Investigating the Adoption and Management of Metrics in Large-Scale Agile Software Development at a German IT-Provider

Abstract

Over the last two decades, agile methods have become the predominant software development mode. Originally developed for use in small, co-located single teams, companies began to adopt agile methods on a larger scale. Frameworks, such as the Scaled Agile Framework or Scrum-at-Scale, help to organize team collaboration within the large-scale agile software development environment. In order to continue to facilitate transparency and control even over larger team and process structures, the need arose to introduce metrics and integrate them into the workflows of the agile frameworks. Several researchers have already studied the introduction of metrics in agile single-team settings. However, an investigation of the introduction of metrics in the large-scale agile environment considering the agile scaling frameworks is missing so far. Likewise, a research gap concerns the long-term management of metrics and the associated metrics teams within a holistic reference framework. Hence, the objective of this master‘s thesis was to investigate the current state of the metric usage in relation to their associated goals within a case organization to build and evaluate a systematic approach for metrics adoption and long-term management. As part of an action design research, the approach was executed in two analysis units of the case organization and subsequently evaluated through two surveys. The case study results indicate a correlation between the nature of current metrics use and the level of adoption of agile practices and scaled frameworks. The main contribution of this thesis lies in the design of an approach for the goal-based adoption and management of metrics in scaled agile software development. It also describes the execution of the approach that led the case organization to adopt thirteen and nineteen goal-based metrics, respectively, and to uncover their improvement potential in metrics management. In addition, the case organization received specific recommendations for the introduction and management of metrics through the approach. Survey results show a high level of approval and, thus, confirm the practical relevance of the different steps and components of the approach.

Research questions

1. How are metrics in relation to strategic goals currently being used in large-scale agile software development?

2. How can different stakeholders establish and manage metrics and strategic goals to improve the current large-scale agile software development measurement program?