Boundary Objects and Agile Software Development

A handful of papers address both boundary objects and Agile software development settings. Boundary objects and Agile software development is a research area that has slowly gained more traction in recent years. In the earlier papers, the concept has been somewhat vaguely tied to the development methods. For example, in a paper by Baskerville et al. (2011), the boundary objects are briefly mentioned in the context of Agile development, but the focus of their paper is on existing ways Agile organisations operate and on speculating what would be the next ‘big thing’ in software development, in a post-Agile work environment. In their paper, Baskerville et al. (2011) argue that the Scrum method provides a number of different boundary objects, such as user stories, burndown charts and project plans; however, the paper does not describe boundary objects extensively and provides no further insights. A more recent paper that addresses boundary objects in distributed projects presents boundary objects as means to create common grounds by promoting awareness (Modi et al. 2013). The study names user stories, shared code and test cases as objects that are integral to Agile development and can be seen as objects-in-use, borrowing the terminology from Levina and Vaast (2005). In this paper, Modi et al. (2013) see boundary objects as tools that aid grounding processes within the distributed teams and provide referential materials for the collaborating parties. The focus of the paper is an issue-tracker system that the teams use to manage workflows. The system itself is not seen

Topic Boundary Objects Are Used For… Authors

Boundary objects as tools in virtual collaboration

Boundary objects can be applied for conflict negotiation in a globally distributed, virtual project environmental but changes can lead to erosion of objects as useful means for collaboration. Uneven distribution of control can inhibit the use of boundary objects as tools of collaboration. They can be applied to mediate complex design knowledge across team boundaries

Subrahmanian et al. (2003), Barrett and Oborn (2010), Di Marco et al. (2012), Iorio and Taylor (2013)

Boundary objects as facilitators of cross-cultural communication and cultural identities and change catalysts for the organisational

identities

Boundary objects are embedded in information infrastructures and help to form organisational identities. They can be applied to extend and change identities across the boundaries.

Gal et al. (2008)

Prototypes, both building prototypes and working prototypes as boundary objects in a software innovation project

Prototypes are transformed into boundary objects by 1. Contrasting building prototypes with working prototypes, 2. Visually exemplifying and pinpointing, 3. Verbally relating concepts to prototypes, 4. Verbally emphasising openness for adaptation and 5. Verbally narrowing down the scope for changes

as a boundary object; rather, the objects are the user stories, the code that is being developed and the build platform, that is, the environment where the code resides.

Bass’ (2016) paper discusses a similar environment setup to Modi et al.’s paper, that is, an Agile project in a globally distributed environment. The focus of the paper is on very large-scale projects and how such project organisations tailor their Agile methods and artefacts to better suit the needs of their environment. The study identifies artefacts in five different categories: feature, sprint, release, product and corporate governance. The study lists twenty-five artefacts that fit the five categories. Such artefacts include programme architecture standards, test plans, contracts, reference architectures, product backlog and different types of plans. Bass states that all the objects mentioned in the paper act as boundary objects, expanding the list of boundary objects to cover the majority of the artefacts, which are commonly applied in software development.

Topic Boundary objects are used for… Authors

Speculation on next evolution steps of software development

Boundary objects are important but not thoroughly discussed in literature

Baskerville et al. (2011)

Application of boundary objects in coordination and negotiating common ground

Boundary objects act as important vehicles for coordination in projects that ensure common ground and goals and provide common focus of goals. They act as mediators for

communication, coordination and cooperation processes. They can aid in raising awareness, support the grounding process within the team and provide referential anchoring.

Strode et al. (2012), Modi et al. (2012)

Large-scale Agile project and the artefacts applied as boundary objects

Most objects that are applied in Agile development support boundary spanning and mitigate issues

Bass (2016), Martini et al. (2016)

Table 10. Boundary Objects in Agile Literature

A more succinct view on boundary artefacts and boundary spanning comes from Strode et al. (2012), who discuss coordination and boundary objects in collocated, Agile projects. The case organisations in their study apply mainly Scrum methods, but there is a dash of Extreme Programming in one of the cases as well. Their focus is on how boundary objects and other coordination mechanisms, can be applied to improve the effectiveness of the projects in cases where there are external parties, such as customers. Strode et al. propose a framework that splits Agile project activities into different categories of boundary spanning. According to their paper, the case organisation’s boundary spanning consists of the boundary-spanning artefacts, boundary-spanning activities and coordination role (e.g. boundary spanner role). The coordination role, in Strode et al.’s study, is “a role taken by a project team member specifically to support interaction with people who are not part of the project team but who provide resources or information to the project” (pp. 1231).

Finally, Martini et al. (2016) present their findings from a study that focuses on collaboration of embedded software development teams: teams that exist inside organisations that focus on non-software products. The study stresses the need for boundary objects and boundary-spanning activities in Agile software development. It states “groups differing from the agile team appear to have different views and mindsets, which do not necessarily comply with ASD [agile software development]. This is hindering the development of boundary spanning activities and objects” (pp. 22). The study concludes by stating that organisations should apply more boundary-spanning activities, and thus boundary objects, to mitigate challenges that arise from project coordination issues, project speed and complexity.

Table 10 summarises the articles discussed in this section. Next section will present the conclusion for the context

and literature review chapter of this thesis.