Nowadays, rapid changes in technology, markets, and customer needs force companies to react quickly to remain competitive. In our digitalised world, these new requirements affect especially software development and software-related areas. The resulting need for agility led to the success of agile development methods like Scrum. Inspired by this success in small projects of individual teams, organisations have started to apply agile practices in a larger context. So-called large-scale agile development involves the application of agile methods for the development of complex products, in projects involving multiple teams and programs, and across the entire organisation, including high levels such as the portfolio level.
However, the new organisational structure, including the development toward cross-functional teams, and the complexity of scaling agile methods, lead to challenges. Examples include efficient cross-functional coordination and knowledge sharing between units of the agile organisation (e.g., teams, programs, departments, IT) and appropriately handling cross-cutting issues. Dependencies should be considered, redundant work avoided, and silos dispersed. Common values, methods, and guidelines should be pursued, as well as insights and experiences shared.
To achieve the aforementioned goals, suitable concepts for knowledge exchange and coordination are required. The agile organisational structure and the basic principles of agile methods, such as (team) autonomy, should be respected. Communities of Practice (CoPs) are groups of experts from different organisational units who share a common interest in a topic, regularly exchange ideas, share experiences and knowledge, and, thus, learn from each other. This concept allows efficient coordination and knowledge exchange on cross-cutting topics without strict hierarchies. In that way, the entire company can benefit from individuals' knowledge and different experiences. In addition, a core concept of agile methods, continuous learning, is promoted. Although some researchers and scaling agile frameworks such as SAFe have recognised the potential of CoPs for the successful and efficient adoption and implementation of agile practices in a scaled context, no sufficient research exists. Most importantly, literature to guide and support agile organisations in establishing CoPs is lacking.
The project goal is to identify best practices that help to master the practical challenges of implementing CoPs in scaled agile settings and to design a concept for the establishment and organisation of CoPs based on these best practices in collaboration with the industry partner Merck KGaA.
The following research questions will be answered in the project:
- How can agile organisations benefit from CoPs?
- Which types of CoPs exist in the agile context?
- Why and how are they established and organised?
- What challenges do organisations face, and how can they be addressed?
- What best practices can help establish CoPs in this context?
- How can CoPs be established and organised based on these best practices?
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