ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

METHODOLOGY TRENDS AND ROLE OF LEADERS IN

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS –
EXPERIENCES OF USING AGILE PROCESSES
Snježana Pivac, PhD2, Nikša Pivac, M.Sc 1 and Ivana Tadić, PhD2
1
Ericsson Nikola Tesla, R&D Center, Poljička cesta 39, 21000 Split, Croatia
2
Faculty of Economics Split, University of Split, Cvite Fiskovića 5, 21000 Split, Croatia
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract
Nowadays, business environment is extremely dynamic and complex. Growing complexity trends
mostly hits information and telecommunication industry and its surroundings. There is constant need
for quick response, in order to adapt to new strategies and invent new models, methods and
techniques. Surroundings require flexibility and adaptability, while on the other hand different
stakeholders such as customers, organizations and its employees strongly demand fulfilment of
already defined objectives.
Project management is discipline that enables achievement of business objectives and conducting the
overall business strategy of a company. Many successful companies have already accepted and
implemented it within their organizations. The crucial element of successful project management is its
methodology. Agile methodology is currently one of the widely used and the most popular ways of
working in information and communication technology (ICT) projects. There are different processes
and techniques within agile framework such as scrum and Kanban, often being complementary to
each other. All these trends are necessarily influenced by traditional organization set up‟s, roles of key
factors and lead to different levels of transition and adaptation activities.
The article presents the latest methodology trends, focusing on applications in ICT projects. The best
practice analysis has been performed as well as methodologies implementation benefits have been
provided as outcome of conducted survey and statistical analysis of obtained data.
Keywords - project methodology, agile, scrum, Kanban, leaders, skills

1 INTRODUCTION
High complexity, extreme dynamics, strong competition, deadlines … Is there anyone in any business
not facing these elements on a daily basis? Information and communication technology (ICT)
environment is characteristic example, since it has been heavily influenced by these factors due to its
technology nature and increased needs of individuals, enterprises and entire society for ICT products.
Therefore, there is strong push on enhancing ICT projects by adopting flexible and efficient models
and practices. Software development outputs had to be optimized, the great efforts were taken in the
planning phase of classical projects, while those were faced with poor conversion in a rapid changing
environment. The focus was on quantity improvements first starting with “as much as needed” to “no
more than necessary” and quality slogan “visible to the next in development in chain” to “visible to
customer”.
Nowadays, everybody is talking about Agile. Throughout the world, information technology (IT) and
software engineering organizations are embracing agile methods to take the advantage of incremental
and iterative delivery benefits. Large corporations and government are increasingly directing ICT
software products developers to be agile, while on the other hand business practices related to
marketing, supply, procurement, project management and systems definition are far from being agile.
These organizations considerably outweigh software development, both in budget and in influence.
While more software developers are living in an agile world, the business continues to live in a
waterfall. This conflict will not be easily resolved, but the results of applying agile in software
development clearly show the way forward. It seems to be a natural path to apply agile practices in the
whole business chain.
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

2 METHODOLOGY TRENDS IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOGY
Project management methodology has evolved through the history. It started from the set of
processes which had been treated as „nice to have‟ up to the fully structured methodology.
Implementing project management into daily operations has been considered as necessity just from
1990s. There are six driving forces for project management implementation [5], such as: capital
projects, customers‟ expectations, competitiveness, executive understanding, new project
development and efficiency and effectiveness. As a part of the comprehensive research conducted
within Croatian companies [9], respondents were asked to rate importance of these drivers using 1-5
Likert scale (1 - not important at all; 5 - highly important). All the drivers have mean value higher than
3.7 what proves the need for project management. The largest mean value related to efficiency and
effectiveness is 4.20. However, it is always difficult to measure the actual value of project
management. Therefore, Project Management Institute (PMI) initiated extensive field study [8] during
2005-2008. The research was based on 447 interviews, 65 research cases and 418 project
summaries. This multi complex analysis showed convincing evidence of project management
methodologies added values, identified in cases when those were applied in a proper and structured
way. The authors [8] clearly stated that project management delivers value. There are both tangible
and intangible values like for example increased stock values due successfully delivered projects
(tangible) or increased customer satisfaction level (intangible). Creating operable and functional
methodology is a very demanding task. Today, most companies manage their business by projects, so
applied methodology and sequence of tools represent crucial elements. It requires adjusted
methodology based on the real needs. Also, it can be pointed out that development of standardized
project methodology is not a necessity for simple and short projects but it is inevitable for large and
complex projects. Organisations applying this methodology must not forget the important prerequisites
for its successful application, such as corporate culture and defined processes and tools for managing
projects. The key success factors and organizational excellence lie in the proper selection and
integration of processes, tools and concepts. The theoretical materials are often idealized and many
methodologies remain only in theory. The question is how to embrace theory and make it real in the
practice. In order for projects to succeed, it is necessary combination of theory, instinct, leader‟s
experience, practice and team, which seeks to achieve balance between theory and defined
processes.
Recently, several theories have been recognised and have become pioneers. Agile development is
definitely one of them. It was initially conceived for the purpose of software development. Software
projects have been often too slow, late, poor quality and often exceeding budget. Agile development
tends to bring closer clients and software designers as executors of the project. The word agile is not
selected randomly. It emphasizes flexibility of approach to a subject. Agile development does not
directly mean faster delivery, with fewer defects, to deliver with higher quality or to have higher
productivity. On the contrary, the meaning of agile development is to be agile, to be able to adapt
quickly and accept imposed changes, to adapt more quickly than the surrounding, i.e. competitors.
Thus, faster delivery and higher quality will be result of the agility. Agile development is not based on
practices, but on a set of values that support agility itself. Table 1 shows four basic principles of agile
development [7].
Table 1. Agile cornerstones

Individuals and interactions over Processes and tools

Working software over Comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over Contract negotiation
Responding to change over Following a plan

Source: Agile manifesto, [7]

Team is basic organizational tool of agile methodology its central point. The idea is that team should
be long-living. In this way, people in the team will get more familiar to each other and they will increase
their performance during the time. Also, they should be preferably located at one place working
together throughout the project life cycle, being continuously in contact and close collaboration with
clients or the orderer of the project. Regarding competences and skills, team should be hybrid, cross-
functional (including various specialists), consisting of 5-9 team members.
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

An example of a feature team is shown on Fig 1.

feature team
long-lived, cross-functional

potentially
shippable
customer- Designer product
centric
increment
feature Customer
Designer docs
Integrator
Product
Owner Designer

Tester Architect
Analyst

Fig. 1. Feature team

If a person is positioned on one role, it does not mean that it is his/her single role and responsibility,
but rather highlights one‟s primary skills and competences. Fig. 1 implies multi-skilled team,
competence diversity and broadness. Teams are self-organized and hybrid versus traditional
functional teams with pre-defined and functionally distributed responsibilities. Those have been given
the responsibility and the authority in order to allocate themselves. Team members need to
communicate to each other on a daily basis, coordinate scope and demonstrate product performance
to the client whenever they request it, but as mandatory at the end of the each iteration. The focus is
on frequent high-quality deliveries and products in the form of added-valued functionality, from the
client‟s perspective.
Projects based on agile methodology require less planning since teams are transparent and the
results are visible at the end of the each iteration. For both agile development and lean thinking it can
be stated that they converge and complement each other with considerable similarities. Agile
approach is more project-based, while the lean approach is more related to the organization and its
culture and behaviour. Many practices that are promoted by agile development have been around for
years. However, agile methodologies combine multiple areas, such as project management,
engineering practices and quality assurance systems, all guiding agile development teams throughout
the process. The most popular agile methodologies are Scrum and Kanban. Additionally, many hybrid
approaches have been developed and applied. Each agile method is unique in its approach, but they
all share common vision and key principles of the Agile Manifesto. Their core idea is to incorporate
iterative development and continuous feedback in order to successively refine and deliver working
software. Today, the agile methodologies have spread out from software development and expanded
in new (and sometimes unexpected) areas, such as: finance, insurance, telecommunication,
pharmaceutics or manufacturing.

2.1 Scrum development

Scrum is a lightweight agile software management framework with broad applicability for managing
and controlling iterative projects of all types. Lately, scrum development has gained increasing
popularity in the software community, due to its simplicity, proven productivity and ability to work well
with various agile software engineering practices. Fig. 2 presents high level comparison between
traditional incremental development and development according to scrum methodology. Scrum feature
team is cross-functional and cross-disciplined, so team can work on the complete feature, covering
end-to-end (E2E) scope of the work being able to accomplish analysis, design and test phases of the
scope in parallel. Team works independently and is empowered for the whole deliverable. Considering
these approaches, such team constructions should increase individual and team learning, because of
E2E responsibility and wide range of skills competences. It should also simplify planning and eliminate
waste of handovers between different developmental phases from the traditional development.
Besides scrum team, scrum methodology emphasizes roles of product owner and scrum master.
Product owner represents the customer. This role ensures that the team is working on the "right stuff"
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

from a business perspective. Product owner shapes the scope for the team by preparing client-
oriented items, so called user stories. Scrum Master ensures efficiency of the team, removes their
obstacles and keeps team members focused only on delivering the objectives within each iteration.
Scrum master is neither manager nor controller of the team, since teams are self-organized with full
responsibility for content of the product and agreed deliveries.

Fig. 2. Traditional versus scrum development

Specific scrum terminology is provided to define the processes used to manage activities and the work
itself. Major terms are presented on Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Scrum outlook

Those can be briefly described as follows [5]:

 Sprint - a limited period of time, usually 2-4 weeks, during which defined scope of work has
been committed and has to be completed
 Product Backlog - a prioritized list of requirements to be fulfilled in a number of sprints
 Backlog Item - a unit of work small enough to be completed in one sprint and is broken down
into tasks
 Retrospective – a meting held at the end of every sprint to discuss what was good and what
needs to be improved in the next sprint
 Burndown chart - a report that shows the team's remaining and completed work
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

 Impediments - anything that prevents a team member from performing work efficiently
 Daily Scrum - 15 minutes meeting of the entire team answering what was done yesterday,
what will be done today and if there are any impediments
 Team velocity - rate at which team delivers business value which is calculated by summing up
the estimates of backlog items successfully delivered in the sprint.
Approach of introducing scrum into an organization can be simplified on the high level with the
following steps [1]:
1. Split organization into small, cross-functional, self-organizing teams.
2. Split work into a list of small, concrete deliverables and sort the list by priority and estimate
the relative effort of each item.
3. Split time into short fixed-length iterations with potentially shippable code demonstrated after
each iteration.
4. Optimize the release plan and update continuously priorities in collaboration with customer.
5. Optimize the process by having a retrospective after each sprint.

2.2 Kanban
Kanban represents more direct implementation of lean product development principles in software
development. The word “Kanban” is a Japanese word denoting “Visual Card” [1]. Kanban represents
process tool for managing work with an emphasis on continuous delivery, not overburdening the team
helping its members to work together more effectively. It focuses on flow of work and it‟s less
prescriptive approach than Agile. Also it has become a popular extension to traditional methods, such
as Scrum and Extreme Programming. This system has been used at Toyota for decades to visually
control and balance the production line, which has become almost synonymous with the
implementation of Lean principles. Nowadays, the use of Kanban has been spread out in ICT
development, maintenance and operations, but as well as out of ICT branch.
Kanban relies on 3 basic principles:
[I] Visualizing workflow keeping up-to-date
[II] Limiting the amount of work-in-progress (WIP) helping balance the flow-based approach so
that teams don‟t start and commit too much work at once
[III] Optimizing leadtime via making explicit policies, measuring flow progress and applying
improvements.
Kanban software development promotes continuous collaboration and encourages active, ongoing
learning, improved by defining the best possible team workflow. Fig. 4. provides an example of the
Kanban board. As seen, the workflow is visualised, workable items are placed on the board and
policies are defined. If used properly, Kanban exposes bottlenecks and reduces lead time for
individual work items.

Backlog Next Step 1 Step 1 Step n Done

2010-09-09 2010-09-09
2010-09-09 2010-09-09
ongoing done :) ongoing done :) ongoing done :)
2010-09-09 2010-09-09
Description
Description 2010-09-09 2010-09-09 2010-09-09 2010-09-09
Description

Description Description
2010-09-09 2010-09-09 2010-09-09 2010-09-09

Description Description 2010-09-09 2010-09-09

Description

Definition of Done Definition of Done Definition of Done

Policy:
Policy:
• •daily
• Analysis is done • Code done and • Final deskcheck
dailystandup
standup
• Solution sketched deschecked
• regular
• regular
• Ready for final test
retrospectives
retrospectives •… • Test done
• •WIP
WIP • ...
•3 items max
•3 items max
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

Fig. 4. An example of Kanban board

The most commonly cited instances where Kanban is extremely successful are software maintenance
and software development support activities. This involves fixing production bugs, doing small
incremental improvements and completing complex and thorough tasks, non-related to core software
development activities like design and test. Both, Scrum and Kanban are process tools helping
organizations and their teams to work more effectively giving framework for managing work.
Anyhow, Kanban has to be applied in cases when traditional agile approaches are struggling, more
flexibility is required, priority changes on a daily basis (e.g. maintenance and customer support work)
or when it is required that transition from traditional ways of execution should be smoother and more
gradual. Table 2. provides overview of main differences between Scrum and Kanban [6].
Table 2. Comparison overview
Scrum Kanban
Optional, can be event driven instead of time
Time boxed iterations are prescribed
boxed.
Team commits to specific amount of work per
Commitment is optional
iteration
Lead time is default metric for planning and
Velocity is default metric
process improvement.
Items broken down to the smallest level (selected
No particular size is prescribed
items shall fit into 1 sprint)
Cross-functional teams are optional, specialist
Cross-function teams are prescribed
teams allowed
WIP limited indirectly (per sprint) WIP limited directly (per workflow state)
Burn down chart is prescribed No particular type of diagram
Estimation is prescribed Estimation is optional
Items can be added any time (if within WIP limit
Cannot add items to ongoing iteration
per phase)
Prescribes 3 roles: product owner, scrum master,
Doesn‟t prescribe any roles
team)
Scrum board is reset between iterations Kanban board is persistent

Source: Kniberg and Scaring, [6]

3 ORGANISATIONAL AND LEADERSHIP ASPECTS OF AGILE

ENVIRONEMENT
Although, application of modern methodology trends within ICT contributes to better project results,
any project wouldn‟t be successful without proper organisation regarding human resources (team
members) and choice of good leader, possessing leader‟s characteristics. Dealing with multiple
projects, project leaders are meeting different obstacles, such as constraint budget, limited time or
overburden schedules. In the same time they are struggling motivating team members‟ and managing
the organisation in order to provide positive results. Last decades have brought dynamic changes
within business in general as well as within ICT, requiring new leading trends and techniques.
Since the manager‟s leadership role is of the great importance in motivating people and creating an
effective working environment, in order for the project team to meet greater challenges in today‟s
economy [12], this was the subject of many research projects and scientific papers. Turner and Muller
[12] suggest that different project leadership styles are appropriate in different stages of project life
cycle and the project manager has a leadership role in creating an effective working environment for
the project team. Vittal [13] continued on work of previous authors, considering that leadership role is
crucial to facilitating various project success factors that contribute to project performance. The author
also argues that a project manager‟s leadership roles and responsibilities toward a project team and
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

stakeholder influence the project outcomes and performances. However, project sometimes fail to
meet project targets due to poor morale, lack of motivation, poor human relations, poor productivity
and lack of commitment from employees [4]. Additional problems that projects are facing with are the
facts that project has to manage teams comprising of different disciplines and the fact that projects are
characterised with complexity, uncertainty, risk and unknowns. Nevertheless, it is a common
knowledge that all projects by definition have certain common characteristics and processes, such as
people-related management and leadership roles and responsibilities of the project manager [13].
Consequently, using literature review and many previous findings and research projects [13] provide
the list of the most important people-related factors which drive project performance. These findings
are as following: a) create clearly in communication (defining project goals and project outcomes early
in the project), b) define roles and responsibilities (imperative for improving performance and manage
conflicts), c) communicate expectations (eliminates perceived and actual incidences of not delivering
expected results), d) employ consistent process (assists in improving operational efficiency, managing
risk and reducing ambiguity), e) establish trust (promotes transparency and openness in the
communication), f) facilitate support (willingness of everyone in the organisation to support the project)
and g) manage outcomes (clearly defined project mission and objectives would help in developing a
formal evaluation of project outcomes to determine project success). Further research showed that all
mentioned factors were interrelated.
Moreover certain competences identify successful leader and leadership style. Duelwicz and Higgs [2]
suggest three types of competences explaining most managerial performance: intellectual (intelligence
and problem solving skills), managerial skills (knowledge and skills of management functions) and
emotional (combination of emotions, behavior and motivation). Furthermore, Duelwicz and Higgs [3]
have identified 15 leadership competences segmenting them into three previously defined groups.
Those are: intellectual (critical analysis and judgment, vision and imagination, strategic perspective),
managerial (engaging communication, managing resources, empowering, developing, achieving) and
emotional (self-awareness, emotional resilience, motivation, sensitivity, influence, intuitiveness,
conscientiousness).
Finally, besides people-related factors that drive project performance and the most important
competences explaining managerial performance, in order for the project best performance
communication and collaboration are inevitable between owner and project manager. The owner
needs confidence and should empower the project manager and strive to have a cooperative working
relationship [11]. Authors [11] suggest balance of formal and informal communication, maintaining
regular face-to-face meetings and providing quantitative data to analyze performance in order to
mutual satisfaction which is a building block for long term business relationship.

4 RESULTS OF THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

As agile and its “derivates” are extremely popular buzzwords today, numerous researches have been
conducted, but providing different research results. One of the most comprehensive and detailed
results can be found by State of Agile Development Survey Results [10]. Reports are provided on
yearly basis including six researches (2011 was the last year included in the survey). The research
was focused on software development and was delivered to companies of all sizes. Trends show the
increasing number of large companies using more and more projects, while at the same time
management is less resistant to adopting agile methodologies for running projects. The most
significant recognised benefits are in the area of project transparency (77%), ability to manage
changes of priority (84%), increased team output (75%) and faster time to market (71%). The top
obstacles have been seen in inability to change organisational structure (52%), missing people with
right skills (40%) and overall resistance to change (39%).
Several research tools and sources of information have been used in order to collect and analyze data
for the purposes of this paper. The main survey instrument was a questionnaire created to collect
feedback from Kanban practitioners taking different roles (leaders, engineers, product owners, scrum
masters) and also participating in different assignments (members of leadership teams, maintenance
projects, supporting activities). There were 60 respondents from Ericsson as a global company in total.
Respondents were from 7 different countries and located on more than 10 different geographic sites.
In addition to the questionnaire, information was directly collected from several different software
maintenance projects that piloted Kanban introduction as well as outcome of daily observation of
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

phenomena and processes in the Kanban workplace. Summary of the results of the survey are
presented in the Fig. 6. This figure shows how people value benefits of applying Kanban in daily
operations. Some statistical tests (Mann-Whitney U test) have been conducted to check if there is
statistically significant correlation between different variables, such as type of person‟s work or role
and positive tendency to continuously apply Kanban (p value is 0.457 which is higher than 0.05) and
overall feelings about working in cross functional teams, taking into account benefits and obstacles.
The top benefits that respondent have rated are increased teamwork and cooperation, following with
focusing on right priorities and team empowerment.

Fig. 6. Summary of survey results of applying Kanban

On the other side, the major obstacles were seen in immaturity and low experience as well as
tendency to stay in comfortable zone and resistance to change. There were also positive reactions
arising from pilot introduction projects. Majority of pilot participants expressed opinion that Kanban is
easy to deploy and accomplish smaller “do-able” items. Daily meetings are perceived as efficient
where on the board workflow allows team to easily perceive project task progress with priorities,
delivery date and individual contributions. This decreases the level of misunderstandings and reminds
people of any parallel works or work that needs to be started soon giving the right sense of the
urgency. The major gain of transparency is quicker issuing of raised problems and obstacles resulting
into immediate actions where bottlenecks and needs for external resources are easily visualized.
Additionally, it enables team members to see the clearer picture of what they are doing individually, as
they are usually familiar with other team members‟ actions and inter-linked activities.
As knowledge sharing is improved, continuous learning is another positive outcome. Specific expertise
is not just left in one persons head. At the end, majority of piloted teams working in software
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

maintenance projects improved leadtime. On the other hand, it‟s natural to appear reluctance by some
individuals at least initially, but at the end the critical mass has overcome such situations.

5 CONSLUSIONS
Lifelong learning in rapidly changing environment is priority due to its importance in employment,
economic success and social integration. Continuous education is highly desired in all industrial areas
today, but for information and telecommunication technology professionals is almost mandatory. There
is a need to act fast, to adapt quickly to new business strategies and to adopt new business models.
Agile methodology is one of such models being enable to cope with business reality. It proved to be
efficient through metrics, surveys and facts. The major improvements are shown in the area of:
 team and individual empowerment and increased efficiency through teamwork and
cooperation
 better addressing of priorities and identification of bottle necks
 better teams dimension
 at the end, it generally increases productivity and reduces waste efforts.
It‟s needed to stress importance of leaders in organization in the whole change management process
and transition to agile ways of workings. The importance refers to the line and project leaders at
different levels. Firstly, leaders are recognised as key mediators and enablers of the transition. Thus,
they have to accept new concepts, culture and adapt their mindset to be able to drive the transition,
but at the same time they have to accept change of their own roles in the future of agile environment,
transiting themselves from more direct driven and controlled behaviour to the supportive and coaching
one. These have been seen as mandatory prerequisite for successful organizational transformation.
The research results show that people react positively to introduction of agile methodology and
adopted processes and tools quickly in daily work. Applying agile methods has increased efficiency
and effectiveness in daily operations, but also requires strategic choice of any organization striving to
survive on the market in order to be successful and competent in the future.

References

[1] Berg, J. (2012): Priming Kanban, Second edition, Chronografisk A/S, Denmark, pp. 11-32

[2] Dulewitz, S. V. and Higgs, M. J. (2000): Emotional intelligence: A review and evaluation study.
Journal of managerial Psychology, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 341-368

[3] Dulewicz, S. V. and Higgs, M. J. (2004): Design of a new instrument to assess leadership
dimensions and styles. Selection and Development Review, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 7-12

[4] Kerzner, H. (2006): Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and
th
Controlling (9 ed.), Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley and Sons

[5] Kerzner, H. (2006): Project Management Best Practices – Achieving Global Excellence, Hoboken,
New Jersey, John Wiley and Sons Inc

[6] Kniberg, H. and Skarin M. (2010): Kanban and Scrum making the most of both, C4Media,
Publisher of InfoQ.com, pp. 3-51

[7] Manifesto for Agile Software Development, http://agilemanifesto.org/, [Accessed 2012-11-15]

[8] Mullaly, M. and Thomas, J. (2008): Researching the Value of Project Management, Project
Management Institute

[9] Pivac, N. (2011): Project Management and Role of Project Managers in Croatia, Master study,
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics
 ICIT 2013 The 6th International Conference on Information Technology

[10] State of Agile Development Survey Results,

http://www.versionone.com/state_of_agile_development_survey/10/, [Accessed 2012-11-15]

[11] Turner, J. R. and Müller, R. (2004): Communication and Co-operation of Projects Between the
Project Owner As Principal and the Project Manager as Agent, European Management Journal,
vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 327-336

[12] Turner, J. R. and Müller, R. (2005): The Project Manager‟s Leadership Style as a Success Factor
on Projects: A Literature Review, Project Management Journal, vol. 36, no 1, pp. 49 – 61

[13] Vittal, S. A. (2010): Project Manager Leadership Role in Improving Project Performance,
Engineering Management Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 13 – 22
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