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Viktoria Stray

University of Oslo, Department of Informatics, Associate Professor

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Papers by Viktoria Stray

An Empirical Investigation of Pull Requests in Partially Distributed BizDevOps Teams

In globally distributed projects, virtual teams are often partially dispersed. One common setup o... more In globally distributed projects, virtual teams are often partially dispersed. One common setup occurs when several members from one company work with a large outsourcing vendor based in another country. Further, the introduction of the popular BizDevOps concept has increased the necessity to cooperate across departments and reduce the age-old disconnection between the business strategy and technical development. Establishing a good collaboration in partially distributed BizDevOps teams requires extensive collaboration and communication techniques. Nowadays, a common approach is to rely on collaboration through pull requests and frequent communication on Slack. To investigate barriers for pull requests in distributed teams, we examined an organization located in Scandinavia where cross-functional BizDevOps teams collaborated with off-site team members in India. Data were collected by conducting 14 interviews, observing 23 entire days with the team, and observing 37 meetings. We found that the pull-request approach worked very well locally but not across sites. We found barriers such as domain complexity, different agile processes (timeboxed vs. flow-based development), and employee turnover. Using an intellectual capital lens on our findings, we discuss barriers and positive and negative effects on the success of the pull-request approach.

Behavioral Aspects of Agile Software Development: A Case Study on Meeting Practices

Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2024

In FinTech organizations, there are trends toward employing agile methods, moving away from legac... more In FinTech organizations, there are trends toward employing agile methods, moving away from legacy monolithic technical architecture to microservices architecture, and focusing on collaboration and autonomy to boost innovation. When software teams have end-to-end responsibility and decision-making authority, they avoid handovers between teams and can develop software more quickly. Furthermore, effective coordination through meetings and digital collaboration tools is important for the success of the development of software applications. We conducted a case study in a large FinTech organization to understand behavioral aspects of software development and, specifically, their meeting practices. The results show that employees spend nearly half of their workday in meetings, posing challenges to productivity and availability. Strategies to reduce interruptions include blocking time in calendars, grouping meetings, and using digital tools such as Slack. Our findings indicate that achieving a balance between collaborative activities and uninterrupted work is not only challenging but essential in software development organizations. Consequently, it is important that team members discuss and actively experiment with various strategies to optimize this balance.

Slack Use in Large-Scale Agile Organizations: ESN Tools as Catalysts for Alignment?

Lecture notes in business information processing, 2024

This paper examines the role of the enterprise social networking (ESN) tool Slack in the daily wo... more This paper examines the role of the enterprise social networking (ESN) tool Slack in the daily work of software practitioners within NAV, a large-scale agile public sector organization. Based on 13 interviews with NAV developers, our case study explores how Slack is employed for knowledge sharing and daily communication across the organization. We used a newly developed framework for communication in agile teams as a theoretical lens. Through our analysis, we found that Slack use had become deeply integrated into the organizational culture and fostered alignment in three main ways: Promoting communication transparency through open discussions visible for developers organization-wide, enhancing communication quality with prompt responses and constant communication, and encouraging communication discipline through structured channels and threads. This study also unveiled some challenges, such as information overload and hindered focus. However, our findings suggest that if common hurdles are overcome, modern ESN tools can reshape how cross-organizational communication plays out in large-scale agile, reinforcing the agile principles of collaboration and motivated individuals.

Pair Programming Practiced in Hybrid Work

2023 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)

Exploring Norms in Agile Software Teams

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2016

The majority of software developers work in teams and are thus influenced by team norms. Norms ar... more The majority of software developers work in teams and are thus influenced by team norms. Norms are shared expectations of how to behave and regulate the interaction between team members. Our aim of this study is to gain more knowledge about team norms in software teams and to increase the understanding of how norms influence teamwork in agile software development projects. We conducted a study of norms in four agile teams located in Norway and Malaysia. The analysis of 22 interviews revealed that we could extract a varied set of both injunctive and descriptive norms. Our results suggest that team norms have an important role in enabling team performance.

Challenges to Teamwork: A Multiple Case Study of Two Agile Teams

Lecture notes in business information processing, 2011

Agile software development has become the standard in many companies. While there are reports of ... more Agile software development has become the standard in many companies. While there are reports of major improvements with agile development over traditional development, many teams still strive to work effectively as a team. A multiple case study in two companies discovered challenges related to communication, learning and selecting the tasks according to the priority list. For example, the fact that the developers were not actively involved in the planning process, resulted in weak team orientation; even though the teams had identified and discussed recurring problems, they found it difficult to improve their teamwork practices; and because customers and support communicated tasks directly to the developers and developers chose tasks according to interest and expertise, following the priority list became difficult. We provide practical suggestions for teamwork in agile software development that intend to overcome these problems and strengthen team orientation and team learning in order to achieve effective agile teams.

Understanding coordination in global software engineering: A mixed-methods study on the use of meetings and Slack

Journal of Systems and Software, Dec 1, 2020

Given the relevance of coordination in the field of global software engineering, this work was ca... more Given the relevance of coordination in the field of global software engineering, this work was carried out to further understand coordination mechanisms. Specifically, we investigated meetings and the collaboration tool Slack. We conducted a longitudinal case study using a mixed-methods approach with surveys, observations, interviews, and chat logs. Our quantitative results show that employees in global projects spend 7 hours 45 minutes per week on average in scheduled meetings and 8 hours 54 minutes in unscheduled meetings. Furthermore, distributed teams were significantly larger than co-located teams, and people working in distributed teams spent somewhat more time in meetings per day. We found that low availability of key people, absence of organizational support for unscheduled meetings and unbalanced activity from team members in meetings and on Slack were barriers for effective coordination across sites. The positive aspects of using collaboration tools in distributed teams were increased team awareness and informal communication and reduced the need for e-mail. Our study emphasizes the importance of reflecting on how global software engineering teams use meetings and collaboration tools to coordinate. We provide practical advice for conducting better meetings and give suggestions for more efficient use of collaboration tools in global projects.

Slack Me If You Can! Using Enterprise Social Networking Tools in Virtual Agile Teams

Virtual teams rely on enterprise social networking tools such as Slack to collaborate efficiently... more Virtual teams rely on enterprise social networking tools such as Slack to collaborate efficiently. While such tools contribute to making the communication more synchronous and to support distributed agile development, there are several challenges such as how to interact with each other and how to balance the communication with other types of communication mechanisms such as meetings, e-mail, and phone. In this paper, we describe and discuss how a distributed global project used Slack. Some of the challenges we identified were related to language problems, using too much direct messaging when communicating, and unbalanced activity (33% of the users accounted for 86% of the messages). The positive aspects of using the tool were increased transparency, team awareness, and informal communication. Further, Slack facilitates problem-focused communication which is important for agile teams. Our study stresses the importance of reflecting on how virtual teams use communication tools, and we suggest that teams decide on guidelines on how to use the tools to improve their coordination.

Generative AI and Developer Workflows: How GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT Influence Solo and Pair Programming

This study investigates the impact of generative AI (GAI) tools, like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot,... more This study investigates the impact of generative AI (GAI) tools, like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, on software development. GAI tools can automate repetitive tasks, provide code suggestions, and enhance problem-solving. We conducted a case study in a large-scale agile organization, where we examined how GAI tools influence development efficiency and developers' workflow. During 25 days of observations, we observed 49 programming sessions. GAI was used in all 16 solo programming sessions and 30 of 33 pair programming sessions. Additionally, we conducted 14 interviews with developers and team leaders. In solo programming, GAI tools were said to improve efficiency and reduce stress, allowing more time for solving complex tasks. In contrast, the impact of GAI in pair programming was mixed. GAI tools were less frequently used in pair programming compared to solo programming. Our findings also highlight changes in software development, with developers leveraging GAI for information retrieval and coding assistance. However, challenges such as dependency on AI tools and the accuracy of AI-generated suggestions persist.

The Agile Coach Role: Coaching for Agile Performance Impact

Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2021

It is increasingly common to introduce agile coaches to help gain speed and advantage in agile co... more It is increasingly common to introduce agile coaches to help gain speed and advantage in agile companies. Following the success of Spotify, the role of the agile coach has branched out in terms of tasks and responsibilities, but little research has been conducted to examine how this role is practiced. This paper examines the role of the agile coach through 19 semistructured interviews with agile coaches from ten different companies. We describe the role in terms of the tasks the coach has in agile projects, valuable traits, skills, tools, and the enablers of agile coaching. Our findings indicate that agile coaches perform at the team and organizational levels. They affect effort, strategies, knowledge, and skills of the agile teams. The most essential traits of an agile coach are being emphatic, people-oriented, able to listen, diplomatic, and persistent. We suggest empirically based advice for agile coaching, for example companies giving their agile coaches the authority to implement the required organizational changes within and outside the teams.

Managing Dependencies in Large-Scale Agile

Lecture notes in business information processing, 2021

Delivering results iteratively and frequently in large-scale agile requires efficient management ... more Delivering results iteratively and frequently in large-scale agile requires efficient management of dependencies. We conducted semistructured interviews and virtual observations in a large-scale project during the Covid-19 pandemic to better understand large-scale dependency management. All employees in the case were working from home. During our data collection and analysis, we identified 22 coordination mechanisms. These mechanisms could be categorized as synchronization activities, boundary-spanning activities and artifacts, and coordinator roles. By using a dependency taxonomy, we analyzed how the mechanisms managed five different types of dependencies. We discuss three essential mechanisms for coordination in our case. First, setting Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in regular workshops increased transparency and predictability across teams. Second, ad-hoc communication, mainly happening on Slack because of the distributed setting, was essential in managing dependencies. Third, the Product Owner was a coordinator role that managed both inter-team and intra-team dependencies.

Daily Stand-Up Meetings: Start Breaking the Rules!

Daily stand-up meetings are commonly used for software teams to collaborate and exchange informat... more

Using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Slack: A Case Study of Coordination in Large-Scale Distributed Agile

by Viktoria Stray, Henrik Vedal, and Marthe Berntzen

Today, many large-scale software projects have members working from home, which has changed the w... more Today, many large-scale software projects have members working from home, which has changed the way teams coordinate work. To better understand coordination in this setting, we conducted a case study through which we examined two teams in a large-scale agile project by observing meetings and conducting 17 interviews. Through the lens of Relational Coordination Theory (RCT), we analyzed the use of the goal-setting framework Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and the collaboration tool Slack. Slack was used for frequent, timely, and problem-solving communication and, and its use decreased the number of planned meetings. However, discussions often started on Slack and continued in virtual ad-hoc meetings. The use of OKRs facilitated knowledge sharing, helped the teams align their goals, and provided inter-team insights. The main implication of our research is that projects using OKRs need to support project members, especially in formulating the key results that align and motivate the teams to work toward the same mission.

Exploring motivation and teamwork in a large software engineering capstone course during the coronavirus pandemic

Nordic Journal of STEM Education, 2021

In the spring of 2020, the Department of Informatics covered a 20 ECTS capstone course in Softwar... more In the spring of 2020, the Department of Informatics covered a 20 ECTS capstone course in Software Engineering, mainly focusing on developing a complex application. The course used active learning methods, and 240 students were working in 42 cross-functional, agile teams. The pandemic caused by the coronavirus had a significant impact on the teaching given by the University of Oslo, as all physical education and collaboration among the teams had to be digital from March 12. At the end of the semester, we conducted a survey that focused on 1) aspects of teamwork (e.g., communication and coordination in the teams) and the relation to team performance (e.g., the application product) and 2) the students’ motivation and ability to cooperate through digital platforms. A total of 151 respondents in 41 agile student teams answered the survey. This study aimed to investigate how the teamwork and motivation of the students were affected by having to work virtually. The results are compared to...

The Future of Hybrid Software Development: Challenging Current Assumptions

IEEE Software

Agile Information System Development Organizations Transforming to Large-Scale Collaboration

arXiv (Cornell University), Nov 10, 2021

We report findings from a case study of a large agile information systems development (ISD) organ... more We report findings from a case study of a large agile information systems development (ISD) organization´s sudden transformation to distributed, digital work in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It seeks to understand how knowledge creation and sharing changes. The findings show various forms of distance being introduced, digital tool usage, increased task orientation, and variations across teams. To analyze the findings, we use the concepts of large-scale collaborations and sociability. Large-scale collaboration offers a socio-technical perspective on tackling distributed knowledge sharing and creation in the presence of multiple, loosely coupled partners using digital tools for collaboration. We show what the digital tools afford using the concept of sociability. We discuss how distributed digital practices make teams more task-oriented and that creating and maintaining sociability, a key issue for knowledge sharing in agile ISD organizations, require relation-oriented communication during practical problem solving using digital tools.

Managing Dependencies in Large-Scale Agile

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming – Workshops, 2021

Delivering results iteratively and frequently in large-scale agile requires efficient management ... more Delivering results iteratively and frequently in large-scale agile requires efficient management of dependencies. We conducted semi-structured interviews and virtual observations in a large-scale project during the Covid-19 pandemic to better understand large-scale dependency management. All employees in the case were working from home. During our data collection and analysis, we identified 22 coordination mechanisms. These mechanisms could be categorized as synchronization activities, boundary-spanning activities and artifacts, and coordinator roles. By using a dependency taxonomy, we analyzed how the mechanisms managed five different types of dependencies. We discuss three essential mechanisms for coordination in our case. First, setting Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in regular workshops increased transparency and predictability across teams. Second, ad-hoc communication, mainly happening on Slack because of the distributed setting, was essential in managing dependencies. Thir...

Autonomous agile teams

Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Agile Software Development: Companion, 2018

According to the principles articulated in the agile manifesto, motivated and empowered software ... more According to the principles articulated in the agile manifesto, motivated and empowered software developersrelying on technical excellence and simple designs-create business value by delivering working software to users at regular short intervals. These principles have spawned many practices. At the core of these practices is the idea of autonomous, self-managing, or self-organizing teams whose members work at a pace that sustains their creativity and productivity. This article summarizes the main challenges faced when implementing autonomous teams and the topics and research questions that future research should address.

The Product Owner in Large-Scale Agile: An Empirical Study Through the Lens of Relational Coordination Theory

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, 2019

In agile software development, a core responsibility of the product owner (PO) is to communicate ... more In agile software development, a core responsibility of the product owner (PO) is to communicate business needs to the development team. In large-scale agile software development projects, many teams work toward an overall outcome, but they also need to manage interdependencies and coordinate efficiently. In such settings, POs need to coordinate knowledge about project status and goal attainment both within and across the development teams. Previous research has shown that the PO assumes a wide set of roles. Still, our knowledge about how POs coordinate amongst themselves and with their teams in large-scale agile is limited. In this case study, we explore PO coordination in a large-scale development program through the theoretical lens of Relational Coordination Theory. Our findings suggest that (1) coordination varies depending on the context of each PO, (2) a focus on achieving high-quality communication changes coordination over time, and (3) unscheduled coordination enables of high-quality communication.

How agile teams make Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) work

Proceedings of the International Conference on Software and System Processes and International Conference on Global Software Engineering

Today, many companies allow their employees to work from anywhere, which has changed how employee... more Today, many companies allow their employees to work from anywhere, which has changed how employees coordinate their work and align toward the same goals. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a goal-setting framework applied in such distributed settings. This research aimed to investigate how OKRs are used in largescale agile contexts. We interviewed team members and analyzed documents, including a survey. Our study's results provide both enabling and limiting situations that make team members' utilization of the framework either easier or more difficult. We found that OKRs aided knowledge sharing and improved transparency between teams. We present four strategies used for overcoming challenges and maximizing the benefits of using a goal-setting framework. An important takeaway is that companies that employ OKRs must support their employees, especially in defining key outcomes that align and encourage teams toward a common goal. CCS CONCEPTS • Software and its engineering → Software creation and management.