RESEARCH PROJECT
IDENTIFYING THE PRACTICAL CHALLENGES IN USING SCRUM IN SMALL SCALE IT COMPANIES OF GERMANY
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
Agile activities have become the trend in the companies. Around half of the organisations are looking for applying agile practices in the organisation in order to increase the productivity of the employees. Agile practices need to be changed in every three years which also changes the effective practices of working of employees (Sutherland and Schwaber, 2007). Agile has become the roots of success in the world of software as it provides more flexibility to the organisations which also gives efficient results in terms of technology development. The use of the approach has expanded rapidly to all the sectors and has become most important function in the organisation (Deemer et al., 2010).
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The use of scrum has increased by 33% in the IT sector of Germany. There are 80% of the companies available in Germany which are depended on scrum. According to the state of agile report, the software development team of Germany mostly use scrum. 56% of the teams use scrum methodology because it helps the companies to divide the team task easily and helps to complete the complicated task. 75% small scale IT companies uses scrum to accelerate the software. 65% small scale IT companies enhances the ability to manage the priority works with the help of scrum. 55% companies think it increases productivity of the organisation.
In today's world of the competition management team has started a conducting scrum session in which HR teamwork is an agile fashion and project managers use agile practices for the delivery of the milestones and activities (Sutherland and Schwaber, 2007). From the book "scrum fundamentals: a beginner's guide to the mastery of the scrum project management methodology" report it has been found that there are 19 countries in which agile practices have been using from around three years. These agile practices help organisations to deliver their products and services in the market in a faster way than before. Agile practices also allow companies to become multidisciplinary and to be more focused towards the delivery results (Deemer et al., 2010). Apart from various benefits the small scale IT companies also faces problems in implementing agile methodologies. This has given rise to the study. The purpose of the study is to identify the practical challenges faces by the small scale IT companies in implementing scrum methodologies and to recommend the solutions to resolve it.
1.2 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
The study is important as it is the new and innovative topic which would contribute to improve the working of the small scale IT companies. The study will also introduce challenges and practical solutions which could contribute in the success of the organization. The study will discuss various benefits of agile practices such as it improves the flexibility of employees and organisations and also it improves the working of employees even in the changing environment. It will help researcher to understand the agile practices which could give a faster way to bring innovations in new products (Sutherland and Schwaber, 2007). These practices generally implemented by the small scale IT companies to stay ahead from their competition. It is the modern method of improving the performance of the company (Deemer et al., 2010). Now every organisation looks for implementing modern method instead of using traditional methods. The study will help learner to implement this agile practices in his professional life to improve the performance of the working team and organisation. (Deemer et al., 2010).
1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT
The problem is implementing scrum has become a risk for the small scale IT companies as the team has obligations to complete the work in a short time (Larman and Vodde, 2016). As a result, the working team compromises with the quality of the work. The quality of the software decreases and this affects the performance of the company in the market. That means implementing scrum also decreases the performance of the employees which is the biggest issue with the scrum methodology and organisations (Larman and Vodde, 2016).
The other issue could be due to frequently working of the teams on the project, the testing of the software could not be performed well all times as testing of the software requires more time (Jurado et al., 2017). Scrum shortens the deadline of the projects for the team which may create various risks in delivering the software or products before properly testing it. The other issue could be the clients give their preferences in the products which they specifically want in the product or software. But scrum does not allow the team to implement those requirements in the projects as it reduces the deadlines of the work (Larman and Vodde, 2016). This has given rise to the need of the study. The study will would be helpful for researcher to discuss the practical challenges faces by the company and the practical solution to resolve it.
The study contributes in the academic research as it will give detailed information about Scrum and the challenges face by the small scale IT companies in implementing it (Khalane and Tanner, 2013). The new literature review would be developed by the researcher based on the existing and new developed knowledge on the topic. The new literature review would be helpful for researcher to fill the gap in the study that is existing around 10 years between 2009 to 2020 (Jurado et al., 2017).
Secondly the study will discuss the challenges issues faces by the companies in implementing Scrum in the working culture of the small scale IT companies. The topic is important as it will give knowledge to the researcher on implementing Scrum effectively in the small scale IT companies (Khalane and Tanner, 2013).
1.5 AGILE METHODOLOGY
The most agile methodology used by small scale IT companies is scrum which is the most popular method in the organisation (Sutherland and Schwaber, 2007). In this method, the owner of the company works with the team and keeps an eye on the performance of the employees. This practice is effective for the owner to finalize the things which are required in the product, working systems or a prototype. In short, the cross functional teams collaborate to deliver the product backlog (Deemer et al., 2010). Once the product backlog delivered it is analysed and reported. This helps the team to improve the activities of the products if required. Apart from all the benefits, there are many challenges that are faced by the organisations while implementing scrum in the companies (Sutherland and Schwaber, 2007). Thus, the purpose of the study has increased the demand of the research on the same topic which is to identify the challenges faces by the small organisations while implementing the scrum in the companies (Deemer et al., 2010). The research will give knowledge to the researcher about the challenges and what could be possible solutions to reduce it (Deemer et al., 2010). The research is important as it will allow the researcher to gain knowledge on the topic which would be very beneficial for a researcher in future professional life and employment process (Schwaber, 1997).
AIM
The aim of the study is to identify practical challenges in using SCRUM in small scale IT companies.
OBJECTIVES
To identify SCRUM management practices implemented by the small scale IT companies
To evaluate the benefits of implementing SCRUM in small scale IT companies
To determine the challenges faces by small scale IT companies due to SCRUM.
1.7. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Q1. What is the usability of agile practices and its scalability in small scale IT companies?
Q2. What will be the challenges as faced while implementing the scrum framework in small scale IT companies?
Q3. How would agile methodology evolve to be the leading methodology in small scale companies?
1.8 CHAPTER OVERVIEW
The dissertation would be divided into five sections in which all the sections will give a right direction to the research and allows the researcher to get desired outcomes. The first section is an introduction in which the aims, objectives and research questions have defined which helps the researcher to complete the dissertation. The second section will be a literature review which will include detailed information of the topic with the facts and figures. The third section would be research methodology that will help the researcher to choose a strategic research methodology to complete the research. The fourth section will be observations and findings in which researcher will show the findings of the research. Fifth section will be discussion on the basis of findings. The last section would be conclusions, recommendations, and limitations of the study.
REFERENCES
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Jurado-Navas, A. and Munoz-Luna, R., 2017. Scrum Methodology in Higher Education: Innovation in Teaching, Learning and Assessment. International Journal of Higher Education, 6(6), pp.1-18.
Khalane, T. and Tanner, M., 2013, November. Software quality assurance in Scrum: The need for concrete guidance on SQA strategies in meeting user expectations. In 2013 International Conference on Adaptive Science and Technology (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Larman, C. and Vodde, B., 2016. Small-scale scrum: More with LeSS. Addison-Wesley Professional.
Maximini, D., Maximini and Rauscher, 2018. Scrum Culture. Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.
Michele, S. Agile project management with scrum. Onlune available at-(https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/agile-project-management-scrum-6269#:~:text=Scrum%20is%20one%20of%20the,efficiently%2C%20and%20effectively%20to%20change.) last access on 11 Jan 2021.
Schwaber, K., 2004. Agile project management with Scrum. Microsoft press.
Sutherland, J. and Schwaber, K., 2007. The Scrum Papers. Nuts, Bolts and Origins of an Agile Process.
