Agile Software Development CSA Case Study

2013

Saad Ashmawi 1/4/2013

Table of Contents

What is Agile Development

What is Dynamic System Development (DSDM)

Dynamic System Development

Culture, Value and Trust

Users

Developer Role

What is Agile Software Development?

Agile software development is a term used for many iterative and incremental software development

methodologies. There are many popular agile methodologies but in this paper we are going to

concentrate on the dynamic system development method (DSDM) and its tools.

Of course each of the agile software development methodologies are unique in its specific approach, but

they all share a common vision and core values, which are the 12 principles stated in the Agile

Manifesto. The Agile Manifesto is a set of principles to guide software development teams.

All the Agile software development methodologies involve continuous: - planning, testing, integration

and evolution of both the project and the software. These Methodologies are considered lightweight

comparing to traditional waterfall technique. Their main focus is on empowering users to collaborate

and arrive to a decision together in a quickly and effective manner.

What is Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)?

Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) is a software development framework based around

Rapid Application Development (RAD), supported by its continuous user involvement in an iterative

development and incremental way which is responsive to the changing requirements to develop a

system that meets the business needs on time and on budget.

Dynamic System Development Tools:

1. Timeboxing

This tool concentrates on the 2nd principal of DSDM to deliver on time and focus on the business

priority.

Timeboxing technique is an interval usually no longer than 2,4 or 6 weeks which goes with the board

of trustees requirement in our CSA study as the SMT stated that the board of trustees have set

target of getting centers to provide accurate core data to the center within 3 months of the start of

this project.

In our CSA case we will be focusing in the first 2 timeboxes on the data collection as the board of

trustees expects to see in 3 months a result and a value for the money invested in this project.

It’s very important to deliver the first requirement in 3 months even if we need to cut from the

scope and deliver it later on as long as the SMT will have a system that collects data accurately.

We divide our Timeboxing cycle into 3 phases:

Investigation (10-20%)

Refinement (60-80%)

Consolidation (10-20%)

2. MoSCoW Rules

DSDM projects are concerned to be in time and on budget and users are heavily involved in the

development, so it’s very important to know what users need the most.

The original MoSCoW Rules were the CIA guidelines for operatives working in Eastern Europe in the

1960s! The DSDM version is simply a common sense approach to prioritizing project deliverables.

MoSCoW rules is a technique that weights the importance of requirements. We are going to

demonstrate this technique in using some of the CSA requirements

1. Must Have:

a. Collect data accurately on time from centers

b. Make sure that the system data is secure

2. Should Have:

a. Produce management reports for SMT and Trustees

b. Measure performance against funding body deliverables and CSA key performance

indicators

c. Record details about contracts held between CSA and funding bodies

d. Give better data as to how finances and resources are allocated

3. Could Have:

a. Collect demographic data about young people

b. Allow reporting to any given time period rather than only 3 months

c. Allow changes in the indicators

d. Assist new development office in preparing for bids in the future

4. Want to Have:

a. Help workers to do their job more effectively by having information available

through mobile phone

b. A calendar all employees share to help make appointments

c. Send messages to young people about events in the area

d. Online website like Facebook

3. Facilitated workshops:

Workshops for software projects have their roots in Joint Application Design (JAD). A workshop is

one of the best methods for dealing with user requirements.

Workshops helps increasing quality and reducing costs, it helps to reduce the risks of scope creep,

accelerate the delivery of early life cycle phases, increase function points and provide overall 5% to

15% saving in time and effort of the whole project.

After going through team-development stages such as “forming, storming, norming and

performing,” a group can become very productive and very fast.

To plan a successful workshop we have to put in our mind the “six P’s”:

1. Purpose

Allow projects to store demographic data about young people in a standard way, visible by

central offices.

2. Participants

Kevin Baxter

Anastasia Mason

Jim Massey

Steve Sutherland

Peter Jackson

Priya Patel

3. Principles

Discussion session about how data is collected currently and how each participant wants

to collect it in the new system.

The consultants represent their suggested ideas about the data collection for discussion

How can we benefit from the data

4. Products

How the data would be collected.

What data is mandatory and what is optional for the system

The security of the data

How the data will be used in the system

5. Places

Head office

6. Process

Consultants go on with the data and requirements they gathered

Was this workshop was enough or need to setup another one with same or different

participants

Culture, Value and Trust

As the CSA is charity organization, its culture will be different for sure from other normal companies

looking for the profit and more market share. So the culture in CSA is more friendly work environment,

people enjoy their work and what they’re doing with the young kids as they feel they participate in

changing those kids life, getting them a better life and make them contribute efficiently in the society.

From the case i can tell that the culture in CSA is Clan culture. All of the employees are not after the

money as much they are after to achieve their goal to participate in changing those kids life to the

better.

Typically employees look to their leader as their role models or their respected parent figure. From what

Sue Williams says about Peter Jackson her area manager, how he does his best to help his employees by

developing this small excel database. Even though it’s not that good but she feels the effort he spent to

make the life of his employee much easier in the data collection process.

Another example is Sean McNally and his loyalty to the CSA by working there for almost 20 years. He

also express his feelings of concern about his staff are overwhelmed from the new system. He also

concerned about that his staff might feel more stress of the new system as if the head office is spying on

them, so he shows care about the staff feeling which can affect their work morals.

The CSA being in the market for a long time already and being running maybe not with a standardized

system like any other business but it was run by people who care for the organization and those

employees dedicated their lives in working for such goals, so when developing the system the developer

must put in concern the employees culture and their background so the system would get their approval

and will be a tool to assist them not to give them hard time to adapt to it or a tool that they might make

them feel that the CSA don’t trust them anymore, too much restriction would not give a positive

attitude in this type of environment.

The system cannot be too complex as a lot of the user have even trouble using excel sheets like what

Sue Williams stated that she is not very good in technology even though she is a team leader and for

sure she won’t emphasis to have her subordinates skilled in using computer, s developer must put in

mind to have a simple system not a lot of functionality in the beginning till they get used on it and have

training session on the new system and make sure that all employees get familiar with the new system

otherwise they won’t use it.

As the CSA is not based in one office or zone, then we expect a lot of culture differences between

employees. We have 3 regions with 19 area offices spread around the country; each area might have

different culture and tradition than others, which the consultants have to put into consideration.

Sean McNally stated that the northern regional offices had spent from its own resources to develop IT

system to support previous projects. It would be recommended for the consultants to see what kind of

system is developed and get an idea from the managers and employees their thought about these

systems, what is the certain point they wish it would be there, gather more data about its advantage

and disadvantage. It would be very useful for the consultants to get this kind of data about those

systems as it will make their job much easier in understanding what the employees really need as the

employees were using these systems for many years so they can tell already about the missing

functionality that they need to add in it.

CSA organization structure might be difficult for the consultant to set the required authorization level, as

there is many offices and managers and consultant have a very good understanding which manager or

director have access to what data and which employees record. Some data are public to the whole

organization but other data should be private, especially the kind of data the SMG and board of Trustees

use to build their decision on future contracts.

Peter Jackson is excited about the new system and wants to help in any way possible, this will be a

positive attitude to his employees as they respect him and sees him as a parent figure for them which

will motivate them to cooperate with the consultants and be more excited about having this system and

can’t wait for it to be up and running. This will make the consultant job much easier in collecting the

data they needs and in getting the employee feedback and their total cooperation.

On the other hand we have Sean McNally not excited at all about the new system and he actually stated

that he is not interested in getting a new system that will give more burdens to his employees more

than they have already. He also feels that new system will be like spying on his employee work which

will affect their moral and trust. This will affect the employee attitude towards the new system, they

won’t be cooperative with consultants as they feel straighten by this system and they feel when this

system is complete their work will be like hell, they got the feeling passed from the director so the

whole northern region would have a negative attitude towards this new system and this could cause the

new system to fail.

In this case it is better that Jim Massey and Steve Sutherland have a meeting with him explaining the

importance of the new system and how the new system will make his employee work much easier and it

doesn’t add burden it actually make the work process flow much faster in a consistent standardized

manner. Explain in detail the new system functionality and its benefit to the organization and to the

employees. They shouldn’t leave the meeting until they resolve any issues he has in mind as his approval

for the system mean the approval of all the employees in his region. This system will not be successful

unless all the management back up the system and deliver their strong feeling about how well this

system is for the organization to their subordinate.

Sally Smith is not concerned about MIS and she only wants an HR system and sees the new system as a

waste of money. The problem with Sally attitude and thoughts can affect this system greatly, she needs

to understand how this system work for her and for the whole organization and that it’s not a waste of

money and that consultants needs her total cooperation of her and her staff as well to make their HR

module in the way she wants.

CSA have a major IT literacy issue among the managers and employees. Some managers think that the

system is separated in pieces and other doesn’t see the benefits from it or it could be it even harmful for

them and their employees. There should be orientation session for all CSA staff from top management

to low level staff to explain to them how the new system would work, its benefit, how secure it is and

how it will make their work much easy using it, this will help the consultants later on with their

requirements gathering and will take off some of the employee fear of the new system and will gain

their trust.

Consultants must make sure that everyone in this organization is contributing in this system, the user

must feel that his ideas and thoughts about the system is getting real considerations, this will motivate

the employees effectively in the requirement gathering process as they would feel they are a major part

of this system and would be excited to see the new system in effect.

Consultants should many workshops with each region employees, this will be very beneficial for the

system to have everyone point of views an ideas. Employees will have more trust in the system if they

see their ideas and contribution being really put in the new system and in effect. It’s very important to

take the employees suggestion and ideas for the new system seriously as they the one doing the day to

day routine hard work and they the one who would be doing most of the work on the new system and

they are aware more of the work process as they are the one in the fields and meeting the young boys

and know what they really need to have in the system to get their work done more efficiently and

effectively.

Jim Massey sees the value of this MIS is huge for the CSA as it will help in many different areas. One big

lack that area offices used to compete against each other for contracts without knowing. This will lead

to loss of resources and sometimes the contracts as well.

There is obvious miscommunication between the directors and the managers in CSA. Jim Massey says

that the MIS was his idea, while Steve Sutherland claims that he asked for this MIS 9 months ago. The

SMG made the system developer under the guidance of Jim Massey and Steve Sutherland, while

Julianne Black claims that Jim Massey ask her to manage the MIS development. This miscommunication

could affect the system development as no clear role for each member and might get sensitive between

the directors when it’s time to make decision and each want his/her word to be taken into

consideration.

Sue Williams feels that her efforts are less appreciated in CSA then her colleagues in head office. She is

under the impression that they don’t do anything and they just get more salary and sit in fancy offices

while the employee in Bridlington does all the work. Also lack knowledge of what is KPI and what’s its

importance to the CSA. She is a team leader which means she should pass knowledge and experience to

her subordinates and it seems she lack a lot of information about CSA and only care about the field work

which make her a burden on CSA by not willing contribute effectively in the new system.

Users

Regional director and their admin team

o Responsible for developing new projects using the new system and its ability of getting

the historical data about the previous contracts and the funding bodies would be very

useful for them.

o They also identify project deliverables in partnership with area manager and contract &

funding raising department at head office.

Leader worker

o Responsible for overseeing and managing the project.

o Can manage many small projects in same area.

o Lead project team for large projects.

o System will be very useful to follow up on different team and project with minimal

communication required.

Head Office

Use the system to monitor projects across all the regions and prepare reports for SMG and

board of Trustees.

Finance Department

Get accurate financial data for the area manager and regional director.

HR

Register staff records and help to make evaluation on their performance.

Admin Team

Manage employee, CSA finances.

Marketing

No much use for the marketing department except getting data from historical successful

projects to help to advertise them to attract clients.

Admin Services

o Manage existing contracts.

o Develop new projects.

o Bid for new contracts and help with the fund raising team.

SEG

Take decision on bids to send it to funding bodies.

Regional director

Need to see data for their region

Area manager

Need to see data for their area

Team leader

Need to see data for their project

Information Quality Officer

o Provide accurate information about project for decision making centrally.

o Record each case.

o Record core data of project so we can measure KPIs.

Developer Role

The developer must take into consideration that CSA have many employees from different areas many

with different culture background and values. He/she must have an overall vision on how to develop a

system that can fit all those different culture and backgrounds.

Some of the employees have IT literacy, so he/she must advice CSA to give them some courses to

prepare them to the new system. Some users have doubt about the system, so he/she must address

every person doubt or fear from the new system and have as much orientation session as possible to

make the employee confident that the new system will be working for their benefit and not as a spy on

them.

Developing prototype really helps the user to see how the system will look like and help them think

through what they need in this system and how you can change interface and functionality to reach the

ultimate solution for them

Facilitated workshops is perfect for CSA work environment, help the user to mix together and brain

storm and motivate them to assist the developer with all the knowledge they need to deliver the new

system.

The system developed cannot be very complex nor has a lot of functionality at least in its first release.

It’s better to add on functionality gradually in each following release. This will give the user the learn the

system bit by bit.