Investigating the relationship between coordination strategy and coordination effectiveness in agile software development projects

IF 3.8 2区计算机科学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information and Software Technology Pub Date : 2025-03-02 DOI:10.1016/j.infsof.2025.107708

Geetha Kanaparan , Diane E. Strode

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Context

Agile software development (ASD) provides a way to coordinate teams and projects. Coordination is achieved by adopting a set of agile practices; however, these agile practices may differ for each project. The chosen assemblage of practices can be considered an agile project coordination strategy. The current body of knowledge about coordinative practices and theories of coordination in ASD is almost exclusively based on case studies. A validated model is currently lacking.

Objective

The objective is to validate a theoretical model to explain coordination in ASD, particularly the relationship between coordination strategy and coordination effectiveness.

Method

We validate this relationship based on an international survey of 340 agile practitioners and use PLS-SEM to estimate the relationships.

Results

The results show that an agile coordination strategy, that includes synchronisation, structure, and boundary-spanning, has a positive relationship with coordination effectiveness (implicit and explicit). Customer involvement moderates the relationship between coordination strategy and coordination effectiveness. These results are primarily supported by evidence from virtual work arrangements.

Conclusion

This research provides a validated coordination theory and information on what agile practices are related to effective coordination in agile software development. This coordination theory can be used to investigate coordination in future agile method variants used in system and software development projects.

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来源期刊

Information and Software Technology 工程技术-计算机：软件工程

CiteScore

9.10

自引率

7.70%

发文量

164

审稿时长

9.6 weeks

期刊介绍： Information and Software Technology is the international archival journal focusing on research and experience that contributes to the improvement of software development practices. The journal''s scope includes methods and techniques to better engineer software and manage its development. Articles submitted for review should have a clear component of software engineering or address ways to improve the engineering and management of software development. Areas covered by the journal include: • Software management, quality and metrics, • Software processes, • Software architecture, modelling, specification, design and programming • Functional and non-functional software requirements • Software testing and verification & validation • Empirical studies of all aspects of engineering and managing software development Short Communications is a new section dedicated to short papers addressing new ideas, controversial opinions, "Negative" results and much more. Read the Guide for authors for more information. The journal encourages and welcomes submissions of systematic literature studies (reviews and maps) within the scope of the journal. Information and Software Technology is the premiere outlet for systematic literature studies in software engineering.