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Dependency Management in Large-Scale Agile: A Case Study of DevOps Teams

Abstract

Managing dependencies between teams and within teams is critical when running large-scale agile projects. In large-scale software development, work is carried out simultaneously by many developers and development teams. Results are delivered frequently and iteratively, which requires management of dependencies on both the project and team level. This study explores coordination mechanisms in agile DevOps teams in a large-scale project and how the mechanisms address different types of dependencies. We conducted a case study where we observed 38 scheduled meetings and interviewed members of five DevOps teams and two teams supporting the DevOps teams. By using a dependency taxonomy, we identified 20 coordination mechanisms (eleven synchronization activities and nine synchronization artifacts). Eight of these mechanisms seem essential for coordination in large-scale projects because they addressed more than four types of dependencies. The main implication is that project management needs to combine many practices handling all the dependencies in large-scale projects.
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Category

Academic chapter

Language

English

Author(s)

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Digital / Software Engineering, Safety and Security
  • University of Oslo

Year

2019

Publisher

AIS Electronic Library

Book

Proceeding of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2019)

ISBN

9780998133126

Page(s)

7007 - 7016

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository