Astrid Jansson:
A study of development collaboration in a water-gile-fall organization,
summary, report, December 2020.

Abstract:

In this empirical study, we investigate root causes for loss of adaptiveness and efficiency along with solutions to eliminate these. This, in an agile middle-sized project with several teams highly affected by the traditional waterfall structures that infuse other parts of the company.

Based on interviews with organization employees from varying roles and teams, 60 issues are identified and grouped into nine areas. Root cause analysis is performed on three of these areas. Efficiency and adaptivity are found to be negatively affected by unclear code ownership between teams and faulty implementation of Scrum. This drives the codebase to become more complex and more expensive to develop and maintain.

Solutions recommended include introducing clear ownership between the teams, improve the implementation of Scrum, focus on process improvement, as well as enforcing and supporting team self-organization.