DOI : https://doi.org/10.18517/ijaseit.10.2.10191

Team Formation for Agile Software Development: A Review

Dzulaiha Aryanee Putri Zainal (1), Rozilawati Razali (2), Zulkefli Mansor (3)
(1) Research Center for Software Technology and Management, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Malaysia
(2) Research Center for Software Technology and Management, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Malaysia
(3) Research Center for Software Technology and Management, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Malaysia
Fulltext View | Download
How to cite (IJASEIT) :
Zainal, Dzulaiha Aryanee Putri, et al. “Team Formation for Agile Software Development: A Review”. International Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, vol. 10, no. 2, Mar. 2020, pp. 555-61, doi:10.18517/ijaseit.10.2.10191.
Citation Format :
Rapid and unpredictable technology advancements cause a rise in demand for software products that can be delivered faster, adapt to volatile changes and save cost. Over the years, Agile Software Development (ASD) becomes more suitable as the software process that can cater to those demands while still maintaining the quality desired. With this Agile nature, it is apparent that the team that develops the software product need to have unique features as well. The team should also be formed correctly to gain effectiveness, strong performance and ultimately project success. Ineffective teams can be caused by, among others, conflict, inadequate skillset, unbalanced role assignment, lack of teamwork and non-competent team members. However, by far, the characteristics that need to be considered in forming effective teams are yet to be formalized. Thus, this study aims to identify the necessary characteristics in composing a competent team that is well balanced and can create coherent teamwork. The study involves a qualitative literature review which includes past studies about team formation specifically in the software development domain. The data were collected from online journal databases and analyzed using content analysis. From the analysis, six characteristics together with their attributes were identified as vital in team formation. Another two characteristics were also identified as influencing the six-team formation characteristics. These findings will need further empirical rigor before they can become a complete Agile Software Development team composition model. This model is believed to assist Agile practitioners in forming effective teams for their development projects.

H. Alahyari, J. Horkoff, O. Matsson, and K. Egenvall, “What Do Agile Teams Find Important for Their Success?,” Proc. - Asia-Pacific Softw. Eng. Conf. APSEC, vol. 2018-December, pp. 474-483, 2019.

S. Kamalrufadillah, M. Zulkefli, S. Widyarto, S. Lecthmunan, and A. Noor Habibah, “Understanding of Project Manager Competency in Agile Software Development Project: The Taxonomy,” Lect. Notes Electr. Eng., vol. 339, pp. 607-614, 2015.

A. Mersino, “Agile Projects are More Successful than Traditional Projects,” Agile Projects are More Successful than Traditional Projects, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://vitalitychicago.com/blog/agile-projects-are-more-successful-traditional-projects/. [Accessed: 19-Jul-2019].

S. T. Bell, S. G. Brown, and J. A. Weiss, “A conceptual framework for leveraging team composition decisions to build human capital,” Hum. Resour. Manag. Rev., vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 450-463, 2018.

S. D. Vishnubhotla, E. Mendes, and L. Lundberg, “Designing a Capability-Centric Web Tool to Support Agile Team Composition and Task Allocation : A Work in Progress,” in International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, 2018, pp. 41-44.

A. R. Gilal, J. Jafreezal, B. Shuib, O. Mazni, and A. Abro, “Impact of Software Team Composition Methodology on The Personality Preferences of Malaysian Students,” in 3rd International Conference, 2016, no. August, pp. 454-458.

O. Mazni, B. Hasan, A. Mazida, Y. Azman, B. Fauziah, M. Haslina, and D. Norida Muhd, “Towards a Balanced Software Team Formation Based on Belbin Team Role using Fuzzy Technique,” J. Telecommun. Electron. Comput. Eng., vol. 8, no. 8, 2016.

M. R. Mawarny, J. Noble, and S. Marshall, “Agile self-selecting teams foster expertise coordination,” Interdiscip. J. Information, Knowledge, Manag., vol. 14, 2019.

T. Abd El Hameed, M. Abd El Latif, and S. Kholief, “Identify and Classify Critical Success Factor of Agile Software Development Methodology Using Mind Map,” Int. J. Adv. Comput. Sci. Appl., vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 83-92, 2016.

M. K. Alqudah and R. Rozilawati, “Key Factors for Selecting an Agile Method: A Systematic Literature Review,” Int. J. Adv. Sci. Eng. Inf. Technol., vol. 7, no. 2, p. 526, 2017.

T. Dingsí¸yr, T. E. Fí¦gri, T. Dybí¥, B. Haugset, and Y. Lindsjí¸rn, “Team Performance in Software Development: Research Results versus Agile Principles,” IEEE Software, vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 106-110, 2016.

B. Meyer, “Agile Roles,” in Agile!: The Good, the Hype and the Ugly, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014, pp. 79-87.

D. Strnad and N. Guid, “A fuzzy-genetic decision support system for project team formation,” Appl. Soft Comput., vol. 10, pp. 1178-1187, 2010.

M. Yilmaz, R. V. O’Connor, R. Colomo-Palacios, and P. Clarke, “An examination of personality traits and how they impact on software development teams,” Inf. Softw. Technol., vol. 86, pp. 101-122, 2017.

M. Zulkefli, Y. Saadiah, and A. Noor Habibah, “Success Determinants in Agile Software Development Methodology,” Procedia Eng., no. Icmlc, pp. 203-207, 2011.

J. F. Salgado, V. Chockalingam, and D. S. Ones, “Predictors used for personnel selection: An overview of constructs, methods and techniques: Personnel psychology,” in Handbook of industrial, work and organizational psychology: Volume 1 Personnel Psychology, N. Anderson, D. S. Ones, H. K. Sinangil, and C. Viswesvaran, Eds. London: SAGE Publications, 2005, pp. 165-199.

D. H. Prasad and M. H. Vasanth, “Value of Bottom-up Team Formation for Complex Adaptive Business Systems,” in Systems Conference (SysCon), 2014 8th Annual IEEE, 2014, pp. 272-276.

S. C. Wong, S. Selvadurai, V. Saxena, M. Abdul, and K. Okal, “Demographic Diversity and Salience of Nationality on Team Effectiveness in Information and Communication Technology ( Ict ) Small and Medium Enterprises ( Smes ),” J. Soc. Sci. Humanit., vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 229-244, 2017.

Project Management Institute, A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK ® guide), 6th ed. 2017.

A. R. Gilal, J. Jaafar, L. F. Capretz, M. Omar, S. Basri, and I. A. Aziz, “Finding an effective classification technique to develop a software team composition model,” J. Softw. Evol. Process, vol. 29, no. October, p. e1920, 2017.

K. Lee and M. C. Ashton, “Psychometric Properties of the HEXACO-100,” Assessment, 2016.

E. Colonese, “Agile: The Human Factors as the Weakest Link in the Chain,” in Proceedings of 4th International Conference in Software Engineering for Defence Applications: SEDA 2015, 2016, pp. 59-73.

T. Dingsí¸yr and T. Dybí¥, “Team effectiveness in software development: Human and cooperative aspects in team effectiveness models and priorities for future studies,” in 2012 5th International Workshop on Co-operative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2012 - Proceedings, 2012, no. 7465, pp. 27-29.

P. Fitsilis, V. Gerogiannis, and L. G. Anthopoulos, “Software Project Team Selection Based on Enterprise Social Networks,” Lect. Notes Electr. Eng., vol. 349, pp. 1009-1019, 2015.

S. T. Bell, S. G. Brown, A. Colaneri, and N. Outland, “Team composition and the ABCs of teamwork,” Am. Psychol., vol. 73, no. 4, pp. 349-362, 2018.

Hasanthi, “Difference Between Knowledge, Skill and Ability,” PEDIAA, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://pediaa.com/difference-between-knowledge-skill-and-ability/. [Accessed: 14-Jan-2018].

Knowledgehut Editor, “Scrum Master and Product Owner: Understanding the differences,” Knowledgehut, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/agile-management/scrum-master-and-product-owner-understanding-the-differences. [Accessed: 21-Feb-2018].

B. Overeem, “Characteristics of a Great Scrum Team,” 2016.

R. Hoda and L. Murugesan, “Multi-Level Agile Project Management Challenges: A Self-Organizing Team Perspective,” J. Syst. Softw., 2016.

F. Anwer, S. Aftab, S. Shah, M. Shah, and U. Waheed, “Comparative Analysis of Two Popular Agile Process Models: Extreme Programming and Scrum,” Int. J. Comput. Sci. Telecommun. J., vol. 8, no. 2, 2017.

S. Oomen, B. De Waal, A. Albertin, and P. Ravesteyn, “How Can Scrum Be Succesful? Competences of the Scrum Product Owner,” in Proceedings of the 25th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), 2017, vol. 2017, pp. 131-142.

P. Bootla, O. Rojanapornpun, and P. Mongkolnam, “Necessary skills and attitudes for development team members in Scrum: Thai experts’ and practitioners’s perspectives,” Proc. 2015 12th Int. Jt. Conf. Comput. Sci. Softw. Eng. JCSSE 2015, pp. 184-189, 2015.

Y. Shastri, R. Hoda, and R. Amor, “Understanding the Roles of the Manager in Agile Project Management,” in Proceedings of the 10th Innovations in Software Engineering Conference on - ISEC ’17, 2017, pp. 45-55.

R. H. Al-Ta’ani and R. Rozilawati, “A Framework for Requirements Prioritisation Process in an Agile Software Development Environment : Empirical Study,” J. Theor. Appl. Inf. Technol., vol. 95, no. 8, pp. 1715-1736, 2017.

A. R. Gilal, J. Jafreezal, O. Mazni, B. Shuib, and A. Waqas, “A rule-based model for software development team composition: Team leader role with personality types and gender classification,” Inf. Softw. Technol., vol. 74, no. May, pp. 105-113, 2016.

L. Pries-heje and J. Pries-heje, “Agile Contracts : Designing an Agile Team Selection Guideline,” Sel. Pap. IRIS, vol. 5, no. Paper 4, 2014.

S. T. Acuña and N. Juristo, “Assigning people to roles in software projects,” Softw. - Pract. Exp., vol. 34, no. 7, pp. 675-696, 2004.

N. Ovesen, “Pragmatic Team Compositions in Scrum-Based,” in Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 15), 2015, no. Iced 15.

K. Krippendorff, Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology, 4th ed. SAGE Publications, 2018.

C. A. R. Mara Ridhuan, “Practical Challenge of Content Analysis: An Illustrative Example from Recoding IC Information in the UK’s Companies Annual Reports,” Asian Joirnal Account. Res., vol. 1, no. 2, 2016.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
    2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
    3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).