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Fostering effective inter-team knowledge sharing in agile software development

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Abstract

Agile methods have different practices that ultimately foster intra-team knowledge sharing (KS). However, they do not provide recommendations about coping with inter-team KS. Supporting inter-team KS is fundamental in scaling agility across the entire organization, and is regarded as the new horizon for agile software development. This study seeks to understand inter-team knowledge sharing effectiveness in agile software development organizations. Using grounded theory, we analyzed data from four Brazilian organizations and also from an expert in agile methods implementation. We observed that the companies employ different work practices that allow knowledge sharing to occur across team boundaries. Our main contribution is a conceptual model that explains how effective knowledge sharing across agile teams depends on applying purposeful practices, along with organizational conditions and stimuli. This understanding represents an innovative focus within the context of agile methods and suggests what one needs to take into account when striving on this path. Yet, it yields opportunities for further studies in refining and extending the model to other organizational contexts. Inter-team knowledge sharing reflects the way agile software development organizations are coping with enterprise agility and the way they consider knowledge as a resource for competitiveness.

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Notes

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishbowl_(conversation)

  2. Theoretical sampling is the process of choosing new research sites or cases to compare with ones that have already been studied to deepen the understanding and to incorporate all the relevant data into the analysis of the research topic.

  3. Characteristics of an object, event, or action.

  4. Open space session is based on the open space technology (Dierkes et al. 2003), an elaborate facilitation technique usually held on conferences (http://www.agileopen.net/on-open-space), to provide really productive meetings.

  5. Developmental culture orientation: growth, resource acquisition, creativity and adaptation to the external environment (change and external focus) (Iivari and Iivari 2010).

  6. Rational culture orientation: productivity, efficiency and goal achievement (stability and external focus) (Iivari and Iivari 2010).

  7. Osmotic communication means information flow into the background hearing of members of the team that makes people pick up relevant information as though by osmosis (Cockburn 2006).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by FAPESP project no. 2009/16354-0 and CNPQ project no. 476661/2010-2. We are grateful to all organizations and members participating in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of São Paulo, Rua do Matão, 1010, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo, SP, 05508-090, Brazil

    Viviane Santos & Alfredo Goldman

  2. Vale Institute of Technology and Federal University of Pará, Tv. Boaventura da Silva, 955, Nazaré, Belém, Pará, 66035-090, Brazil

    Cleidson R. B. de Souza

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  1. Viviane Santos
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  2. Alfredo Goldman
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  3. Cleidson R. B. de Souza
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Correspondence to Viviane Santos.

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Communicated by: Jeffrey C. Carver

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Santos, V., Goldman, A. & de Souza, C.R. Fostering effective inter-team knowledge sharing in agile software development. Empir Software Eng 20, 1006–1051 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-014-9307-y

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