A SENSE-MAKING APPROACH TO AGILE METHOD

ADOPTION

Ian Owens

, Dave Sammon

and John McAvoy

Department of Informatics and Sensors, DCMT, Cranfield University, U.K.

Business Information Systems, University College Cork, Ireland

Keywords: Sense-Making, Agile Methods, Comparative Method, Workshop.

Abstract: As is often argued in the diffusion of innovation literature, the adoption of innovations can be hindered by

the learning required to successfully deploy the technology or methodology. This paper reports on a

research in progress to develop a novel approach to Agile method adoption and introduces the use of sense-

making workshops to facilitate improved understanding of the issues concerning Agile adoption.

1 INTRODUCTION

In this paper we present a sense making workshop

approach to agile adoption. Problems seen with the

introduction of a new software process, or

methodology, can often be explained by the

diffusion of innovation theory, described in Rogers

(1962. When innovations (including process

innovations) are diffused in an organisation, there

are four phases: comprehension, adoption,

implementation, and assimilation (Swanson, 2001).

In the context of this paper it is the comprehension

phase of such diffusion of innovation that is of most

importance with regard to Agile method adoption in

particular. However, there are no procedures

available to assist decision makers choose the best

development method for a given situation

(Abrahamsson et al., 2002).

One alternate theoretical approach with regard to

the adoption process is offered by Seligman (2006).

Seligman (2006) argued that examining a series of

sense-making cycles may facilitate a better

understanding of an adoption process as opposed to

focusing on what could be considered the making of

a single decision. Seligman (2006) argues that the

sense-making perspective provides a ‘look under the

hood’ of the adopter’s mental engine. In spite of its

originality, the impact of sense-making theory on the

Information Systems (IS) community has been

modest (Seligman, 2006).

The basic premise of the constructivist view of

sense-making theory is that people act on the basis

of the meaning that they attribute to situations,

where action emerges from social interaction and is

developed and modified through an interpretive

process. This approach embraces the notion that

action precedes cognition (thinking) and focuses

cognition (Weick, 1988; Seligman, 2006).

Therefore, if understanding is facilitated by action,

managers have to take some action and see what

happens (Weick, 1988). Indeed, Weick (1988,

p.503) commented that there is a “delicate tradeoff

between dangerous action which produces

understanding and safe inaction which produces

confusion”. It is argued that this ‘taking of action’

will determine the appropriate action based on a

review of the outcomes of the action taken (Weick,

1988). However, here in lies the problem with

regard to the practicality of using sense-making.

2 THE PROPOSED METHOD: A

SENSE-MAKING APPROACH

TO AGILE ADOPTION

There is a need for a method to facilitate ‘dangerous

action producing understanding’ (Weick, 1988).

What is required is an inexpensive environment for

the experimentation that ‘doing first’ requires, but

where the outcomes of actions can be reflected on

and therefore can inform future decisions to act.

This illustrates the real value-added of our proposed

method. Decision makers may be able to use the

292

Owens I., Sammon D. and McAvoy J. (2008).

A SENSE-MAKING APPROACH TO AGILE METHOD ADOPTION.

In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Software and Data Technologies - ISDM/ABF, pages 292-295

DOI: 10.5220/0001888402920295

 SciTePress

benefit of foresight as opposed to hindsight in their

approach to Agile method adoption.

2.1 Sense-Making Workshop Inputs:

CAFs and the Future Scenario

The theoretical foundations of the sense-making

workshop combines the work carried out by Boland

(1984) on retrospective sense-making, the notation

and rules of Ragin’s (1987) work on comparative

method, and the dialectical method, as described by

Mason and Mitroff (1981). The design of the sense-

making workshop uses a set of factors critical to the

adoption of a Agile method and a simple future

scenario to get participants to retrospectively make

sense of their actions during the hypothetical time

period. In an effort to make each participants

interpretation of the future scenario visible, they

represent their individual understanding of the

scenario as a truth function. A process of Boolean

minimisation is then used (the construction of a truth

table and a prime implicant chart is facilitated by the

workshop coordinator) to achieve logically

maximum parsimony.

As a result, having conducted a preliminary

literature review for the purpose of this research, we

present ten factors, that could be regarded as Critical

Adoption Factors (CAFs) in attempting to assess the

suitability of a software project to the adoption of an

Agile methodology. The 10 CAFs selected are:

duration of the project (DP), location of the

customer (LC), customer involvement (CI),

acceptance of change (to requirements) (AC), team

size (TS), skill level of team (SLT), organisational

and reporting structure (ORS), process (P),

documentation requirements (DR), and layout of

workplace (LW).

We acknowledge the list is not an absolute truth,

and that different researchers may agree or disagree

with the CAFs presented, but it is an important

starting point for the sense-making workshop

exercise, as is the future scenario used, representing

a period two months into an Agile project, as shown

below.

“Developers have started to complain about the

Agile process and are blaming problems on the

Quality group. Iteration lengths are changing but

the developers say that it is sorted and it will not

happen again. Management are willing to let the

developers make the call on this. Management are

allowing the team to get on with the project and are

not asking for continuous updates on progress.

Documentation is being kept to a minimum and

management have provided an open plan

workspace (which other teams are complaining

about).”

The aim of this future scenario is to present a

representation of an Agile project and a selection of

issues with such projects. The future scenario

represents genuine problems observed in Agile

adoptions throughout a variety of Agile projects.

Through sense-making, the workshop participants

can determine what they perceive to be the critical

issues (from the CAF list) and how they are at play

in the Agile project described. From this collection

of individual workshop participants’ comprehension

of the scenario, we can ultimately simplify multiple

views into one common view (represented as a

logically minimal Boolean expression).

2.2 Moving from Individual

Interpretations to Synthesis

One of the main concerns of this sense-making

exercise centres on the need for workshop

participants to develop a shared understanding of the

CAFs for Agile adoption; therefore moving from

individual interpretations of criticality to a synthesis

using a common vocabulary. As a result, workshop

participants will highlight the absence or presence of

certain CAFs within the future scenario presented.

Participants will generate their truth function from

their perception of the absence or presence of

certain CAFs in the future scenario, as illustrated in

Table 1.

Table 1: Workshop Participants Interpretation of the

Future Scenario.

The first phase of the complexity reduction

process of the workshop participants’ interpretations

of the scenario is to concentrate on the most

frequently cited CAFs. From Table 1 these can be

identified as ORS, P, DR, and LW (with a frequency

of > 50%). While this leaves a varied and complex

collection of individual’s truth functions the next

step of the workshop is to generate a logically

minimal Boolean expression (single truth function)

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293

for the scenario using some of the techniques in the

comparative method (cf. Ragin, 1987). For example

representing participant’s perceptions in a truth table

(Table 2) and using a prime implicant chart (Table

3) to reduce the complexity of the truth functions

and achieve a parsimonious explanation (in the form

of a single truth function) representing the

combinatorial nature of the CAFs for Agile

adoption. Following the Boolean minimisation

process to derive the prime implicant chart (Table 3)

it is necessary to further reduce, or simplify, the

output from all workshop participants (Table 1) into

a Truth Table (Table 2).

Table 2: Truth Table for the Agile Project Future Scenario.

Table 1, 2 and 3 highlight the progression from

complexity to simplicity representing the workshop

participants’ synthesised understanding of the

combined absence/presence of CAFs in the future

scenario.

The truth table presented in Table 2 contains four

conditions (input variables) which were identified as

causally relevant features (presented by the

workshop participants) of the future scenario. The

frequency column represents the number of times a

combination appears (the workshop participants’

interpretations of the combination absence/presence

dichotomy of CAFs). As an example, the first

participant (fourth row in Table 2) appears in Table

3 (on the last row). It is one of three participants

sharing the same interpretation of the combination of

CAFs.

Using the truth table, a number of steps are

adhered to in an effort to unravel complexity. In our

case there were six primitive expressions identified

in the truth table (Table 2) and these form the

columns of Table 3.

Table 3: Prime Implicant Chart.

These primitive expressions are the combination

of the four CAFs that have a frequency of >=1. To

further reduce complexity, prime implicants were

determined from these primitive expressions. These

prime implicants form the rows of Table 3. The goal

of this phase of the minimisation process is to

‘cover’ as many of the primitive expressions as

possible with a logically minimal number of prime

implicants (Ragin, 1987). In our search for

maximum parsimony there were three essential

prime implicants identified that covered all six

primitive expressions.

The value of this exercise is to take a vast array

of conjunctural causations between CAFs expressed

by workshop participants and facilitate the

generation of an explicit statement of multiple

conjunctural causation, which is a logically minimal

equation achieving maximum logical parsimony. As

a result, “the equation that results from use of the

prime implicant chart is a logically minimal Boolean

expression” (Ragin, 1987 p.98). Our equation is as

follows:

Y = orsdr + pDRLW + ORSPLW

Where Y represents the project outcome with respect

to the future scenario, the ‘+’ symbol represents a

logical OR, and the relevant variables are shown as

being present or absent (through uppercase and

lower case lettering respectively.

3 DISCUSSION AND

CONCLUSIONS

The core value of the equation (Y = orsdr +

pDRLW + ORSPLW) representing maximum

logical parsimony is to produce a theorising output

that can:

• promote discussion amongst workshop

participants focusing on creative conflict. From

this dialectic between opposing views a greater

understanding of the Critical Adoption Factors

(CAFs) for Agile method adoption can emerge

with a pooling of information in pursuit of

better decision-making, and

• be used as propositions for future research,

therefore raising the theoretical contribution of

such outputs.

Our equation illustrates that there are three basic

combinations of CAFs that capture the workshop

participants’ interpretation of the future scenario.

However, even after the minimisation process there

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are obvious contradictions inherent in these

combinations which can be further removed to

achieve parsimonious explanations. An example of

one of these contradictions is where part of the

expression states that ‘orsdr’ influences success,

while another part states that ‘pDRLW’ influences

success. Therefore, the presence of ‘DR’ and the

absence of ‘dr’ are contradictory.

By listing all individual parts of the expression,

they can be compared to each of the other parts of

the expression. This comparison leads to further

simplification and further insight. As a result of this

clarifying exercise we are able to produce three

statements of conjunctual combinations of CAFs for

Agile adoption that are necessary in assessing the

suitability of Agile to a software project. Our three

statements are as follows:

• layout of workspace (LW) is necessary but not

sufficient for Agile adoption.

• process (P) and the layout of workspace (LW)

are necessary factors in the absence of

documentation requirements (DR) and

organisational and reporting structure (ORS).

• organisational and reporting structure (ORS),

documentation requirements (DR) and the

layout of workspace (LW) are necessary factors

in the absence of process (P).

Although these statements apply only to the

scenario presented to the participants in this study,

they still provide useful insight and opportunities for

further discussion. It is proposed that a workshop

environment, promoting the enacted sense-making

of outcomes, in light of the level of participant

awareness of the CAFs for Agile adoption (before

any decisions or actions are taken), will promote the

establishment of a mindful (Swanson and Ramiller,

2004) approach to adopting Agile methods for a

software project. In fact, the sense-making process

can be viewed as an operationalisation of the

concept of mindfulness discussed by Swanson and

Ramiller (2004).

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