Understanding of Project Manager Competency in Agile Software ...

Understanding of Project Manager Competency in Agile Software Development Project: The Taxonomy KamalrufadillahSutling1,Zulkefli Mansor2, Setyawan Widyarto3, Sukumar Lecthmunan4, Noor Habibah Arshad5 123 Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Selangor, 45600 Bestari Jaya, Selangor DarulEhsan, Malaysia. 4 School of Computer Sciences, UniversitiSains Malaysia, 11800 Minden,Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. 5 Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Science, UniversitiTeknologi Mara, 40450 Shah Alam, SelangorDarulEhsan, Malaysia. 1 2 3 [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 4 5 du.my, [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract.The current growth of agile software development project (ASDP) continues to be more significant in the software industry. Project managers have important role to play in ensuring success of project. The success of a project depends on the competency of the project manager. Realizing on the lack of research on the project manager competency in ASDP such skill, knowledge, personal attribute and behavior. This research had taken initiatives in introducing; skill, knowledge, personal attribute and behavior that is needed by a project manager in ASDP. This paper contributes the relevant theory by developing taxonomy of the agile project manager’s competency. Practitioners can use this taxonomy as a sensitizing device that will help project manager. Keywords: Skill Knowledge Personal Attribute Behaviour agile project manager

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Introduction

Many studies have evaluated the successfulness of agile software development project (ASDP). One of the factors contributing to the project success is the agile project manager competency[1]. The success of a project depends on the skills, knowledge, and experience [1], [2]. However, there is limited information about understanding ofthe project manager competency in ASDP particularly in Malaysia.The objective of this study is to analyze what are the bases of skills, knowledge, personal attributes and behavior required project manager in ASDP. Hence, this finding hopes to make a significant contribution to the project manager in determining the success of ASDP.

This research was funded by Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS/2/2013/ICT01/UNISEL/03/2 - Agile Project Managers Competency Model) the Ministry of Education Malaysia.

Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 K.J. Kim (ed.), Information Science and Applications, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering 339, DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-46578-3_102

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Literature Review

2.1

Project Manager Competency

Competency of the project manager is very important in ASDP [1]. The competency of the project manager provides the basis for overall project performance. Therefore, project manager must understanding of four bases theproject manager competency of ASDP such as bellow: 2.2

Skill

As project manager in ASDP, he or she has to work together in order to achieve the project goals. There are three types of skills of project manager need to understood and important to the basic ofskills a project manager in ASDP such: 1. Communication skill- Communication is an important factor in software development [3].To improve these communication skills, project manager needs to actively listen, need to build relationships based on trust relationships and must understand the differences of personalities among the team members to improve the work processes, reduce conflict and promote understanding in strengthening cooperation [8], [4].Therefore, project manager need asking open questions, asking information, asking analysis, asking opinions and views of the team members and project participants agile. In addition, project manager needs to interact in each meeting of iteration planning, iteration retrospective and daily stand-ups to build relationships between team members [10]. Moreover, project manager must resolve the disputes and encourage the team to maintain focus. 2. Team building skills- project manager should build a strong bonding,with other team members and he or she needs to know how these interactions will contribute to their software development tasks. Measures such as these are important since face-to-face communication is so vital in ASDP[5].However, project manager have to help the team to move through the four stages of team development such as forming, storming, norming and performing[6]. 3. Problem-solving skills- this refersto the ability of the agile project manager to visualize, and solve complex problems by making decisions that aresensible based on the available information. However, project manager need to make decisions which is direct and indirect to have an impact on the overall software cost, quality, and productivity[7].Furthermore, project manager needalso to be creative and address the relevant agile practices that will help yield the best results to solve their problems. Moreover, project manager need to Daily Scrum meetings involve the project team and the client, these meetings allow for the problems to be raised, and addressed in the early stages of the project [8].

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Knowledge

In asset of the organization, the knowledge of the agile project manager is essential to be productive, to deliver competitive products and services [9]. Furthermore, knowledge of a project manager facilitating the increase on the production of software development, and allowing agile project manager to make efficient decisions, control complexity, and improve productivity.Therefore, the three basic knowledge of aproject manager that is required in ASDP success are: 1. Strategic agility-Strategic agility is important to pay attention to the strategic direction that leads to the big goal, and make decisions accordingly. However, knowledge in strategic agility can assist organizational leaders to assess their company’s level of Strategic Agility [10].Therefore, project manager needs to know howto increase strategic agility. The following are techniques to increase strategic agility of project manager required in the past: interaction strategies[11],Transformational strategy [12] and Coordination strategy[13]. 2. Planning-Project manager must determine what the project will accomplish, when it will be completed, and how it will be implemented or monitored. Project manager needs to be responsible for creating the project plans and defining the goals, objectives, activities and resources needed. The project plans will be the map to guide the project team and management. Moreover, project manager is also responsible for updating any new changes and plans thus communicating about it with the stakeholder[14][1].In the XP practice, project manager should know of the release planning and iteration planning which allows the customer to define the business value of desired features [6].In addition, scrum also has a set of procedures associated with it [15]. Project manager needs to know the sprint planning meeting is between the customer and the team. Hence, project manager need perform fifteen minute session of reviewing the work that is done regarding on development in Daily Scrum meeting. 3. Coaching- Coaching is about teamwork, motivation, communication skills and strategies. The main role of the project manager is to train staff and help the team into a cohesive unit, to facilitate interaction, optimize skills and build motivation towards a common goal. Hence the project manager should act in developing and implementing the tactics and strategies in much the same way as sports coaches [16]. Usually, the team will face more challenges and need the assistance of a project manager to enable them to stick with the practice in the core. In addition, project manager also need to make sure the team is on the right path to reinforce each other, so that the team does not to discard a practice [17]. Otherwise, project manager need to modify or replace with something equivalent. Moreover, project manager's need to remind the team with the basic principles and need to assist and guide the team to adapt their practices.

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Personal Attribute

In this research, five Personal attributes acquired by aproject manager in ASDP is depicted. Usually, a project manager quickly becomes well-known in a very short period of time; clients identify those project managers who are good and those who cannot perform well. The following arethe basis personal attributes of a good project manager: • Common Sense:As project manager in ASDP, project manager must use his common sense in most of the project situation for project success [18]. Project managers usually use these principles in responding to pressures the project through reason and intuition. • Good Listener: Project manager in ASDP needs to listen to what the customers need and to understand the need to provide feedback on the technical aspects of how this problem might be solved or cannot be solved. Therefore, the communication between the customer and project manager can handle in the Planning Game [6]. In addition, project manager needs to provide a forum for open discussion and listening to what people want to say. The success of project management in ASDP depends on good listener and open communication from the a project manager [2], [19]. • Good Communicator:Project managers in ASDPwho have good communication are able to clearly outline what each member of their team should be doing. Agile methodology places a strong emphasis on communication between team members, especially face-to-face interaction. [20][5]. • Motivator: The project manager in ASDP must have a high level of selfmotivation. As project managers must ensure that their teams produce quality work and ensure that the team members make decisions and complete tasks in a timely manner [21] and [22]. Therefore, project manager should have a confident and positive attitude in the group about software development projects are carried out. This will create a better working environment. In addition, project manager should give each team members the freedom to control their profession. This keeps them motivated for a long time. Moreover, project manager must ensure that no member of the team suffers form stress on the job and project manager needs to work with the team to ensure woks unbiased delegation. Lastly, project manager must recognize the team members for their hard work in software development projects. When the team reached a milestone, project manager can recognize their hard work such as lunch, trophy,bonuses and certificates of appreciation or mention in team meetings [23],[24]. • Courageous: Project manager must be courageous to develop confidence in the leadership. A leader with great challenges and risks in ASDPrequires greater courageand confidence. Therefore, project managers can build more confidence [25]. For example, courage enables project manager to feel comfortable with refactoring their code when necessary[19].

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Behaviour

This paper has identifies seven behaviorsrequired by theproject manager to determine the success of anASDP; Leadership, Openness, results Orientation, Ethics, Communication, Strategic and Creative and Innovative. This behaviour will contribute to factor of the high competence and expertise on team members, increase to good customer relationship, increase to managers knowledgeable in agile process, increase to selforganizing teamwork and increase the motivation of team members[26]. 1. Leadership: [27] the different leadership styles are more likely to lead to a successful outcome on different types of project. Furthermore, leadership style an adopted includes patterns of behaviour such as communication, conflict resolution, criticism, teamwork, decision making and delegation. However, the leadership is primarily accomplished through communication [28]. It involves many of behavior such as oral and written communication. Furthermore, the leadership requires good communication skills. Therefore, the leaders communicate a lot with personnel will contributes to the factor of employee’s experience of communicating efficiency. 2. Creative and Innovative: Creativity and innovation will enhancecreativity and innovation of project manager behaviourin agile software development. The project manager must be creative in communication through effective use of colors, charts, and pictures to communicate concepts visually [29]. In addition, communication in the team has to be open using problems, tips and options shared freely between particular people[30].Moreover, project manager need to provide expertise or training or encourages travel and foster collaboration to ensure the team member is not depressed in completing the development project [17], [31][29]. Lastly, project manager must be creative in meeting [32]. 3. Openness:The behaviour of Openness an project manager involving to ideas, collaboration and communication[33]. When using the agile approach, manager is needed to do collaboration with client within a constant stakeholder discussion. The particular agile manifesto places the main client relationship [30]. Furthermore, the behavior of feedback and transparency can improve venture performance in addition to productivity and facilitates open communication and the early discovery of problems [34][35]. 4. Communication: Communication behaviour is an important to project manager in agile software development project [36]. The effective of communication behaviour a project manager in agile software development project must have Feedback Face to face and frequent communication among developers and between developers and customers[37],[5],[38]. Listening to what the customers need to do and understand these needs well enough to give the customer feedback about the technical aspects of how the problem might be solved, or cannot be solved [6]. In addition, the effective of communication behaviour a project manager in agile software development project must have osmotic communication for small agile teams [39]. Osmotic communication behavior makes the cost associated with communications low along with the feedback rate high, and so that errors are

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corrected extremely easily as well as knowledge can be disseminated quickly [40]. 5. Result Orientation: A project manager required ensure project results satisfy ones stakeholder relevant and to help focus current teams and also attention on key objectives to obtain orientation optimum outcome [41].Therefore, as project manager should work with the customer toward a shared definition of done for the requires the further trusting relationship and more flexible contract equipment [42]. However, the trust between client and the team lets the parties avoid waste connected in addition to effort [43]. In addition, credibility is the single most important quality every project manager must possess. Credibility is a combination of being seen to be trustworthy, convincing, and reliable [44]. The behavior of results-oriented leader is usually to be able to broaden section members’ learning along with capabilities, and also that creates credibility. Furthermore, respect the stakeholders very important in aspect behaviourbecause project manager will benefit being realistic for having project’s interests at heart [6], [45]. 6. Strategic: Strategic is especially important for knowledge throughout project manager behaviour in ASDP .Strategic is to inspire and guide team members[46]. Strategy is usually important to cover attention to the strategic direction this leads towards big goal, and make decisions accordingly. Strategic can contributes to organizational leaders to assess their company’s level of Strategic Agility [10]. Behavior that should be required is a project manager of customer interaction strategies, need to change the role of the training plan to team members to make them more comfortable with the new responsibilities [12] and coordination strategy [47]. 7. Ethics: Ethical behaviour leads to better projectsuch honesty, respect and be fair[48],[49], [50]. Therefore, Honesty is important in order to be an ethical and also effective project manager in agile software development. One of the most important issues in any line of work is the honesty with which project manager deal with other people [49]. In addition, Project manager need to respect the Stakeholders, Project manager need to remember in mind will be this is a professional relationship as well as demands to be expressed respect at all times [50],[51]. Moreover, project manager need to be fair in dealings with everyone in the agile software development project. If project manager do this then project manager are sure to build good relationships and gain the kind of reputation for ethical behaviour[49].

3

Research Method

The research method used is a systematic literature analysis to collect data and information in order to achieve the objectives of this research. Systematic literature analysis serves to present new perspectives about project manager competency in ASDP. Therefore, this research always begins with problems along with questions during the literature review process as:

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Q1: What are the skill, knowledge, personal attribute and behavior needs of a project manager to work inASDP? Q2: What is the skill, knowledge, personal attribute and behavior a project manager that contributes to success of ASDP? Therefore, in the process of systematic literature review, the researcher may read from one text to another to answer the research questions, as well as to identify the agile project manager competency. Furthermore, research questions serve as guidance to this study and influence the selection and collection of data. Table 1 shows 71 articles identified regarding agile project manager competency such as skill, knowledge, personal attribute and behavior. However, the data used is composed of written materials such as books, articles, journals, website, conference and thesis by using the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, Elsevier, SpringerLink, Wiley Inter Science Journal Finder and etc. Table 1.Analysis of Literature Review Materials such IEEE Elsevier

Authour

No. of Relevant Articles

[31],[28],[51],

3

[3],[5],[12],[20],[26],[27],[47]

7

ACM Digital Library

[2],

1

JCSE

[17]

1

IPMA

[41],

1

Microsoft Press

[45]

1

IJARCSSE

[15],

1

IJACA

[9],

1

IJIPM

[7]

1

Website

[4],[21],[22], [23],[24], [25],[33], [34], [44],[46],[49],[50]

Book Others

[6],[30],[36],[40],[42],

12 5

[1],[8],[10],[11],[13], [14], [16], [18],[19],[29], [32], [35],[37],[38],[39],

17

[43],[48], Total

4

51

Discussion

Figure 1 shows the taxonomy regarding agile project manager competency required. The result of reading articles in systematic literature review would help in identifying the competency of an agile project manager discussed in this paper. All the research contents contribute with the sub contents with realistic and based on the Literature Review.

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Fig.1.The Taxonomy of Project Manager Competency in ASDP

5

Conclusion

In conclusion, three basis of skill, knowledge and five basis of personal attribute and seven behavior required by agile project manager have been analyze and will be adopted in the process of software development project. However, this research contributes to the relevant theory by providing taxonomy of agile project manager in the area of software development project. Furthermore, practitioners can use this taxonomy as a sensitizing device to ensure the agile project manager considers the competency that can promote success of a project. This competency has significant importance to ensure the process of software development will be going smooth as planned by agile project manager, and increase productivity and profitability in business strategy of software development projects.

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