammenfassung
Wegen dem immer mehr dynamischen und komplexen Umfeld in Geschäftsleben
und Technik, steigen die Herausforderungen für Software-Teams in Bezug auf
Reaktion auf Veränderungen bei Kundenanforderungen und Technik. Einerseits
existiert bei Unternehmen eine Tendenz in Richtung agile Methoden, um auf
veränderte Anforderungen zu reagieren, Flexibilität zu erhalten, Prozesse zu
verbessern und Konkurrenzfähigkeit zu erhalten. Andererseits sehen andere
Unternehmen die Vorteile für den Einsatz dieser Methode skeptisch. Im Gegensatz
zum traditionellen Wasserfall-Modell, legen die agile Methoden den Schwerpunkt
auf den Faktor Mensch, betont die Vorzüge von Zusammenarbeit und fördert die
Kommunikation zwischen den verschiedenen Projekt-Akteuren. Daher ist es von
entscheidender Kriterium für den Erfolg, die richtigen Personen in agilen Projekten
zu besitzen.
Der Gegenstand dieses Papers sind die Erforschung von Praktiken, die in großen
Organisationen zur Verbesserung der Arbeitsleistung umgesetzt wurden, und die
Identifizierung von personen-bezogenen kritischen Erfolgsfaktoren. Aufgrund der
Überlegung, dass personen-bezogene Aspekte als wichtigster Faktor für den Erfolg
agiler Projekt beitragen, sollte ein Konzept angewandt werden, um Unternehmen zu
helfen, kritische Personal-Themen effektiv anzugehen. Persönliche Gespräche mit
Mitarbeitern in großen Unternehmen mit Verantwortung im IT-Bereich wurden
geführt, um Herausforderungen beim Management von IT-Projekten in agilen
Ansatz, Lösungen von Problemen, und Eignungskriterien des angestellten Personals
zu erkennen.
Das People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) wird angewandt, um zu
untersuchen, wie dieses Modell als Roadmap für Unternehmen ein besseres
Management der Arbeitsleistung erreicht. PCMM kann Unternehmen helfen, die
Bedeutung von bereits eingesetzten Praktiken zu verstehen, auftretende Probleme,
die die höchste Stufe des Modells verhindern, zu finden und mögliche
Verbesserungslösungen bereitzustellen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass wegen
strategischen Grenzen und Falschauslegung von Standards Verbesserungspotential
der bestehenden Praktiken besteht. Um Erfolg in agilen Projekten zu erreichen, ist es
für das Unternehmen entscheidend, die Praktiken durch Erhöhung und Integration
von Arbeitsleistung und -kompetenz zu stärken und die Praktiken aus vorherigen
Erfahrungen in ähnlichen Situation anzuwenden.
IV
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Introduction .................................................................................. 2
1.1 Background....................................................................................... 2
1.2 Purpose of the Study ......................................................................... 3
1.3 Research Scope ................................................................................. 5
1.4 Research Questions ........................................................................... 6
1.5 Significance of the Study ................................................................... 7
1.6 Structure of the Dissertation ............................................................. 8
Chapter 2 - Literature Review ....................................................................... 12
2.1 Agile Software Product Development .............................................. 12
2.2 Agile Models in Large-Scale Organizations ..................................... 15
2.3 Challenges in Coordination and Communication ............................. 16
2.4 People Management in Agile Software Organizations ...................... 18
2.5 Change in Staffing Requirements with Agile Practice ...................... 19
2.6 The People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) ............................ 21
2.6.1 Characteristics and Objectives of PCMM .................................. 21
2.6.2 Structure of PCMM ................................................................... 22
Chapter 3 - Research Methodology ................................................................ 30
3.1 Background of the Company ........................................................... 30
3.2 Data collection ................................................................................. 31
V
3.3 Data analysis ................................................................................... 31
3.3.1 Open coding ............................................................................... 32
3.3.2 Axial coding ............................................................................... 32
3.3.3 Selective coding .......................................................................... 32
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis ................................................................... 35
4.1 Phase 1: Conceptual Framework ..................................................... 35
4.2 Phase 2: Case Study Interview ......................................................... 46
4.2.1 Level 2: Managed ...................................................................... 46
4.2.1.1 Staffing ........................................................................................ 46
4.2.1.2 Communication and Coordination .................................................. 47
4.2.1.3 Work Environment ........................................................................ 47
4.2.1.4 Performance Management .............................................................. 48
4.2.1.5 Training and Development ............................................................. 48
4.2.1.6 Compensation ............................................................................... 48
4.2.2 Level 3: Defined ......................................................................... 49
4.2.2.1 Competency Analysis .................................................................... 49
4.2.2.2 Workforce Planning ...................................................................... 49
4.2.2.3 Competency Development ............................................................. 49
4.2.2.4 Career Development ...................................................................... 50
4.2.2.5 Competency-Based Practices .......................................................... 50
VI
4.2.2.6 Workgroup Development ............................................................... 50
4.2.2.7 Participatory Culture ..................................................................... 51
4.2.3 Level 4: Predictable ................................................................... 51
4.2.3.1 Competency Integration ................................................................. 51
4.2.3.2 Empowered Workgroups ............................................................... 52
4.2.3.3 Competency-Based Assets ............................................................. 52
4.2.3.4 Quantitative Performance Management ........................................... 52
4.2.3.5 Organizational Capability Management ........................................... 53
4.2.3.6 Mentoring ..................................................................................... 53
4.2.4 Level 5: Optimization ................................................................ 53
4.2.4.1 Continuous Capability Improvement ............................................... 54
4.2.4.2 Organizational Performance Alignment ........................................... 55
4.2.4.3 Continuous Workforce Innovation .................................................. 55
4.2.5 Summary of the Case Study ....................................................... 56
Chapter 5 - Discussion ................................................................................... 59
5.1 Limitation and Future Work ........................................................... 59
5.2 Implications for Research and Practice ........................................... 62
Chapter 6 - Conclusion .................................................................................. 66
Reference ....................................................................................................... 68
Curriculum Vitae .......................................................................................... 78
VII
List of Abbreviations
ASD Adaptive Software Development
CMM Capability Maturity Model
PCMM People Capability Maturity Model
XP Extreme Programming
VIII
List of Figures
Figure 1: Dissertation Structure ................................................................................ 10
Figure 2: Process Thread in the People CMM (Curtis et al., 2009) .......................... 23
Figure 3: Structure of PCMM (Curtis et al., 2009, P.59) ......................................... 24
Figure 4: Relationships among Maturity Level 2 process areas ............................... 25
Figure 5: Relationships among Maturity Level 3 process areas ............................... 26
Figure 6: Relationships among Maturity Level 4 process areas ............................... 27
Figure 7: Relationships among Maturity Level 5 process areas ............................... 28
Figure 8: Research model proposed by Chow & Cao (2008) ................................... 36
Figure 9: Proposed Conceptual Model ..................................................................... 45
IX
List of Tables
Table 1: The values and principles defined behind the agile manifesto ................... 14
Table 2: The principles underlying PCMM (Curtis et al., 2003, P. 6) ...................... 22
Table 3: Criteria of a good metric or diagnostic (Hartmann & Dymond, 2006) Error!
Bookmark not defined.
Table 4: Summary of the success attributes in software projects ............................. 43
X
1
Chapter 1
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Introduction
2
Chapter 1 - Introduction
1.1 Background
The influence of individual personality and capability on IT tasks and processes has
raised concerns in the software engineering field in the past few decades.
Requirements of specific skills and knowledge related to the job nature are
frequently emphasized. However, the importance of personality in the job market
cannot be ignored. Through a historical analysis of software engineering personality
types, it is found that there is a change in the proportions of software engineers
possessing a specific personality type (Varona et at., 2012). While the computer
professionals were almost overwhelmingly represented by introverts in the past, the
trend has been reversed nowadays due to the increase of diverse activities in the
software industry. Due to the increasing complexity of IT projects, excellent
communication skills and teamwork are also required. Since different software
developers have different personalities and skills, it is a challenge to allocate the
employees to the most suitable positions and tasks in IT projects.
Waterfall model and agile methodology are commonly used in the software
development process. The waterfall model is an easy yet powerful method of
software development. The phases are arranged and could help even the new
developers to understand the overall picture of the process of developing software
through the software development life cycle. However, since it does not entertain
any change in requirements and therefore, makes any subsequent functionality
changes extremely difficult and expensive, there is a trend to move to agile
methodology. Agile acknowledges requirements’ uncertainty or rapidly changing
market conditions by working in short iterations to deliver incremental business
value. This is facilitated by small, cross-functional teams that combine the
complementary skills and experience of business and IT people. Since both
methodologies have their pros and cons, the use of the models are dependent on the
Chapter 1 - Introduction
3
types of project. The waterfall model is suitable for the development of software that
are already stable and when the time frame is long enough. On the other hand, when
the customer is not clear about his/her requirements or expectations from the end
product, adopting agile method would be a better choice.
Since the above two mentioned software development methodologies have different
implementation characteristics, different personality criteria on software developers
are posed when the IT projects adopt different software development approaches. In
the case of waterfall approach, since it is less adaptable to changing business
requirements, there is a great emphasis and effort on prescriptive process or transient
project control documentation. In order to reduce the chance of requirement change,
it is important to have a clear picture of the development process, duration and cost
before the start of the project. Therefore, employees are required to be decisive, self-
regimented, purposeful, and exacting. They work best when they can plan their work
and follow their plans. They may like to work in a steady pace, get things settled and
finished, and may dislike to interrupt the project they are working. For agile
methodology, it is crucial to have regular communication with customers to
understand their needs and with colleagues to discuss the change of implementation
requirements. Therefore, having good communication skill is an important criterion
for software developers working with agile IT project. They are more willing to face
changing situations, and are more empirical, flexible, adaptable, and tolerant. They
would love to have challenges and dislike doing the same thing repeatedly.
1.2 Purpose of the Study
The objective of this research is to find out the criteria of employing workforce and
the corresponding workforce practices that should be implemented, in particular
software developers, in different types of IT projects in large company. A model
which consists of various process areas concerning the practices on workforce
management is applied. The two software development methodologies of the IT
Chapter 1 - Introduction
4
projects, waterfall model and agile method, are focused. Employees working in the
department of IT in a large-scale organization are invited for interviews. The content
of the interview included identifying different types of software developers, the
challenges they faced when dealing with IT projects, the tasks of project, the
individual requirements/skills on software developers, the application of people
management practices, etc. Regarding the main focus of this research – capability
and personality, the five-factor model (FFM) of personality are used as an indicator
of the assessment in the interview. It is a hierarchical organization of personality
traits in terms of five basic dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience.
It is expected that employees working with the waterfall approach contribute more
to the factors Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism, while the
employees working with the agile approach are more preferable to be towards the
factors Extraversion and Openness to Experience. The reasons for the expected
results are that waterfall methodology requires less interaction with other people.
They would prefer to have a realistic idea of the duration and process of the project,
tend to be firm-minded and behave in the given way. However, when one works
with the agile project, he/she needs to communicate frequently with different people
and must not be anxious and vulnerable. Since the requirements change more often,
they dislike taking time for precision and routine details, but are patient with
complicated and adapt well with changing situations.
Since agile methodology emphasizes the importance of people-related issues, the
workforce qualities including amicability, talent, personality, skill, and
communication become a major concern for an agile team (Cockburn & Highsmith,
2001; McHugh et al., 2011; Young et al., 2005). Agile project teams focus on
increasing individual, team collaboration, and organizational levels (Cockburn &
Highsmith, 2001). It is found that an organizational culture or value system may
exist throughout a larger social grouping (O'Reilly et al., 1991), and the
Chapter 1 - Introduction
5
organizational climate interacts with individual personality in influencing job
satisfaction and performance (Downey et al., 1975). In order to move towards
strategic human capital management, a framework is needed which provides a
theoretical foundation to improve their management processes and to develop the
workforce (Wright & Snell, 1998). In this paper, the People Capability Maturity
Model (PCMM) is applied, describing how the framework could contribute to a
large-scale organization with agile practice and what the organization has to do in
order to achieve a higher maturity level which leads to project success (Curtis et al.,
2009).
1.3 Research Scope
To enable project success, software project managers must know the importance of
the workforce planning. Having the right number of people of right competence, in
the right place and right time to do the right tasks are the objectives of workforce
management. Implementing proper workforce management practices in an
organization can help individuals to be more involved with their competence and
experience, and facilitate better decisions by the managers. Organizations which use
workforce analytics can increase the involvement of workforce the best and thrive in
difficult conditions (Ringo, 2007). Therefore, people-related factors which are
necessary to lead to agile process success are investigated in this dissertation. Agile
software project success can be evaluated in various methods. A thorough literature
review of the metrics of project success is conducted.
As large-scale organizations usually have clear structures and guidelines when
carrying out projects, and the complexity of the projects is higher, standard waterfall
approach is believed to be the traditional approach in software development.
However, since agile approach also has a lot of benefits when compared to the
waterfall approach in large-size projects, it is also widely used. The agile approach
is more flexible since it embraces changes. It is feasible for the stakeholders to see
Chapter 1 - Introduction
6
the interim results and do not need to wait until the end to realize the values of the
project. However, the application of these two different approaches requires
different competence and personalities. In this research, the necessary skills,
knowledges, experiences, and personalities of software developers and software
project managers will be examined. The people-related challenges and critical
success factors when doing software projects in agile approach are also analyzed.
The People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) is used to analyze the maturity
level of the company being investigated (Curtis et al., 2009). This model is specially
applied to effectively add values to the human resources in the organization. It
generally enables organizations to improve the competencies and skills of the
workforce, and provide suggested solutions and practices to solve the existing
people-related problems. By examining the current situations of the company,
PCMM helps to assess the practices and policies which can be beneficial in leading
to project success, and at the same time, it can help to discover the challenges it
faced.
1.4 Research Questions
This dissertation will examine the following research questions:
1. What are the main people-related challenges in large-scale agile software
development?
2. What are the people-related critical success factors in large-scale agile
projects in achieving project success?
3. How could PCMM serve as guideline to help an organization to address
the challenges faced and to provide potential solutions to the issues?
Chapter 1 - Introduction
7
1.5 Significance of the Study
This study is expected to contribute to the literature in agile software development in
several ways. First, while prior agile development literature examines the critical
success factors of software projects in large-scale organizations from different
perspectives, the research in this dissertation concentrates on investigating people-
related challenges and critical success factors. As people-related issues are
emphasized in agile projects (Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001), it is important to
identify the difference of people factors required in a project by comparing the
application of waterfall approach and agile approach. Therefore, this research
attempts to integrate various factors from existing literature and examine the
influence of these attributes on agile project performance. This could provide insight
into the management of software project and allow project managers to better
understand the possible elements leading to project success.
Secondly, this paper is expected to contribute to research by examining empirically
the way to apply People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM), showing examples of
real-life practices to achieve the goals of various process areas, and how the model
could help the organization to understand the challenges it faced and provide
suggestions for potential improvement. After analyzing the data collected from the
interviews, the practices implemented at the company are matched with the process
areas of the maturity levels of PCMM. This approach can help the company to better
understand their current situations from the human resources perspective. Hence this
study stands to fill the research gap by applying theory into practices in large-scale
agile software projects.
Thirdly, since it is crucial for the project manager to know the way to measure and
control the project outcomes and results, concrete performance metrics are necessary
to be defined. As the measurement of project performance and success is defined in
various way, this dissertation integrates the findings from existing literature to
Chapter 1 - Introduction
8
provide an overview for researchers and project managers to understand the
possibility of using different measurement metrics under different situations. The
study results can be used for an effective assessment of project performance and a
better understanding of the reasons behind the performance results.
Fourthly, the criteria of people-related factors leading to the success of an agile
project have been identified and assessed through four dimensions in this
dissertation, namely capability, personality, motivation, and training. A research
model is developed based on these four attributes and the implementation of people-
related practices introduced in the PCMM. Thus, this dissertation aims to contribute
to research and practice by providing the guideline for project managers to
categorize the characteristics of each employee (e.g. skills, knowledge, and
personality), and arrange suitable people-related practices based on these features to
increase the possibility of success in agile projects.
1.6 Structure of the Dissertation
This dissertation is divided into six chapters. The structure is outlined in Figure 1.
The first chapter provides a general overview of the background and purpose of the
study, research scope, research questions, as well as the significance of the study.
Chapter 2 presents the theoretical background of agile software product
development and people-related issues of agile approaches in large-scale
organizations. Challenges and critical success factors of agile projects are also
reviewed.
Chapter 3 describes the research approach used in this study. Face-to-face, semi-
structured interviews are conducted to empirically investigate the agile practices in
software projects. The processes of data collection are elaborated.
Chapter 1 - Introduction
9
The results and procedures of data analysis are reported in Chapter 4. The software
Atlas.ti is used to analyze the data in the study. A research model is proposed in this
chapter. The analysis shows the agile practices implemented in the company and
matches the business activities with the process threads of PCMM to determine the
maturity level reached by the company.
Discussions including the implications for research and practice, limitations, and
future work are presented in Chapter 5.
Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation by summarizing the background of the study,
the research methodology and findings, and the contributions to agile project
management.
10
Chapter 1 - Introduction
• Background
• Purpose of the Study
• Research Scope
• Research Questions
• Significance of the Study
• Structure of the Dissertation
Chapter 2 – Literature Review
• Agile Software Product Development
• Agile Models in Large-Scale Organizations
• Challenges in Coordination and Communication
• People Management in Software Organizations
• Change in Staffing Requirements with Agile Practice
• The People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM)
Chapter 3 – Research Methodology
• Background of the Company
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
Chapter 4- Results and Analysis
• Phase 1: Conceptual Framework
• Phase 2: Case Study
Chapter 5 - Discussion
• Limitations and Future Works
• Implications for Research and Practice
Chapter 6 - Conclusion
Figure 1: Dissertation Structure
11
Chapter 2
Literature Review
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
12
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
2.1 Agile Software Product Development
One of the biggest challenges of the traditional plan-based approach is that it
assumes all the project requirements could be clearly defined at the beginning of the
project (Cocco et al., 2011). It would be very costly if the requirements need to be
changed when the project is in progress, and therefore, adjustments to the
requirements as needed cannot be easily made (Szalvav, 2004). However, the
problem of undefined, changing, and emerging requirements can be addressed by
adopting agile software development approach. Extreme programming (XP) (Beck,
2000), Scrum (Schwaber, 2004), Kanban (Sugimori et al., 1977), Lean development
(Poppendieck, 2007), Adaptive Software Development (ASD) (Highsmith, 2013)
are the examples of agile methodologies for managing product development.
A study found that increased uncertainty of the software product market and the
technology will lead to the use of more controlled-flexible approaches, and two key
boundary conditions, time pressure and project size, could influence the
relationships between uncertain environments and flexible work methods (Harris et
al., 2009). IT project team capabilities and trust-mediated organizational control
could address the problems of project uncertainty and project completion urgency
(Goh et al., 2013). In order to address the challenges faced by software developers
using the traditional approach, “Agile Manifesto” is introduced which defines four
values and twelve principles that form the foundation of the agile movement (Beck
et al., 2001; Fowler & Highsmith, 2001) (See table 1).
In comparison to traditional software development approach, agile methods are
adaptive rather than predictive. They focus on providing values to customers and
support requirement variability (Boehm, 2002b). It emphasizes the importance of
customer involvement within the entire software development process, from writing
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
13
user stories, participating in the discussion of product features, to providing rapid
feedback regularly to the development team (Fraser et al., 2004; Lohan et al., 2011).
Much of the agility relies on the tacit knowledge embodied in the team, rather than
writing the knowledge down in plans (Boehm, 2002a). Another major difference
between these two methodologies is that agile approach is more people-oriented
rather than process-related (Beck et al., 2001). It is noted that human issue in agile
projects is a critical factor in project success. Moreover, the agile methods promote
the cohesion of team members and developer and customer interaction (Ceschi et al.,
2005). Since teams are self-organized and empowered in an agile environment
(Martin, 2003), agile processes are designed to capitalize on each individual and
each team’s unique strengths to ensure high-performance working environments
(Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001). Therefore, the application of agile methods
increases team productivity and employee satisfaction, and at the same time,
minimizes the waste in redundant meetings and documentations (Rigby et al., 2016).
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
14
The Four Core Values of Agile Manifesto
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan
The Twelve Principles behind the Agile Manifesto
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous
delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile
processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of
months, with a preference to the shorter time scale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the
project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment
and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and
within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors,
developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace
indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances
agility.
10. Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is
essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-
organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective,
then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
Table 1: The values and principles defined behind the agile manifesto
(Beck et al., 2001)
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
15
2.2 Agile Models in Large-Scale Organizations
In recent years, the agile approach has proven to be effective in achieving project
success and have gained increasing popularity around the world (Dybå & Dingsøyr,
2008). The original premise of agile methodologies is for small teams to work more
closely to effectively produce high standard projects (Kettunen & Laanti, 2008).
Iterative and incremental development are key practices in agile development
methodologies. Agile teams have frequent consultant with customers to have small
and frequent releases (Beck et al., 2001), and therefore agile methods enable an
organization to deliver quickly and change quickly (Boehm, 2002a). The agile
approaches perform better than the traditional software development methodologies
which are found to be too cumbersome, bureaucratic, and inflexible. Therefore, the
agile methods can help the organizations in terms of cost saving (Lindvall et al.,
2004).
Due to the success implementation of agile methodologies in small-scale projects
and organizations, more and more large projects are getting interested in applying
the agile approach in order to increase the competitiveness in the dynamic changing
business environment (Dingsøyr et al., 2012). However, because of the wide-ranging
impacts of every change in large-scale projects, it is more difficult for agile
methodologies to be implemented in larger teams and organizations (Kettunen &
Laanti, 2008). There are often various issues involved if the project is implemented
in a large-scale organization in which large number of members from different
departments and organizations can be affected. Therefore, it is difficult for large
projects to be truly independent.
Since there are different characteristics between large and small projects/
organizations, organizations should adjust the agile model which fits the features of
the projects to solve the challenges faced. Research has searched the combination of
agile and traditional elements (Boehm & Turner, 2003). Adaptive Software
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
16
Development (ASD) proposes the building of collaborative practices such as Joint
Application Development (JAD) which bind teams together (Highsmith, 2013). JAD
is developed at IBM which enhances cross-team collaboration in agile multi-team
software development organizations. Highsmith (2013) defines JAD as “a facilitated
workshop that brings together cross-functional groups to build collaborative
relationships capable of producing high quality deliverables during the life of the
project”. Furthermore, the requirements (re)prioritization and domain knowledge
sharing in large-scale organizations with agile practice can be different than that of
small organizations (Daneva et al., 2013). Hence, it is always important to have
suitable adaptation for effective use of the agile methods (Sarker & Sarker, 2009).
2.3 Challenges in Coordination and Communication
Coordination and communication in large organizations have been studied for
several decades (Kahkonen, 2004). Although agile development can reduce the
development time in a small- or medium-size project where teams develop software
with few iterations, the weaknesses of the agile approach are more influential in
large-size projects. In complex projects, it is more difficult to establish formal line
of communication if agile approach is used. It is often the case that the project team
members are distributed at different sites, and therefore, it is difficult to synchronize
work between sites and process alignment (Herbsleb & Moitra, 2001; Sutherland et
al., 2007). The use of agile methodologies can also bring the problems due to the
lack of team cohesion and shared view of goals. There is limited ability for the
control of the activities when teams are remotely located (Sarker & Sarker, 2009). In
large organizations, there are specific organization policies which need to be
interacted with and followed, and hence, pose challenges for team members to
coordinate effectively (Kahkonen, 2004; Kettunen & Laanti, 2008). In addition,
complexity, innovativeness, and criticality of software systems can all contribute to
technical challenge (Mookerjee & Chiang, 2002). All these factors prohibit the agile
methodologies to be used efficiently.
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
17
Self-organizing teams are the heart of agile software development (Highsmith &
Fowler, 2001; Martin, 2003). However, one of the challenges of agile development
is the building of self-organizing team. Although it is stated in one of the principles
in Agile Manifesto that “the best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge
from self-organizing teams”, there is often misconception that self-organizing teams
are free from management control (Hoda et al., 2010). In large-scale project,
decisions are usually made by different stakeholders, but self-organizing teams are
supposed to make decisions themselves (Beck et al., 2001). So it is difficult to strike
a balance between large-scale organization / project and the self-organizing team
which stemmed from the agile process model idea (Kettunen & Laanti, 2008). The
effectiveness of the agile practice depends heavily on the intensive interaction
between customers and developers (Ramesh et al., 2010). The decision-making
processes, problem-solving strategies, relationship amongst stakeholders, and
planning and control mechanisms can be influenced by the differences in
organizational culture and individual work attitudes (Nerur et al., 2005).
Software documentation forms the basis for all communication of different
stakeholders relating to a software project (Rüping, 2005). In agile development,
minimal documentation is advocated and extensive documentation is considered to
be a waste (Beck et al., 2001). In large organizations/ projects which a lot of issues
and people are involved, software requirements are more understandable and are
more clearly communicated to customers if sufficient documentation is available
(Lindvall et al., 2004). Since large organizations may often experience personnel
turnover, unavailability of appropriate customer representatives, or the application’s
growing complexity, the lack of documentation might cause a variety of problem
(Cao & Ramesh, 2008). It is often necessary for the organizations to scale the
software, evolve the application over time, and induct new members into the
development team (Cao & Ramesh, 2008). Having sufficient documentation can
help organizations to enhance the communication between stakeholders more
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
18
efficiently and therefore, can estimate cost and schedule for the entire project
accurately (Cao & Ramesh, 2008).
2.4 People Management in Agile Software Organizations
People are core to any kind of software development projects and organizations, but
in an agile team, they are considered to be particularly important (McHugh et al.,
2012). A human-centered approach is applied as the development techniques in agile
development (Beck et al., 2001). Software engineering is done “of the people, by the
people, and for the people.” (Boehm & Turner, 2003). Amicability, talent, skill, and
communication are found to be the emphasis on people factors in an agile project
(Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001). Boehm & Turner (2003) presented five areas where
people issues are critical to successful software development: staffing, culture,
values, communications, and expectation management. Agile methods generally
exhibit more frequent interactions between people, and therefore, mutual trust is
essential for team members to work interdependently (McHugh et al., 2012). Team
members feel comfortable to open up, take appropriate risks and expose
vulnerabilities only when they feel safe with each other (Bandow, 2001). To cope
with the challenges of building mutual trust, organizations need to develop shared
goals, form social relationship embeddedness, and initiate influence strategies (Chen
et al., 2014). It is found that interpersonal trust can influence the amount of
knowledge sharing amongst the team which can in turn positively influence the team
effectiveness (Pinjani & Palvia, 2013; Park & Lee, 2014).
In Scrum Alliance, self-management is emphasized as the center of agile people
management. People management is divided into four levels, manage myself,
manage an individual, manage a team, and manage and organization. People are
more important than processes (Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001). In order to promote
team bonding and self-organization in agile development, individual competence
and team competence need to be focused since agile processes are designed to
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
19
capitalize on each individual and each team’s unique strengths (Cockburn &
Highsmith, 2001). Standish Group (2001) found that “user involvement” and
“experienced project manager” are the second and third most important factors
influencing the project success. In agile development, frequent interaction and
communication with customers are needed. Understanding customer needs is crucial
in achieving the success of project and teamwork is of the highest importance in
agile projects (Beck et al., 2001). An investigation showed that the most important
quality of a developer is the ability to work in a team (Ceschi et al., 2005).
Therefore, when agile methodologies are applied in the projects, the ability to
manage people should not be neglected.
2.5 Change in Staffing Requirements with Agile Practice
In agile software development, human issues have been considered to be one of the
most important components which include amicability, talent, skill, and
communication (Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001). Due to the difference in
characteristics between the two software development approaches, there is a change
in staffing requirements as the information technology trends are moving closer to
agile methods. Since people are considered to be the first-order factor in project
success, getting the right people is fundamental in agile development (Augustine et
al., 2005). A study found that one of the biggest challenges faced by agile
companies is the lack of qualified staff when compared with the companies with
plan-based approach (Ceschi et al., 2005). Agile teams are characterized by self-
organization and intense collaboration, within and across organizational boundaries.
The teams must share the common goal, have mutual trust and respect, and be ready
to meet new challenges (Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001). Extensive collaboration and
communication with different people are fundamental in agile software development,
and the organizations involving in an agile study identified intensive communication
as the most important agile practice (Cao & Ramesh, 2008; Hoda et al., 2011;
Ramesh et al., 2006). Communication mechanisms of agile project teams are
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
20
emphasized in previous research (Hummel et al., 2013). Moreover, team members
are empowered with more discretionary and decision-making powers (Nerur et al.,
2005).
Since there is an accelerating rate of change in technology, the technical knowledge
becomes obsolete within a short period of time. Furthermore, knowledge needs to be
effectively integrated and transferred from team members working in different
phases and activities (Joshi et al., 2007). Therefore, developers need to keep
themselves updated with latest technology, and to trust and rely on current
developers (Fowler, 2001; McHugh et al., 2011). As knowledge sharing plays a very
important role in the agile project success, it is a prerequisite for project members to
be able to manage their skills and be coordinated with the team to enhance team
performance. Administrative coordination and expertise coordination are the two
different coordination processes which are considered to be the key to effective
teams (Faraj & Sproull, 2000). While administrative coordination is required to
assign tasks, allocate resources, and integrate outputs, expertise coordination is
necessary for the team to recognize where expertise is located, needed, and accessed
(Faraj & Sproull, 2000).
Regarding the role of IT project managers, while the traditional management was
considered to be governing and controlling, the agile project managers need to have
the ability to set direction, align people, obtain resources, and motivate the teams
(Anderson et al., 2003). Since the exercise of control cannot be done easily in
today’s complex development environment, project managers must be able to
manage the project in uncertain environment by balancing the restrictiveness of
scope boundaries with opportunities for dynamic feedback (Harris et al., 2009).
Leadership in self-organizing teams needs to be light-weight and adaptive
(Augustine et al., 2005). They need to be able to deal with uncertainty, to guide the
rapid development of flexible and adaptive systems of high value (Highsmith, 2003).
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
21
2.6 The People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM)
2.6.1 Characteristics and Objectives of PCMM
The People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) is a framework that helps
organizations successfully address critical people issues. It uses the process maturity
model of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) as a basis and focuses on
continually improving the capability of an organization’s workforce (Curtis et al.,
2003). It provides an overview of the workforce competencies required for an
organization to conduct its business. It is suggested that the behavior of an
organization needs to be changed to support the improved workforce practices. A
unique characteristics of PCMM is its staged framework. Through the increased
organizational maturity, workforce practices can be introduced and improved
steadily and the capability of the organization can be transformed effectively.
The PCMM is designed to achieve four objectives to guide an organization in
improving the workforce competencies: developing individual capability, building
workgroups and culture, motivating and managing performance, and shaping the
workforce. The improvement of the workforce capability can have a positive
influence on the performance of critical business activities and the investments in
process improvement and information technology. The advantage of PCMM is the
staged structure of the framework which can help organizations to prioritize their
improvement activities. Therefore, the improved workforce practices are easier to be
integrated into the existing process improvement activities by using PCMM. The
principles underlying the PCMM are introduced by Curtis et al. (2003) (See table 2).
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
22
Principle 1: In mature organizations, workforce capability is directly related to
business performance.
Principle 2: Workforce capability is a competitive issue and a source of strategic
advantage.
Principle 3: Workforce capability must be defined in relation to the organization’s
strategic business objective.
Principle 4: Knowledge-intense works shift the focus from job elements to
workforce competencies.
Principle 5: Capability can be measured and improved at multiple levels of the
organization, including individuals, workgroups, workforce competencies, and the
organization.
Principle 6: An organization should invest in improving the capability of those
workforce competencies that are critical to its core competency as a business.
Principle 7: Operational management is responsible for the capability of the
workforce.
Principle 8: The improvement of workforce capability can be pursued as a process
composed from proven practices and procedures.
Principle 9: The organization is responsible for providing improvement
opportunities, and individuals are responsible for taking advantage of them.
Principle 10: Because technologies and organizational forms evolve rapidly,
organizations must continually evolve their workforce practices and develop new
workforce competencies.
Table 2: The principles underlying PCMM (Curtis et al., 2003, P. 6)
2.6.2 Structure of PCMM
The model consists of five maturity levels (also called evolutionary stages), with
each maturity level layering the foundation for the next maturity level (Kulpa, 2007).
Each successive maturity level represents a transformation and an increase in the
level of sophistication in the organization’s workforce practices, processes, and
culture. Each maturity level implies a different level of organizational capability to
manage and develop the workforce. With the exception of the Initial level, there are
22 process areas in the five maturity levels in the PCMM (See figure 2). Each
process area describes the related practices required to reach the goals which
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
23
enhances the workforce capabilities. These process area threads may allow
organizations to follow an alternate path of improvement.
Maturity
Level
Process Area Threads
Developing
Individual
Capability
Building
workgroups &
culture
Motivating &
managing
performance
Shaping the
workforce
5
Optimizing
Continuous Capability
Improvement
Organizational
Performance
Alignment
Continuous
Workforce
Innovation
4
Predictable
Competency
Based Assets
Competency
Integration
Quantitative
Performance
Management
Organizational
Capability
Management Mentoring Empowered
Workgroups
3 Defined
Competency
Development
Workgroup
Development
Competency
Based
Practices
Workforce
Planning
Competency
Analysis
Participatory
Culture
Career
Development
2 Managed
Training and
Development
Communication
& Coordination
Compensation Staffing
Performance
Management
Work
Environment
Figure 2: Process Thread in the People CMM (Curtis et al., 2009)
Since the PCMM should be implemented using a staged strategy, the goals in all the
process areas in one level have to be accomplished before pursuing the next level. In
P.59 of the latest version of the PCMM introduced by Curtis et al. (2009) (see figure
3), the relationships between the structural components of PCMM is illustrated.
Organizational capability can be assessed by the level of knowledge, skills, and
process abilities of the workforce and the contribution to the organization’s
performance. With the practices implemented in the organization to achieve the
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
24
process area goals which describe the objectives of the process areas, they are
included in the maturity levels to produce a new organizational capability.
Figure 3: Structure of PCMM (Curtis et al., 2009, P.59)
2.6.2.1 Level 1: Initial
Organizations at the Initial Level are considered to be low-maturity organizations.
They usually have difficulties in recruiting and retaining talented individuals which
result in high employee turnover rate. Furthermore, since the roles and
responsibilities of individuals are rarely clarified, undefined and inconsistent
workforce practices are exercised, and employees are not well-trained to perform the
practices that exist. There is a lack of common vision about the fundamental
management responsibilities. The four characteristics of the organizations at the
initial level are “inconsistency in performing practices, displacement of
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
25
responsibility, ritualistic practices, and an emotionally detached workforce” (Curtis
et al., 2009, p.15).
2.6.2.2 Level 2: Managed
At Maturity Level 2, the practices implemented focus on guiding managers to
address immediate problems such as staffing, communication and coordination, and
developing skills. The relationships between these process areas of this level are
shown in figure 4. These are the unit-level issues which can be used as the
foundation for managers to implement more sophisticated practices at higher
maturity levels. However, organizations at Maturity Level 2 can hardly perform
effectively due to work overload, environmental distractions, unclear performance
objectives or feedback, lack of relevant knowledge or skill, poor communication,
and low morale (Curtis et al., 2009, p.21). The limitation of the practices is due to
the fact that there is no requirement to identify the common attributes of different
skills across unit that can best determining the methods for individuals for further
development.
Figure 4: Relationships among Maturity Level 2 process areas
(Curtis et al., 2009, P.47)
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
26
2.6.2.3 Level 3: Defined
In order to gain competitive advantage, it is necessary for organizations to
implement the practices that enable the workforce competencies to be matched with
the business objectives. The workforce practices implemented at the Defined Level
can help the organizations to support the strategic business plans and are adapted to
its business needs. Organizational practices concerning the training and development
are more focused on the enhancement of knowledge, skills and process abilities.
When compared to Maturity Level 2, the teams can self-organize themselves by the
tailoring and application of standard competency-based processes. The infrastructure
of the capability measures is established for the preparation of the capability to be
managed quantitatively in Maturity Level 4 (Curtis et al., 2009, p.25). The
relationships between the process areas of this level are shown in figure 5.
Figure 5: Relationships among Maturity Level 3 process areas
(Curtis et al., 2009, P.49)
Chapter 2 - Literature Review
27
2.6.2.4 Level 4: Predictable
Empowering and integrating workforce competencies are the main focus of the
Predicable Level. When compared with the Defined Level, the organizations at the
Predictable Level manage its capability and performance quantitatively which
enable the workforce capabilities to be used more fully. When the workforce
capability is quantified, the capability of performing work of the organizations can
be predicted. Process capability baselines are established by the data generated by
competency-based processes which can be used as inputs for workforce planning.
With better input for strategic decisions for the management, greater level of
authority for daily organizational management activities can be delegated (Curtis et
al., 2009, p.27). The relationships between the process areas of this level are shown
in figure 6.
Figure 6: Relationships among Maturity Level 4 process areas
(Curtis et al., 2009, P.53)
28
2.6.2.5 Level 5: Optimizing
The focus of the organization at the Optimizing Level is continual improvement.
Change management at this level is considered to be a regular business process. To
ensure that the practices implemented by the individuals align with the business
objectives of the organizations, data concerning the process performance are
collected and evaluated to detect misalignment. Corrective action needs to be taken
if individual performance is not aligned with organizational performance. In the
organization working at the Optimizing Level, employees strive to improve his/ her
own skills and capabilities, and they are eager to use the innovative practices and
technologies to continuously improve the performance of the projects involved, the
team, and the organization (Curtis et al., 2009, p.28). The relationships between the
process areas of this level are shown in figure 7.
Figure 7: Relationships among Maturity Level 5 process areas
(Curtis et al., 2009, P.56)
29
Chapter 3
Research Methodology
Chapter 3 - Research Methodology
30
Chapter 3 - Research Methodology
The aim of this chapter is to introduce the methods to develop a conceptual model
for agile project management in large-scale organizations. This chapter describes the
details of the field studies that were carried out in one of the largest global
technology companies to empirically examine the research questions stated in the
previous chapter.
3.1 Background of the Company
This company is the largest engineering company in Europe and had about 348,000
employees worldwide at the end of 2015. The focus areas of this company are
electrification, automation, and digitalization. In order to further maintain and
develop the workforce by providing high-quality work environments to attract the
best talents, it is important to create a trustful environment which employees are
given the space for creativity, atmosphere of intensive collaboration and
communication, and state-of the-art IT facilities.
The company has identified five core elements which lead to success.
1. Flexible working hours and places by implementing the concept of mobile
working
2. Encouragement of work-life integration
3. Easy connection the Internet by equipping employees with advanced IT
devices
4. Establishment of open-office landscape which is attractive, functional and
economical
5. Differentiated workplace options are available for employees to choose the
places which enable the efficiency of working
Chapter 3 - Research Methodology
31
It can be seen that human resources, IT, and real estate attribute to the success of the
office concept by increasing the motivation of employees and creating an excellent
working environment.
3.2 Data collection
Preliminary field interviews are conducted to formulate research problems and
questions, identify key constructs, and generate measurement items for the critical
success factors of agile software project management. Data is collected by
conducting face-to-face, semi-structured interviews using open-ended questions. 10
employees with IT responsibility working in a large-scale organization in Germany
with agile practice were invited for the interviews. Since one the focuses of this
dissertation is on the human-related issues of IT projects, two of the interviewees
from the human resources department were included to examine the factors
influencing their decisions of workforce recruitment and the implementation of
workforce development programs. Therefore, the objective of the interview was to
investigate the criteria of employing staff, in particular software project managers
and developers, on different types of IT projects in large company. The content of
the interview included identifying the characteristics of various IT projects, project
methodology, project control, the challenges faced, the strategies to overcome them,
the individual requirements and skills on software managers and developers, etc.
Questions are designed with the aim to understand the views of the
employees on the use of agile methodology to achieve the goals of the
company. All the interviews were voice recorded, transcribed, and analyzed.
The background information of interviewees is listed in Appendix A.
3.3 Data analysis
After transcribing the interviews, the software ATLAS.ti was used to assist and
support the data analysis of the transcripts. Grounded theory approach is used to
Chapter 3 - Research Methodology
32
analyze the data (Glaser, 1978). There are several reasons of choosing grounded
theory. Firstly, this approach is suitable for exploring human behavior and social
interaction (Glaser, 1992). Furthermore, since the application of PCMM in large-
scale organizations is under-explored, this method can help for further investigation
in this area (Birks & Mills, 2011). As this dissertation also focuses on examining the
processes of the workforce practices, grounded theory is appropriate to be applied in
this research (Charmaz, 2006).
3.3.1 Open coding
Open coding was used to analyze the interview transcripts in detail. A code was
assigned which summarizes the key concept of the data. The codes arising from each
transcript were reused in the other interviews and observations. It could be used to
retrieve and categorize similar data chunks for further analysis and drawing
conclusions.
3.3.2 Axial coding
After open coding, it is observed that the interviewees provided a lot of information
about human-related issues, such as the challenges they faced when managing
projects related to the workforce and the strategies they used to overcome these
problems. Therefore, PCMM has been decided to be applied, a maturity framework
which focuses on continuously improving the management and development of the
human assets of an organization, to perform an empirical study on how the model
could help to address critical people issues in an organization (Curtis, 2009).
3.3.3 Selective coding
After establishing the focus of the research, selective coding was conducted which
delimits the coding to only information related to human-related issues and the
process areas in PCMM. The coding focused on retrieving information about the
33
practices already implemented by the organization to achieve the goals of the
process areas, how these practices could help, and how the organization could
improve to fulfil the requirements needed to accomplish the goals of the process
areas. The critical success factors are also identified from the interviews based on
the application of PCMM. Further examination of these factors leading to the
success of agile projects is performed in Phase 2 based on the analysis of practices
used in the organization. Suggestions are provided for the improvement of the
current practices of the company.
34
Chapter 4
Results and Analysis
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis
35
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis
4.1 Phase 1: Conceptual Framework
The focus of this dissertation is to investigate the people factors influencing the
success of an agile project. Chow & Cao (2008) examined the impact of the five
factor categories on agile project success, namely organizational factors, people
factors, process factors, technical factors, and project factors (see figure 8). It is
found that the people dimension which includes Team Capability and Customer
Involvement is one of the most critical factors that influences the success of the
project. While the attributes of team capability includes team members with high
competence and expertise, team members with great motivation, managers
knowledgeable in agile, manager who have adaptive management style, and
appropriate technical training to team, the attributes of customer involvement
includes good customer relationship, strong customer commitment and presence,
and customer having full authority. The research by Chow & Cao (2008) acts as the
basis of this dissertation study for the research model development.
To summarize the attributes of people factors, the criteria required for the success of
a project can be influenced by capability, personality, motivation and training.
Furthermore, regarding the attributes of Customer Involvement, customer
relationships can be influenced by the above-mentioned factors, e.g. high motivation
to build good relationships with customers, suitable personality of dealing with
customers, sufficient capability to satisfy the needs of customers, and appropriate
trainings offered by the company to improve the skills of the workforce to enhance
customer involvement.
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis
36
Figure 8: Research model proposed by Chow & Cao (2008)
Concerning the motivation of the workforce, Boehm (1981) reported the first ten
motivational factors for software developers which are listed in decreasing order in
importance:
1. Achievement
2. Possibility for growth
3. Work itself
4. Recognition
5. Advancement
6. Technical supervision
7. Responsibility
8. Relations with peers
9. Relations with subordinates
10. Salary
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis
37
There are several prominent motivation theories that are worth mentioning which
can help to explain the motivation of software developers, such as Maslow’s
hierarchy of human needs (Maslow, 1954), Herzberg’s theory on motivators and
hygiene factors (Herzberg, 1986), and McClelland’s achievement motivation theory
(McClelland, 1967). Factors influencing the motivation can be categorized into two
groups: intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors. The two factors are defined by
Asproni (2004): The intrinsic factors are the ones that come from the work itself and
the goals and aspirations of the individual, e.g. achievement, possibility for growth,
social relationship, etc. In contrast, extrinsic factors are the ones that depend on the
surrounding environment, or the basic human needs, e.g. salary, office space,
responsibility. In general, intrinsic factors tend to have stronger influence in
motivating people in the workplace when compared to extrinsic factors (Thomas,
2000).
There were different opinions on the benefits of applying agile methodology in their
projects. Not only did the quality of the software increase, the atmosphere and
motivation in the team also improved dramatically. It also facilitated knowledge
sharing between project stakeholders.
“Since we began with daily meetings we have only missed one. Sometimes my
laziness hinders me to call for the daily meeting, but my teammates remind me.” –
P2
“The agile approach saves time and money and is simply more efficient overall. It
also makes the work a lot more fun and people can more easily take the
responsibility for a particular matter.” – P6
However, the interviewees also raised some concerns of the agile approach,
especially in the aspects of people-related factors such as personality and new team
members recruitment.
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis
38
“The daily meeting as any rituals has its own delicate pattern: introverts or new
comers tend to hide or to say as little as possible, extroverts tend to be wordy.
Sometimes this pattern must be changed.” – P5
“The recruitment of new team members has been done by members who did not
integrate completely all the aspects of the new methods.” – P1
“The new team members showed low interest and even resistance with the pair
programming practice which was running well with the rest of the team.” – P4
Willingness to communicate is a very important issue and is considered to be one of
the personality criteria when involving in agile project.
“When all the team members are sitting together, communication is a lot easier,
particularly when the teams also consists of members from different functions. You
don´t constantly have to seek out the relevant experts, send them emails, call or
make special arrangements to meet them, because everyone is in the same place.” –
P8
The ultimate goal of a project is to satisfy the project objectives and achieve project
success. However, project success is difficult to be defined as there are different
measurement criteria and approaches. The lack of documentation is one of the
biggest concerns of the agile methodology (Selic, 2009). Agile measurement is
therefore important to assess the performance of agile approach to determine
whether the benefits of agile development overweight the costs. The measurements
practices do not only help to monitor and reduce risk of projects, but also provide
valuable information for the enterprise to evaluate their measures. It is found that
clear and explicit goals are necessary to be set to help the organizations to steer
towards the objectives if agile methodology is used in large-scale organization
(Brown et al., 2013). Eleven criteria are suggested by Hartmann & Dymond (2006)
when designing the agile process measurements (See table 3).
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis
39
There are three main outcome factors that are commonly used as the metrics to
measure software project performance: cost, time, and quality (Abdel-Hamid et al.,
1999; Chow & Cao, 2008; Deephouse et al., 1995; Lee & Xia, 2010; Lindvall et al.,
2004). It means that the success of a project is indicated by the fact that the projects
should be completed on time, on budget, and achieved the required quality. All the
three factors have to be satisfied in order to be qualified as project success. For
example, if a high-quality product is delivered with time delay or budget overrun,
this project cannot be considered to be a success (Shao et al., 2014). Besides final
cost, completion time, software product quality can also be evaluated by the
remaining undetected defects at the end of the programming phase (Abdel-Hamid et
al., 1999). Research found that the focus of quality in a project can yield better
outcomes in software development (Shao et al., 2014). Deephouse et al. (1995)
evaluated the software quality by usability and capability. They also argued that
productivity is an important metric which should be used to measure the quality
since increasing the productivity reduces cost and improves the competitiveness of
developers (Deephouse et al., 1995). The paper by Lee & Xia (2010) used software
functionality as the measurement of software quality. This includes the achievement
of functional goals, satisfaction of user and technical requirements. However,
timeliness is seen as the top priority by Shao et al. (2014). A case study related to
agile software development is presented by Concas et al. (2012) which focuses on
the quality metrics such as lines of code (LOC), number of methods and classes.
Scope is also considered to be a critical attribute to measure agile performance
besides the three above-mentioned measurement attributes (cost, time, and quality)
(Chow & Cao, 2008; Lindvall et al., 2004). It can help the project managers to better
evaluate the achievement of requirements and objectives. Performance metrics can
also be categorized into two different measures: business measures and technical
measures (Brown et al., 2013). While business measures enables stakeholders to
ensure project objectives are met, technical measures use key performance indicators
(KPIs) to quantified different perspectives of status and progress.
Chapter 4 - Results and Analysis
40
A Good Agile Metric or Diagnostic
1. Affirms and reinforces Lean and Agile principles
2. Measures outcome, not output
3. Follows trends, not numbers
4. Answers a particular question for a real person
5. Belongs to a small set of metrics and diagnostics
6. Is easy to collect
7. Reveals, rather than conceals, its context and significant variables
8. Provides fuel for meaningful conversation
9. Provides feedback on a frequent and regular basis
10. May measure Value (Product) or Process
11. Encourages “good-enough” quality
Table 3: Criteria of a good metric or diagnostic (Hartmann & Dymond, 2006)
Efficiency and effectiveness are also used in several studies as the performance
measure attributes (Henderson & Lee, 1992; Liu et al., 2011; Shao et al., 2014). A
performance questionnaire is designed by Henderson & Lee (1992) to assess the
efficiency, effectiveness, and elapsed time of the developer teams when performing
a project. Similar categorization approach is also used by Liu et al. (2011) which is
based on the findings of Henderson & Lee (1992). Project performance can also be
evaluated by process performance and product performance, which indicate the
software development process and system performance respectively in IT projects
(Nidumolu et al., 1995). There are three dimensions included in process
performance, learning acquired during the project, process control, and quality of
interactions. For product performance, it is assessed by the operational efficiency of
software, responsiveness of software, and flexibility of software. The impact of
project uncertainty on software development project performance can be studied by
using these attributes. Measurement scale specific to different phases in the agile
practices is designed by So & Scholl (2009). Various performance targets are set in
iteration planning, iterative development, customer acceptance tests and
retrospectives. Hartmann & Dymond (2006) defined the attribute “business value
delivered” as the goal to be achieved in an agile project. They include the amount of
capital required, net present value, internal rate of return, and return on investment.
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41
In their papers, a metric evaluation checklist is also provided which helps agile users
to clarify the intention, use and potential for abuse of the metrics. Table 4 provides a
summary of the success attributes in software projects.
Reference Composite Success
Attributes
Success Attributes
Abdel-Hamid
& Swett, 1999
Cost Final cost (in person-days)
Time Completion time (in days)
Quality Remaining undetected defects (in
numbers of defects)
Brown et al.,
2013
Cycle-time
reduction
Business-related:
- Time from initiation to delivery
of first increment
- Time from initiation to project
closure
Team-related:
- Build/release cycle time
- Sprint velocity
- Blocking work items
- Change costs over time
Quality Business-related:
- Production defects per 100
function points
Team-related:
- Defect trends
- Change trends
- Integration trends
Continuous
Optimization
Business-related:
- Process maturity level
Team-related:
- Practice adoption
- Variance in cost to complete
Productivity Business-related:
- Function points per man-year
Team-related:
- Sprint burndown chart - Release burndown chart
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42
Chow & Cao,
2008
Timeliness Deliver on time
Cost Within estimated cost and effort
Quality Deliver a good working product
Scope Meet all requirements by the
customer
Deephouse et
al., 1995
Quality - Capability
- Usability
Meeting Targets - On time
- On budget
Henderson &
Lee, 1992
Efficiency - Budgets
- Schedules
- Efficiency of team operations
- Amount of work produced
Effectiveness - Quality
- Interaction with people outside
the team
- Meet project objectives
Elapsed Time - Done its work faster with the
same level of quality
- Meet goals as quickly as
possible
Hartmann &
Dymond, 2006
Business Value
Delivered
- Amount of Capital required
- Net Present Value (NPV)
- Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
- Return on Investment (ROI)
Liu et al., 2011 Efficiency - Time
- Cost
- Number of participants
Effectiveness - Quality of the work produced
- Meet project objectives
Lee & Xia,
2010
On-time
Completion
-
On-budget
Completion
-
Software
Functionality
- achieve functional goals
- meet user requirements
- satisfy user needs
- meet technical requirement
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43
Nidumolu,
1995
Process
Performance - Learning (more learning
opportunities are created)
- Process Control
- User-IS interactions
Product
Performance
- Operational efficiency
- Responsiveness
- Flexibility
Staples &
Webster, 2008
Team
effectiveness
- Productivity
- The number of innovations or
new ideas introduced by the
team
- Reputation for work excellence
- Attainment of team production
or service goals
- Quality and accuracy of work
- Efficiency of team operations
- Morale of team personnel
- Adherence to schedule and
budget
- Intention to remain
Table 4: Summary of the success attributes in software projects
As stated in the previous sections, People CMM which consists of five maturity
levels is a framework which provides guidance to the organizations to improve their
processes for managing and developing human workforces. The aim of this
framework is to help the organizations to characterize the maturity of the workforce
practices, such as establishing a culture of excellence, applying process
improvement into the workforce development, priorities setting for improvement
actions and establishing actions for continuous workforce development. The
application of PCMM for people-related practices can help employees to increase
their motivation of work and offer training to enhance their capabilities. Therefore,
these two factors are included as the moderator of capability and personality of the
workforce which can lead to agile project success.
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44
Interviewees were also asked about the elements which contribute to the success of
the project. Skills, personality, and motivation are frequently mentioned.
“There was a sense of urgency felt by the whole team. The managers were really
supportive and managed to build a small coalition of two very motivated individuals
to start the change.” – P1
“Autonomy, mastery, and personal goal are main drivers of motivation that are
reinforced every day in the daily meeting. The team gains knowledge and
involvement.” – P7
On page 219 of the PCMM document by Curtis et al. (2009), examples of the
workforce competencies are listed which include:
1. Knowledge required to perform required tasks
2. Skills required to perform required tasks
3. Ability to perform skills within the processes or workflows defined by the
organization for performing the work
4. Types or levels of knowledge, skills, and process abilities that would
characterize different levels of capability in a workforce competency
5. Behavioral characteristics of how skills and processes are performed
6. Behavioral manifestations of an orientation toward the work, colleagues, or
customers
7. Personality characteristics that are conductive to successful performance
While point 1 to point 4 can be characterized as the capability of the workforce,
point 5 to point 7 are categorized as personality. Although motivation and training
are also considered as the attributes of people factors which contribute to the agile
process success, they are categorized differently since they are heavily influenced by
the external factors (shown in figure 9), e.g. job nature, training and development.
Hence, the following hypotheses is posited:
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With the application of people-related practices of PCMM on the existing
workforce, the success rate of agile projects can be increased.
As mentioned above, since motivation and training are interrelated with the people-
related practices implemented by the organizations, these two attributes are
surrounded by dash lines in the proposed research model. Capability and personality
are directly related to the employee himself/ herself. Together with the people-
related practices, the agile performance can be improved and hence, increase the
success rate of the projects.
Figure 9: Proposed Conceptual Model
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4.2 Phase 2: Case Study Interview
In this section, the practices implemented by the organization that satisfy the goals
of the process areas from Level 2 to Level 5 of the People Capability Maturity
Model are presented. There are no process areas at Maturity Level 1 (Initial Maturity
Level) since this level is characterized by chaos and inconsistency (Curtis et al.,
2005). Furthermore, the major causes of failure to accomplish certain process areas
and achieve a particular maturity level are also discussed. Selected quotations are
drawn from the interviews to clarify the analysis.
There is a project management guideline to implement project at this company. The
case study results suggest that it is not necessary to apply the project management
guideline set by the company in every project, especially when the project size is
rather small. The use of the guideline could provide help with the project
implementation regarding time and budget. On the other hand, higher degree of
freedom could help to improve the quality. To prioritize the projects, there are
several factors that have to be considered, including budget, duration, political
perspective, and the right people. Summaries of the results are listed in Appendix B
and Appendix C.
4.2.1 Level 2: Managed
It would be difficult for managers to implement organization-wide practices if basic
workforce practices are not introduced. Therefore, the practices implemented at
Maturity Level 2 are the most fundamental and could establish the foundation to
manage performance at a higher level.
4.2.1.1 Staffing
Qualified individuals are recruited for open positions. The organization conducts
interviews to select the right people for the right position with defined criteria:
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“A project manager must have the ability to communicate with people at different
levels. They need to acknowledge you. They also need to see whether you have
reached a certain status, whether you can speak the language. You have to be like a
seller, this is also important in this level.” – P2
They selected candidates not only based on their knowledge and skill, but also
whether they can provide values to the task they work on:
“If you make something like a value, the value of a good project work, it's getting
more value than just running the IT” – P7
4.2.1.2 Communication and Coordination
Sharepoint is used in the company to provide intranet portals for collaborating and
sharing enterprise information. It could help the organization to manage its data and
information more easily, and to increase employee engagement:
“Implementing the Sharepoint platform as the collaboration platform for all
employees” – P8
4.2.1.3 Work Environment
A mobile application has been developed in the organization to support users with
location information such as phone numbers and addresses of the
companies/facilities in different areas, and information regarding the menus in the
staff restaurants. Adequate physical resources – various brands of mobile phones,
are provided to perform the assigned work:
“I have received a version for testing. We have different Android devices, Samsung,
HTC, and different iPhones and iOS versions. The mobile application has been
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48
tested using them.” “New version has been implemented every two weeks. It has
been better and better, and new ideas have been incorporated into the App.” – P2
4.2.1.4 Performance Management
There is regular communication with employees about the performance of their
committed works. The senior would try to understand the conditions and potential
actions for improvement are also discussed:
“Every year I have to address these underperformers to tell them, you are
underperformer, to try to understand why it is that, and try to challenge them, to
make goals that are measurable and realistic and so on, and to push them a little bit
and to challenge them.“—P8
4.2.1.5 Training and Development
Employees could address their needs for training in critical skills. They could first
discuss their training needs with their superiors. After the requests are approved by
human resource department, the training and development opportunities would be
provided to the employees:
“The training has to be reasonable, therefore, it is important for the employees to
discuss with their superiors, what kind of training is meaningful, what should the
employees do, what kind of skills they want to learn.” – P9
4.2.1.6 Compensation
Guidelines on the organizational compensation strategy are developed. A clearly
defined pay structure provides a framework for the implementation of compensation
policies in accordance with the job level:
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“There is policy on the employee payment and it is implemented by the executive
board. The payment is composed of both fixed and variable parts. The higher the job
level, the more variable payment there would be.” – P9
4.2.2 Level 3: Defined
To achieve Maturity Level 3, the organization has to gain competitive advantage by
developing the capability to manage its workforce as a strategic asset to accomplish
its business activities. Therefore, the improved workforce practices implemented at
this level become critical enablers of business strategy (Curtis et al., 2009).
4.2.2.1 Competency Analysis
The organization identifies the workforce competencies required to perform the
business activities:
“He has to be good in his specialized area, he must have a good grasp, he must
understand immediately what the project manager or the customer want.” – P3
4.2.2.2 Workforce Planning
The performance of the workforce activities is planned and tracked on a regular
basis. The project manager not only ensures that the right people with the right skills,
experience, and competencies are assigned the right positions, but also ensures the
team members know their responsibilities and satisfy with the job:
“Our project manager spends a lot of time only to deal with communication and to
get the project on track from the beginning of the project, because everyone needs to
be positioned, everyone must firstly find out the role, and has to see who he will be
working with, with who he can work with, whether there is any conflict.”– P2
4.2.2.3 Competency Development
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Employees could identify their career objectives/targets and pursue competency
development opportunities to support them to achieve their goals:
“It is important for us to know what his career goal is, what does he need, and then
we could identify whether the training is suitable for him.” – P9
4.2.2.4 Career Development
The organization provides development opportunities for employees to enhance
career capabilities. Discussion and evaluation of career promotion is held once per
year with the department head and human resource department. Employees
considered to be “Top Talent” are also identified who would be given opportunities
to participate in specialized training:
“We have a matrix for the classification of employee competencies which shows the
potential and performance of the employees. Is he a solid performer, high performer,
or exceptional talent? Then we will see what the steps will be planned.” – P9
4.2.2.5 Competency-Based Practices
Orientation activities are designed for team members to familiarize with each other
and the competencies required to perform their work assignments:
“Usually when a team comes together, it doesn't work with each other. You have to
give some time for people to see, to grow as a team, and to see what each other's
strengths are. So we have this also in this project too, like what we call a storming
phase.” – P5
4.2.2.6 Workgroup Development
The organization offers offsite workshop to provide the team members opportunities
to develop workgroup skills which could increase the group cohesiveness:
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“For me, the psychology is not the most important in a project, but sociology, since
the group dynamics has a very strong influence on the atmosphere of the project.”–
P1
4.2.2.7 Participatory Culture
The team members are encouraged to participate in the decision-making process:
“My experience is, engaging the people, you have to let them actively support you.
You listen to their suggestions. Even if there is something that's totally against what
you think what it is, just give them a little bit benefits of the doubt, and tell them that
they can help creating something really good here and being a part of it, and giving
them the sense of, that there were something and I think this is something that
ultimately helps to drive this forward.” – P5
4.2.3 Level 4: Predictable
At Maturity Level 3, the processes are qualitatively predicable. But at Maturity
Level 4, the processes should be quantitatively predicable and can quantify the
capability of its workforce performing their committed works. The organization
should also be able to integrate different competency-based processes into a single
multidisciplinary process (Curtis et al., 2009).
4.2.3.1 Competency Integration
Different workforce competencies are analyzed to identify the opportunities to
integrate the processes to support multi-disciplinary work:
“I think as a project leader in general and also in a project, a good leader really
identifies what the strengths and weaknesses are, and really put the people then at
work for the specific activities.” – P5
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4.2.3.2 Empowered Workgroups
Employees are given a certain degree of freedom with optimal control in managing
their tasks and performance:
“We have a lot of degree of freedom and we can decide for ourselves what is
important right now, is it this topic, or this topic? We are free to decide” – P6
“There is always this kind of person with this entrepreneurship. You have to treat
them the best way, but have to take care of them because they change the things.” –
P8
4.2.3.3 Competency-Based Assets
The guideline of the standard project management methodology specially designed
for the company developed within the competency community is used by the
employees to support the company’s business activities:
“We have this project management methodology. And there is also training,
consistent methodology, milestones, templates in which one can be guided.”– P2
4.2.3.4 Quantitative Performance Management
Quantitative measurable performance objectives are established. It is important to
manage the employee’s performance and align the objectives to facilitate effective
delivery of work:
“You have to stay on time, and budget, and quality. So you have to find a way to
manage the expectation that you still reach the three goals” – P5
“My main part of the job is to make sure that they have the right assignment and to
deliver actually on time and budget.” – P7
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4.2.3.5 Organizational Capability Management
To effectively integrate the capacity to achieve strategic and operational objectives
of the company, the capability of employees’ competencies should be managed.
Therefore, employee performance is addressed and new tasks are assigned regularly
for contributing to capability growth:
“There are 70% of average employees, 20% of high performers, and 10%
underperformers. You have to always challenge the high performers because they
get bored of doing the same thing all the time. In comparison to the 70%, they feel
very comfortable in doing the same thing. But in general, if someone is just lazy, you
have to tell him that.” – P8
4.2.3.6 Mentoring
Mentoring program is organized in the company. It plays a significant role in the
talent management process. The mentee has to set clearly defined goals in regard to
his/her personal development, and the mentor provides guidance and shares
knowledge and experience with the mentee. It provides two-way beneficial learning
situations as both parties could develop different kinds of skills, strengthen
relationships between individuals, and foster networking:
“This relationship should last at least one year to facilitate an effective exchange of
knowledge and experience. In order to build a profound relationship, duration of 2-
3 years is possible.” – P10
4.2.4 Level 5: Optimization
The focus of the Optimization Level is to continuously improve the workforce
capability and practices. Change management at this level is considered to be an
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ordinary business process. However, the performance at all levels should remain
aligned with organization objectives (Curtis et al., 2009).
After thorough analysis, it is found that the organization is yet to achieve Maturity
Level 5. There were still challenges faced by the organization that were yet to be
solved, especially in the process areas Continuous Capability Improvement and
Organizational Performance Alignment. Examples are provided to illustrate the
challenges the company faced.
4.2.4.1 Continuous Capability Improvement
Due to certain constraints such as resource capability and firm policies, there are
difficulties in implementing improvement technique which hinder the capability and
performance of work processes.
After the project started, it is realized that there was a limitation on the system which
made it impossible to finish the project on time:
“They have limitations in their system, then it will have an influence of the end of
the project, the go-live date” – P6
Since a part of the IT services of the organization has been acquired by an external
IT service corporation, the two companies work closely with each other, and
therefore, it is considered to be the “preferred supplier” of the organization.
However, they had problems in getting the right people with qualified competencies,
organizing themselves and communicating with each other. This has led to severe
cost overrun and project delay:
“This company is something like our prefer supplier within us. It is our first supplier
we should ask, and also the last…it was about communication. They really have
severe problem delivering it. They really have problems getting the right people to it.
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They did not have enough knowledge. They have no good methodology, and they
didn't say it to us” – P7
4.2.4.2 Organizational Performance Alignment
During the interviews, questions about project control and success were raised.
However, different interviewees have different answers on these questions. It
implies that their standards and expectations on these aspects are different.
Deviation from project objectives would lead to a loss of direction to improve the
capability of work processes, and hence, performance could not be aligned among
individuals, workgroups, and organizations.
The following show the opinions on project control and success by the interviewees:
“To get the results and quality, and the goals to do in time and budget.” – P5
“Our team in the IT department is quality. Because budget has in the past not been
an issue, and we do not so much stick to the timetable” – P6
“Quality, budget and time, the triangle. In my personal opinion, you should also
focus on maximum on two of them, not on three. You won't make it.” – P7
4.2.4.3 Continuous Workforce Innovation
Innovation is one of the core values of the company and it would be highly
appreciated:
“Core value of our company from the very beginning would be innovative...She told
me actually that she likes to innovate, to do absolutely new things. I asked her to
give some examples from her life, and she explained me that, and then I recognized
and realized Wow, she is really innovative and she really likes that and wants that
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and wants to work for the company who wants to be seen as a pioneer, and that's a
great thing.” – P8
4.2.5 Summary of the Case Study
As demonstrated in the above section, the process areas in PCMM could help the
organization to identify the objectives of the implemented practices, realize the
importance of these practices, and assist the organization in finding the problems
currently existed. The PCMM framework provides a roadmap for organizations to
transform their cultures and provide lasting improvements using a staged strategy.
The staged framework helps the organization to prioritize the practices implemented
to improve the capability of workforce.
When applying this staged structure framework, the goals of all the process areas in
one particular level should be achieved before proceeding to the next level. Since the
process areas in a level are mutually supporting each other, if one process area is
ignored, there may be a risk of failing to support other higher-maturity process areas
due to the removal of critical foundational practices. Maturity levels should not be
skipped also since the lower maturity practices are the foundation to effectively
implement higher maturity practices.
It is important for organizations to pursue higher levels of maturity since it supports
the motivation and performance to continuously improve the development and
management of workforce. Everyone is expected to contribute with an improvement
in his or her own capability, and the performance of the team and organization. One
of the focuses of Maturity Level 5 is to ensure the alignment of performance with
organizational objectives. Therefore, the company that is being investigated in this
paper needs to focus on continual improvement and to take corrective action on
realignment to reach Maturity Level 5.
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57
To overcome the constraints in the process area Continuous Capability Improvement,
the company could make use of the results from the quantitative management
activities in Maturity Level 4. For example, it can strengthen the practices
implemented in the process area Empowered Workgroup by empowering employees
to continuously improve their capability for performing the task, such as identifying
opportunities for them to improve performance by allowing them to choose the
external service provider which is currently restricted by the firm policies. For the
objective misalignment problem in the process area Organizational Performance
Alignment mentioned above, not only could the company refer to the results of the
process area Quantitative Performance Management, but it could also apply the past
experience in similar situation, or encourage suggestions from the workforce.
Evidence shows that achieving higher maturity level could improve performance in
quality, cost, and timeliness. However, there are also criticisms of attaining higher
maturity level. One of the most common criticisms is that there would be too much
documentations and burdens which may pose restrictions on the autonomy of
employees. The largely formalized and standardized processes would reduce their
motivations and kill innovations which will lead to negative consequences on long-
term development and management of the organization (Adler et al., 2005).
Therefore, organizations need to carefully plan and analyze the practices that are
going to be implemented in order to achieve a higher maturity level.
58
Chapter 5
Discussion
Chapter 5 - Discussion
59
Chapter 5 - Discussion
5.1 Limitation and Future Work
Although a rigorous approach is employed to the development of people factor
categorization and the empirical investigation of the application of PCMM in a
large-scale organization, there are several limitation that need to be recognized.
Furthermore, a number of future directions of research are discussed in the
following.
Firstly, the participants selected to take part in this research are limited to people
working in the IT department and human resource department in a company. While
this selection was effective in helping us to access to sources of data, results and
conclusions cannot be generalized. Even the interviewees are from the same
department or company, due to different experience, project sizes, and project
backgrounds, they may also have different opinions on the same issues. Therefore,
further empirical studies are necessary to generalize the findings. The research will
be continued by interviewing people working in the other IT companies with agile
practices. A wider collection of data would be useful to compare the practices
implemented in different organizations to allow a better understanding of how
PCMM could be applied to improve the capability and performance of workforce.
More concrete solutions could also be provided by using the experience from other
companies.
The second limitation is related to the categorization of people attributes. The
attributes of the people factors influencing the agile project success are categorized
into Capability, Personality, Motivation, and Training. While Capability and
Personality are largely dependent on the employee himself/herself which are less
likely to be changed within a short period of time, Motivation and Training are more
dependent on the external factors such as the job nature and activities offered by the
Chapter 5 - Discussion
60
organization. However, this categorization approach might not have fully captured
other forms of people factors. A more comprehensive way in distinguishing the
characteristics of people factors is desirable to fully capture the features of the
people factors.
Thirdly, based on the existing literature and intuitive reasoning, a conceptual model
is hypothesized. As project success can be measured by many different attributes,
this dissertation provides a summary of the use and/or findings of the project
performance metrics. Since they are very diverse, no concrete attribute is assigned to
the Agile Project Success construct. There are many possible metrics that could be
used for performance measurement which should also be considered in the
conceptual model. As this study highlights several people factors (capability,
personality, motivation, training) affecting project success when agile methodology
is introduced in software projects together with the practices suggested in PCMM,
future work should identify the concrete attributes as the performance metrics to
investigate the influence of specific people factors on specific attributes by using
specific practices in PCMM. This can help the stakeholders to better control the
project results by managing the characteristics of workforce when recruiting and/or
training agile project team members.
Fourthly, as this study highlights the people factors influencing the success of agile
software projects, future work should accordingly focus on identifying and
addressing other factors that can also improve the project success rate through the
application of PCMM, such as organizational factors that when employees are given
a certain degree of freedom through optimal controlling, it would be more efficient
for them to exercise the benefits of the agile approach as self-organizing teams. The
Agile Manifesto announces “The best architectures, requirements, and designs
emerge from self-organizing teams”. Through empowered workgroups as suggested
from PCMM, it enables a cooperative organizational culture instead of hierarchal.
This can therefore facilitates a proper agile-style work environment which leads to
Chapter 5 - Discussion
61
project success. In terms of technical factors suggested by Chow & Cao (2009),
appropriate technology/ tools and complete set of correct agile practices are
necessary to ensure the coding standards are well-defined, integration testing and
software delivery are correct, etc. By referring to quantitative performance
management, process measures can be established and used to capture quantitative
information which can provide insights for project managers to evaluate the agile
project performance, such as discovering the factors affecting the processes or
results, finding means to reduce variations in process or result, analyzing the
relationships between parameters, searching for opportunities for innovation in
product and process.
Fifthly, this study used a qualitative approach by interviewing the employees
applying agile methodology in their projects. The data collected by this approach
can provide the details about human behavior, attitudes, personality characteristics,
and project information that cannot be explained by using quantitative approach. In
this research, it enables flexibility to identify the people factors which affect the
agile project success, and the PCMM practices implemented in the organization can
be specified. However, quantitative approach can help to finalize the results and
narrow down the possible directions for follow up research. Therefore, it is believed
that an integrated research approach that combines qualitative and quantitative data
analyses can be helpful in generalizing the qualitative data and position research in a
transformative framework. After using the qualitative approach to gain an
understanding of the underlying motivations and background of the stories which
provide insights into problem setting and idea generations, quantitative approach can
be used to explore the findings and measure the incidence of the views and opinions
provided through qualitative approach.
Lastly, the initial target of the study was to obtain more data by interviewing more
agile project stakeholders. However, the response rate was lower than originally
planned. There are several reasons which can explain the low response rate. Firstly,
Chapter 5 - Discussion
62
the eligibility criteria for interviewees to participate in the interview was to have
experience in agile software project. Although the benefits of applying agile
approach is well-known and many project managers have been considering of using
agile in their projects, due to the obstacles in various respects such as the
misunderstanding of agile concepts by project stakeholders, misalignment of
opinions towards agile application, lack of training, insufficient experience and
support, company culture, the implementation of “real” agile was still impracticable
at that stage. Furthermore, for those employees who have already been involved in
projects using agile approach, as software development release cycles are much
shorter than those using the traditional waterfall approach, they have comparatively
tight daily schedules. The team members using scrum are required to attend and
participate in daily scrum meetings to discuss what they have accomplished
yesterday, what they will do today, and whether they are any obstacles impeding the
project progresses. Due to the time constraints, not all agile project stakeholders
could participate in the interview. Further research will continue to invite more
interviewees for the collection of data. It is also feasible for the employees who are
considering of applying agile approach in their projects to participate in the
interviews to understand the reasons that stop them from implementing this
methodology and how they think about the processes and results of applying agile in
projects.
5.2 Implications for Research and Practice
Human issues have been identified as one of the most important component in agile
software development, including amicability, talent, skill, and communication
(Cockburn & Highsmith, 2011). Individual competency is being focused as the
critical factor in project success. If the people are good enough, almost any process
can be used to accomplish their assignment. On the contrary, no process can repair
the inadequacy if the people do not have the specific competency required. In this
dissertation, the attributes of the people factors are categorized as capability,
Chapter 5 - Discussion
63
personality, motivation, and training. As capability and personality can be used to
distinguish a person’s characteristics before starting the work at the organization
and/or in the software project, they are considered to be the elements which cannot
be easily changed in a shorter time period when compared to motivation and
training. Motivation and training can more easily be changed by external factors,
such as organizational culture and project nature. In existing literature, the people-
related attributes which are differentiated in this approach cannot be found. Research
on the management of the workforce in agile software projects is limited. By using
this categorization method, characteristics of workforce can be more easily
distinguished and classified without bias, enabling researchers to conduct further
research by using it as predictors across various life domains, such as performance
outcome, satisfaction level, and socioeconomic status.
By differentiating the people factors into these four categories, project managers and
human resources department can use them as indicators and guidelines to make
decisions on the hiring/ firing and management processes of the workforce. Finding
the right people with suitable personalities and capabilities is the first step. Once
they are part of the team, support can be provided to enable them to grow by
offering sufficient financial compensation, suitable training opportunities,
company’s culture/ atmosphere which fits one’s personality, a job which matches
one’s personal goal and capabilities, and strong values base and real passion for the
work. In agile software team which is featured by customer collaboration and
frequent communication with various project stakeholders, the benefits of building
personal connection and being authentic should not be forgotten, and therefore,
personality is as important as the capability when adopting the agile methodology in
a software project.
The People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) is a maturity framework which
provides the guidelines for organizations to improve their ability in attracting,
developing, motivating, organizing, and retaining talent. This dissertation aims at
Chapter 5 - Discussion
64
investigating how PCMM can be used in large-scale organizations with agile
approach to increase the success rate in agile software project. In existing research,
there are large amount of empirical studies of organizations using Capability
Maturity Model (CMM) which have produced significant advances in the
understanding of the model for appraising software process maturity and for helping
software organizations progress along an evolutionary path to mature disciplined
software processes (Herbsleb et al., 1997). The importance of people factors in agile
projects has been emphasized, however, the challenges and solutions concerning this
issue remain largely a black box. There have been no published studies I am aware
of on the application of PCMM in agile projects in large-scale organizations. This
study fills the research gap of the PCMM empirical studies in agile projects by
providing evidence for the importance of people factors when using agile
methodology in software projects. A research model is proposed which shows how
PCMM can be applied to manage the people factors to achieve agile project success.
Real-life practices are demonstrated by collecting data from the interview
participants which can provide insights and recommendations for the agile project
stakeholders about the approaches they can apply in their own projects. Many
organizations realize that they need to improve their IT-related processes and
workforce in order to enhance the project performance. However, it is difficult for
them to clearly indicate the issues they need to focus and the way to solve the
problems. Moreover, there are nowadays still no global standard to benchmark the
human resources processes in an organization. Therefore, the measurement of HR
policies and alignment of employee development with the business process are
challenging. This empirical study acts as a valuable reference for project managers
to understand which maturity level they are capable to reach, make decision on their
targets in improving workforce capability, how they can apply the model to solve
the challenges they face, and what kind of practices they can implement to achieve
project success.
65
Chapter 6
Conclusion
Chapter 6 - Conclusion
66
Chapter 6 - Conclusion
People are a vital element to an organization’s long-term success. In order to
effectively manage the workforce in the software development industry, PCMM
could be used not only to attract, engage, and retain workforce, but also to provide
guidance on how to continuously improve the workforce’s capabilities. It aims at
building strong linkages of people processes with business results. The qualitative
approach of the study provided by the respondents gives an insight into the real-life
experience of agile practices in large organizations. 10 employees working in a
large-scale organization in Germany with agile practices are involved in the study.
People factors were focused in the interview, such as the staffing requirements in
terms of skills and personalities, opportunities provided to the employees for the
enhancement of capabilities, the current challenges faced in the agile projects, the
solutions to tackle the problems, and the measurement of project success. Based on
previous research, a research model is proposed which the people factors are
categorized into four attributes, namely capability, personality, motivation, and
training. Capability and personality are considered to be the factors which cannot be
easily changed when compared to motivation and training which are dependent on
external factors such as practices implemented in the organizations, the job nature,
work environment and colleagues. PCMM acts as the moderator in this research
model for the investigation of its influence of people factors on project success.
The data collected from the interviews reveal that the organization has achieved
Maturity Level 4 in PCMM, which means it has the capability to predict its
performance and capacity for work by creating a culture of measurement and
exploits shared experience (Curtis et al., 2003). However, due to the strategic
constraints and misalignment of standards on project control amongst the
workgroups, there is still a need for the organization to improve the current practices
in order to reach Maturity Level 5. Therefore, it is necessary for the organizations
which would like to achieve a higher maturity level to understand clearly the
Chapter 6 - Conclusion
67
effectiveness of the current practices and review the feasibility of the
implementation of the practices in the next level after accomplishing the goals in the
current level. This paper contributes to research and practice by examining
empirically the way to apply PCMM, showing examples of real-life practices to
achieve the goals of various process areas, and how the model could help the
organization to understand the challenges it faced and provide suggestions for
potential improvement.
Reference
68
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Curriculum Vitae
Personal Information
Name: LEE, Alice Jing
Date of Birth: 26th February, 1988
Educational Background
05/2015 – 05/2017 PhD in Management at the University of St. Gallen
10/2012 – 12/2014 Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Computer Science with specialization in
Software Engineering at the Technical University of Munich
09/2007 – 05/2012 Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) in Computer Science at the University
of Hong Kong
09/2007 – 05/2011 Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Information Systems with Economics as minor subject at the University of Hong Kong
10/2009 – 03/2010 Exchange semester in Management and Technology at the Technical
University of Munich
Working Experience
05/2015 – 01/2017 University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland, Research Assistant at
the Institute for Customer Insights
03/2013 – 03/2015 Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, Working student in Siemens Real
Estate (Information Technology)
10/2012 – 12/2012 Allianz SE, Munich, Germany, Working student in Group Operations,
Business Architecture
10/2008 – 08/2012 University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Research assistant in the faculty
of Business Information Systems
06/2011 – 08/2011 SAP Deutschland AG & Co.KG, Walldorf, Germany, Internship in
System Landscape Optimization (SLO)
06/2010 – 07/2010 Allianz SE, Munich, Germany, Internship in Group Operations,
Organizational Architecture