A ALBORG U NIVERSITY

M ASTER ’ S T HESIS

Tailored Project Management Framework

from SCRUM and Lean Practices: Case
Study of Two Colombian Companies

Author: Supervisor:
Perttu Villehard P UONTI Kjeld NIELSEN

Co-Supervisor:
Jesper Kranker L ARSEN

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements

for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering
in the

Faculty of Engineering and Science

Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

June 2, 2017
 iii

Declaration of Authorship
I, Perttu Villehard P UONTI, declare that this thesis titled, “Tailored Project Manage-
ment Framework from SCRUM and Lean Practices: Case Study of Two Colombian
Companies” and the work presented in it are my own. I confirm that:

• This work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a Master’s
degree at this University.

• Where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or
any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been
clearly stated.

• Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly
attributed.

• Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With
the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work.

• I have acknowledged all main sources of help.

• Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have
made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have contributed my-
self.

Signed: Perttu Villehard Puonti

Date: 01.06.2017
 v

“Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.”

Bob Marley
 vii

Aalborg University

Abstract
Faculty of Engineering and Science
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering

Master of Science in Engineering

Tailored Project Management Framework from SCRUM and Lean Practices: Case
Study of Two Colombian Companies
by Perttu Villehard P UONTI

This Thesis is an Agile project management framework tailoring study for two small
Colombian companies; Canned Head Studios and Diip. The first company prac-
tices software development and the other film production. Furthermore, only the
post-production process from Diip is under study which resembles software devel-
opment process.
In the recent years many different project management methodologies have emerged
to support the software development process. Out of all the methodologies, of which
there are plenty, Scrum has been the most used by practitioners and most studied by
academicians (Theocharis et al., 2015). More recently, the Scrum methodology has
received opposition stating that pure Scrum only benefits the quality and require-
ments of project success, leaving the project cost and time unchanged. It has been
proposed that Lean Software Development methodology tailored with Scrum could
solve this problem (Uikey and Suman, 2016).
In this study a tailoring method is created based on literature and aided by the
case study method to find which project management methodologies tailored to-
gether are most suitable to address the project management problems faced at the
two case companies. As it turns out, the two most beneficial methodologies are
Scrum and Lean Software Development. This finding supports the statements found
in literature but also opens some necessary research steps for the future which are
discussed in the Discussion Chapter.

Keywords: Agile Project Management, Scrum, Lean Software Development,

Project Management Methodology Tailoring
 ix

Acknowledgements
I would like to give my greatest gratitudes to the thesis supervisors Jesper Kranker
Larsen and Kjeld Nielsen. Jesper was flexible with his schedule and we managed to
have frequent video call meetings regardless of the time difference between us – me
being in Colombia and him being in Denmark. The advices given by Jesper kept the
thesis moving forward fluently. Kjeld Nielsen was the main supervisor and without
his influence this work would not have been possible.
I give high praise to all the people involved with the case companies. The Colom-
bian entrepreneurial atmosphere, which I was surrounded by for my time at the
companies, was exhilarating and it gave me the inspiration to keep writing with a
smile on my face. After only hours of my arrival to the office building I felt wel-
comed and at home. I would like to give special thanks to the founders of Canned
Head Studios; Sergio Rodriguez, Juan-David Florez, Julían Martínez, and to the
founder of Diip; Oscar Otero. They and the employees were most helpful and coop-
erative during my stay – I wish I could have stayed longer.
 xi

Contents

Declaration of Authorship iii

Abstract vii

Acknowledgements ix

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background to the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Problem Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Purpose of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Importance of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 Proposed Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6 Scope of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.7 Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.8 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.9 Delimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 Literature Review 9
2.1 Agile Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.1 Umbrella Term: Agile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.2 Agile Software Development Manifesto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.3 Agile over Traditional Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Scrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.1 Introduction to Scrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.2 Scrum Functionality: Previous Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.3 Scrum Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.4 Scrum Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.5 Before Scrum Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3 Lean Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1 Continuous Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.2 Value Stream Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.3 Pareto Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.4 Cause-and-Effect Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.5 Kanban . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3.6 Just-in-Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.7 5S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.8 Lean over Scrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.9 Scrumban and Conclusion to Lean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4 Tailoring Project Management Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

3 Problem Formulation 29
3.1 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2 Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
xii

4 Theoretical Framework 31
4.1 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.2 Case Study Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.3 Quantitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4 Conducting Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.5 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

5 Case Studies 39
5.1 Introduction to Case Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1.1 Canned Head Studios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1.2 Challenges faced by Canned Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.1.3 Diip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.2 Collected Data and Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2.1 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2.2 Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2.3 Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.3 Data Analysis with R-Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.3.1 Collected Results from Data Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

6 Tailored Framework 55
6.1 Selecting the Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6.2 Selecting the Tools and Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7 Discussion of Findings 59
7.1 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
7.2 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
7.2.1 Implementation Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
7.3 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

A Canned Head Studios Project Process Flowchart 63

B Interviews With the Case Companies 71

C Consent Agreement 83

D Questionnaire for Canned Head Studios 85

E R Code 91

F Tools and Practices from Scrum and Lean Listed with Sources 95

Bibliography 97
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List of Figures

1.1 Simplified development process for both Diip and Canned Head Stu-
dios, adopted from a typical waterfall software development life cycle
(Bassil, 2012) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Models involved with software engineering with the selected models
for this study highlighted (Baseer, Reddy, and Bindu, 2015) . . . . . . . 6

2.1 Scrum Process Flow (SCRUMstudy, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2.2 General loop for practising lean (Kliem, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 Three popular agile methodologies on a scale from prescriptive to
adaptive (adapted from (Shankarmani et al., 2012)) . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4 Method Engineering practice for tailoring a project management frame-
work (based on (Campanelli and Parreiras, 2015) and (Lee and Yong,
2013)) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4.1 Steps for the Case Study Research Method (Yin, 2009) . . . . . . . . . . 33

5.1 Project flow chart of AS-IS for web application development in Canned
Head Studios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.2 Value Stream Mapping for Canned Head Studio’s Web Application
Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.3 Cause-and-Effect Diagram for Canned Head’s Project Management
Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.4 Main processes for Diip to develop a product. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.5 Lightly detailed post-production process followed at Diip. . . . . . . . 44
5.6 Average Results from Questionnaire for Diip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.7 Average Results from Questionnaire for Canned . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.8 Box Plot of Canned Head Questionnaire Answers . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.9 Box Plot of Diip Questionnaire Answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
 xv

List of Tables

1.1 The proposed tools and practices which together create the two frame-
works for Canned Head Studios and Diip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2 List of assumptions made in this study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.1 Comparison of success rates between small software projects with Ag-
ile and Traditional (Hastie and Wojewoda, 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Organizational Culture Comparison Between Traditional Project Man-
agement and Scrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Different Approaches to Scrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.4 Challenges faced by Scrum answered by Lean (Dharmapal and Sika-
mani, 2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

4.1 Selection of a research method by conditions (Yin, 2009). . . . . . . . . 31

4.2 Discovering research structure through purpose and research ques-
tion (Voss, Tsikriktsis, and Frohlich, 2002). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.3 Chosen research method characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4 Chosen Critical Success Factors from Sudhakar 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . 36

5.1 Web application process steps explained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

5.2 Cause and effect relation in Canned Head project management chal-
lenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.3 CSF Categories Linked with Interview Findings for Diip . . . . . . . . 46
5.4 CSF Categories Linked with Interview Findings for Canned Head . . . 47
5.5 Questions Asked in the Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.6 CSF’s that need improvement (pointed by company name) . . . . . . . 53

6.1 Selection between Traditional and Agile hybrids . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

6.2 Comparison of Agile Methodologies modified from (Litchmore, 2016) 56
6.3 Connecting the chosen CSF’s with available tools and practices (Pop-
pendieck and Poppendieck, 2003) (SCRUMstudy, 2016) . . . . . . . . . 58

B.1 General interview with Canned Head and Diip 6.2.2017 part 1 . . . . . 71
B.2 General interview with Canned Head and Diip 6.2.2017 part 2 . . . . . 72
B.3 Project process challenges interview with Canned Head and Diip 6.2.2017
part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
B.4 Project process challenges interview with Canned Head and Diip 6.2.2017
part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
B.5 Interview with Diip’s project manager 8.3.2017 Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . 75
B.6 Interview with Diip’s project manager 8.3.2017 Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . 76
B.7 Interview with Canned Head’s project manager 22.3.2017 . . . . . . . . 77
B.8 Interviews with All Diip Employees 1.4 - 17.4.2017 Part 1 . . . . . . . . 78
B.9 Interviews with All Diip Employees 1.4 - 17.4.2017 Part 2 . . . . . . . . 79
B.10 Interviews with All Canned Head Employees 1.4 - 17.4.2017 Part 1 . . 80
B.11 Interviews with All Canned Head Employees 1.4 - 17.4.2017 Part 2 . . 81
xvi

F.1 Lean Software Development tools from book ’Lean Software Devel-
opment: An Agile Toolkit’ (Poppendieck and Poppendieck, 2003) . . . 95
F.2 Scrum practices from book ’A Guide to the Scrum Body of Knowledge
(SCRUMstudy, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
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List of Abbreviations

VSE Very Small Entity

SME Small Medium-sized Enterprise
IS Information System
LSD Lean Software Development
XP eXtreme Programming
DSDM Dynamic Systems Development Method
FDD Feature-Driven Development
CSF Critical Success Factor
WIP Work In Process
K-S The Kolmogorov Smirnov Test
 xix

Dedicated to my parents. . .
 1

Chapter 1

Introduction

In this chapter the initial problem is presented and analysed, purpose and impor-
tance of the study are discussed, and the proposed solution is shortly presented.
Furthermore, the scope, assumptions, limitations, and delimitations are given and
listed.

1.1 Background to the Problem

This Master’s Thesis is a case study of two Colombian companies called Canned
Head Studios and Diip. Both companies are situated in the same office building
where Canned Head Studios is creating products based on software development
and Diip is producing and post-producing films. Canned Head Studios is going
through rapid growth and expecting to double its revenue and employee base within
two years time. Diip has had a steady growth for the last two years and aims to
keep it by tripling its revenue within five years. The product development for both
companies is highly project related.
The main challenge for the companies is managing these product development
projects. As the companies grow and start accepting more projects yearly, a suc-
cessful and suitable management of the projects becomes very important (Sohia et
al., 2016). The current situation at both companies shows strong signs of not suc-
ceeding in achieving the project goals with the three dimensions; cost, time, and
requirements (Nicholas and Steyn, 2012). On average one of the aforementioned
dimensions is not reached.
Finding suitable project management frameworks and tailoring them for the
companies to follow is part of the problem of this thesis. The project management
field is currently under turmoil, and it has been for some while after the agile man-
ifesto was introduced by several software engineers in 2001 (Špundaka, 2014). The
agile manifesto (see https://www.agilemanifesto.org) can be said to be the
starting force of multiple different agile project management approaches (Bindera,
Aillaudb, and Schillia, 2014). Out of these approaches a project management method-
ology called Scrum has delivered itself as the methodology most used by practi-
tioners and most researched by academicians compared to the other ones under the
umbrella term agile project management (Litchmore, 2016).
Scrum is a project management methodology created for software development.
In the Scrum method the organization is split into small cross-functional and self-
organizing teams, the work is similarly split into small pieces or tasks which are
prioritized, the release plan of a product is optimized to short iterations which all
provide a working product for the customer who is highly involved with the project,
and the development process is reviewed after every iteration. (Kniberg and Skarin,
2010)
2 Chapter 1. Introduction

The principles presented in the agile manifesto are well suitable for software
development type projects and following them provides benefits over traditional
project management (Kalermo and Rissanen, 2002). Therefore, it can be argued that
choosing an agile methodology for the case companies would be most beneficial.
The case companies have both shown concerns with the budget overruns mainly
caused by cheap prices driven by the competition. The scrum methodology has its
focus on flexibility and studies indicate that there is no benefit from scrum from the
project cost side (Suetin et al., 2016). An other interesting agile project management
methodology which could aid in solving this problem at the case companies is called
Lean project management. This methodology has recently started to gain popularity
by both practitioners and academicians hence it is based on Agile principles but it
also adds Lean principles to its methodology which in some cases surpasses Scrum
in project success (Uikey and Suman, 2016).
Lean Software Development1 is mostly a set of tools which help to uncover the
ideology behind lean thinking. The ideology consists of eliminating waste, amplify-
ing learning, deciding just in time, delivering fast, empowering the team, building
trust and honesty, and seeing the whole. (Poppendieck and Poppendieck, 2003)
The initial question is whether Scrum supported by Lean can help the case com-
panies better manage their projects. The results of this could also help the academia
by supporting the research of a tailored agile methodology which is currently emerg-
ing as a research field and has been happening within organizations that practice
agile methodologies (Woods, 2010).

1.2 Problem Definition

The system in question is a high level process for managing projects. Such a sys-
tem is used for conducting successful projects that reach the given goal. A project
goal is three dimensional with cost, requirements, and time, where acceptable val-
ues need to be achieved in all dimensions in order to meet the project goal (Nicholas
and Steyn, 2012). A project management process exists for managing people, tasks,
budget, schedule, quality, and scope of a project with the main purpose, in this case,
to create a product for a client (Project Management Institute, 2013).
There are two companies in which a new project management framework is to
be created. Both companies have 3-5 employees working on single projects simulta-
neously, relatively simple product development processes in place, and projects that
last around 1 month each.
Canned Head Studios has some previous knowledge about agile project man-
agement methodologies which helps the cooperation with the researcher towards
this thesis and allows for a higher understanding on the purpose of the thesis from
their side. The other company, Diip, does not have prior knowledge on agile project
management which restricts the level of complexity of the framework. Furthermore,
some constraints might be expected within the cooperation from the employees. It
is important to reach acceptance from most of the company workers, especially from
the management side.
In the project management process the project manager has to maintain a steady
phase of the project so that the goal is achieved while the project team members
concentrate mainly on their individual and changing tasks and try to succeed in
them as well as possible. One important interface which is used by both the project
1
Lean Software Development, Lean Project Management, and Lean are all used interchangeably in
this thesis
1.3. Purpose of the Study 3

manager and the project team is a task managing software which in the case of the
case companies is the same, called ASANA.
A simplified current product development process flow following the waterfall
model for Canned Head Studios and Diip is shown in Figure 1.1. This is the process
that should be better addressed with new agile project management methodologies.

F IGURE 1.1: Simplified development process for both Diip and

Canned Head Studios, adopted from a typical waterfall software de-
velopment life cycle (Bassil, 2012)

The main components for the project management process are; people involved
from the case companies, clients involved, product development process, and the
project management process itself. The product development process is to be kept
as unchanged as possible hence the implementation does not aim to fit the process
with an agile project management process but rather the agile project management
process is to be tailored to be used with the existing product development process.
An ideal system in this case is where the the current development process is
not changed dramatically but instead the supporting project management processes
should be well defined and well suited for the companies’ needs. The goal of the
new project management framework would be to allow the companies to grow and
at same time deliver products through projects with higher success rates.
Furthermore, another problem arises from the problem of bettering the project
management process’ at the companies; to developed such a framework that can
deliver these requested benefits. The creation of a suitable, easily implementable,
and beneficial project management framework is the widest problem faced by this
study.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

There are two sides for looking at the purpose of this study. One purpose is to aid
the two case companies by developing a framework for project management from
both Scrum and Lean project management methodologies and implementing it in
hopes from them to increase their project success’ where goals are not met in budget
and schedule (see Appendix B).
The other purpose is to provide valuable research on the area crossing both
Scrum and Lean project management. Moreover, this Master’s thesis tries to shed
4 Chapter 1. Introduction

light on how similar these two methodologies are, how well they work together as a
tailored framework, and could this framework be implemented successfully based
on literature.
An extra purpose for this study is to give insights on conducting case studies
with Colombian companies. This might be a rising interest hence Colombia is gain-
ing international interest from businesses because of its economical, regulatory, and
political advances in recent years (DoingBusiness.org, 2013).

1.4 Importance of the Study

The study is important because the research area under the combination of Scrum
and Lean is highly polarized. Lean claims to be alone and Scrum claims to be alone.
Scrum has been acknowledged as the most used Agile project management method-
ology but Lean Project Management is on the rise with many studies showing its
superiority against scrum (Wang, Conboy, and Cawley, 2012). This study will have
a neutral view on both of these methodologies and find whether they are actually
interconnected already. Further, there is some research done on the combination of
these two but it is not sufficient and requires more case studies in order to get wind
under its wings. Moreover, a successful implementation has been proven difficult
by many articles and tailoring a methodology from different methodologies seems
to be a growing subject (Campanelli and Parreiras, 2015).
The Lean approach toward product development is still lacking a set of under-
standable guidelines for the practitioners in day to day use of the framework. Fur-
thermore, there is lack of understanding on how Lean should be implemented. Fi-
nally, there is a need for benefits regarding the use of lean practices on this area
(Al-Baik and Miller, 2015). All of these needs are answered, on some level, in this
thesis.

1.5 Proposed Solution

The proposed solution which culminates this thesis is a set of tools and practices
selected from both Scrum and Lean methodologies which together create the tailored
frameworks. These are shown in Table 1.1.
For a more detailed view on the solution see Chapter 6.

1.6 Scope of Study

The scoping of this study balances on two things; what suits best for the companies
and what is most interesting from the academical side. As a background for the
companies; they develop their products with sort iterations (approx. 1 month) and
the current project management method which is seen as unsatisfactory is roughly
based on the waterfall model.
In Figure 1.2 are shown two types of Models; System Models and Process Mod-
els. System models are involved with how the product architecture is drawn and
approached upon. For this study it is chosen not to study this part of the devel-
opment but instead study the development process itself. This is purely a decision
made by the researcher.
Because the companies already base their processes on the waterfall model and
which is seen as an insufficient methodology, the development models are chosen
1.6. Scope of Study 5

TABLE 1.1: The proposed tools and practices which together create
the two frameworks for Canned Head Studios and Diip

Methodology Tool / Practice Company

Lean Continuous Improvement Canned & Diip
Kanban
Just-in-Time
Scrum Product Owner Canned & Diip
Scrum Culture
Sprint Planning
Sprint Backlog
Scrum Core Team
Scrum Team Only Canned
Scrum Master
Daily Scrum
Sprint Review
Sprint Retrospective

for inspection. Out of the development models there are mainly two different types
of approaches; ones that focus on the process of coding software and ones that fo-
cus on the project management process. The project management process methods
are chosen for further inspection because this is where the researcher has previous
knowledge, where the most benefits can be achieved for the companies, and where
there is most interest currently on the academical side.
To add more on the previous points, the companies have described by interviews
(see Appendix B for more details) that most improvements should be achieved in
reducing the project costs and maintaining the product quality. From the project
management process side there is one certified approach for each of these problems;
Scrum for quality and Lean for cost reduction. This argument is derived from the
fact that Scrum has been proven to increase product quality (Cornelius, 2014) and
Lean has been proven to provide project cost reduction (Lei et al., 2017).
The current environment within the companies supports agile-type development
under which Scrum is situated (Sohia et al., 2016) and by combining both Lean and
Scrum together, it can be argued that such a methodology also falls under the agile
umbrella term (Boes and Kämpf, 2014). The agile project management view has been
explained in Section 2.1 and it tells that this type of methodology is suitable for the
environment at the case companies. This is an other argument for the selected scope.
In Figure 1.2 the final scope of this study is shown; this study is concerned with
software engineering development models called Scrum and Lean with the initial
understanding relying on Agile theory. Moreover, only the most popular Scrum and
Lean practices are chosen for the framework – in total Scrum has 30 practices and
Lean 22 Tools, this was considered too wide of a spectrum for this thesis.
6 Chapter 1. Introduction

F IGURE 1.2: Models involved with software engineering with the se-
lected models for this study highlighted (Baseer, Reddy, and Bindu,
2015)

1.7 Assumptions
Assumptions are more or less out of the control of the researcher but without making
assumptions this study would be irrelevant. The assumptions should be justified
and their existence should be explained. (Simon and Goes, 2011)
The assumptions, reasons for making them, and their justifications are shown in
Table 1.2.

1.8 Limitations
Limitations are involved with every study. These limit the study without researcher’s
control and affect the results and conclusions from the study. (Simon and Goes, 2011)
1.9. Delimitations 7

TABLE 1.2: List of assumptions made in this study

Assumption Reason Justification

Interviewed and ques- The data is mainly based The names of the subjects
tionnaire subjects speak on these two are kept anonymous and
the truth the atmosphere is kept
trustworthy
Subjects understand the See previous reason Researcher is present
questionnaire questions with each of the sub-
jects while they fill the
questionnaire
The case companies rep- As a case study the re- The products, methods,
resent other companies sults should be generaliz- organizations, and pro-
within the same fields able cesses of the case compa-
nies are similar to others
respectfully
Data gathered from ob- Data is also gathered Researcher spends time
servations is not influ- from observations for a at the company on daily
enced by the researcher’s deeper understanding of basis to eliminate pe-
presence the cause-and-effect rela- culiarity and normalize
tion presence

The limitations of this study are listed here:

• Overall time of conducting the study is approx. 5 months

• The subjects / employees of the companies are not allocated any extra time
outside of normal work – the interviews and questionnaires are conducted
within tight time frames and when ever the subjects have time
• The researcher can only study the people at the two case companies – both are
situated in Bogotá, Colombia
• There exists a language barrier between some of the subjects and the researcher,
hence not all information can be transferred
• The general language at the two case companies is Spanish which means that
the researcher only gets a limited understanding from observations

A case study in itself is a limitation because it limits the conclusions that can be
made of the causal relations studied (this is further explained in Chapter 4).

1.9 Delimitations
The delimitations of a study come from the selected scope and the decision made for
conducting the study i.e. the study plan. One of the first and main delimitations is
the chosen problem statement (Simon and Goes, 2011). Finally, the delimitations are
created from decisions made during this study. There are two delimitations:

• Only Scrum and Lean methodology are studied from the Agile project man-
agement methodologies
• The study is only interested in project success affected by Lean and Scrum
methodologies
8 Chapter 1. Introduction

The reason not to consider other project management methodologies is because

there have been studies that between different agile methodologies the project suc-
cess is arguably the same (Litchmore, 2016). But also studies which suggest a good
cooperation between Scrum and Lean (Wang, Conboy, and Cawley, 2012). This lead
is being followed and therefore the scope is set for these two methodologies.
 9

Chapter 2

Literature Review

The purpose of this chapter is to review and present the current literature used in
the making of this study.

2.1 Agile Project Management

Agile project management1 has its core in short iterations, where a development
project is separated into small parts, each of them when finished being a release and
generating a usable product for a client. An other backbone for agile project man-
agement is the intimate functioning of a team, where the emphasis is on face-to-face
communication (Nicholas and Steyn, 2012). Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the
word agile in two ways (Merrian-Webster, 2017):

“marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace” & “having a quick resourceful and
adaptable character”

The agile character of agile project management is necessary for projects where
there is a possibility for a change in the product specifications. This is especially
true in companies doing Information Systems (IS) development which both the case
companies are involved with respectfully (Abrahamsson et al., 2002). There are mul-
tiple different existing methodologies that fall under the spectrum of Agile project
management e.g. Scrum and Lean Development.

2.1.1 Umbrella Term: Agile

Agile project management is an umbrella term which covers many methodologies
that have their roots in the agile software development manifesto, currently most
of them are also categorized to be used for software development. The most pop-
ular agile project management methodologies are: Scrum, Lean Software Develop-
ment (LSD), Extreme Programming (XP), Crystal, Dynamic Systems Development
Method (DSDM), and Feature-Driven Development (FDD). (VersionOne, Inc., 2017)

2.1.2 Agile Software Development Manifesto

In 2001 a group of people, unsatisfied to the traditional project management prac-
tices, published a manifesto stating a need for a new frontier in project management
called agile project management. The manifesto is as follows (Beck et al., 2001):
1
Agile project management, Agile software development, and Agile are used interchangeably in
this thesis
10 Chapter 2. Literature Review

“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Working software over comprehensive documentation.
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
Responding to change over following a plan.

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”

This manifesto can be said to be the starting point of Agile project management
methodologies (Abrahamsson et al., 2002).
The Agile view toward project management started to gain ground after the man-
ifesto as many companies developing IS using Agile methods began to report ben-
eficial results after the change from traditional to agile. Between 2008 and 2011 the
job listings asking for agile practitioners increased 400 percentages. These results
are mostly only backed up by the practitioners because there is still a lack in com-
prehensive research on the reality of these benefits (Tripp, 2012).

2.1.3 Agile over Traditional Project Management

There have been many studies conducted which suggest positive impacts from ag-
ile project management implementations in different types of companies that have
previously had the traditional waterfall type of project management (Serrador and
Pinto, 2015) (Suetin et al., 2016) (Tripp, 2012) (Lindsjørn et al., 2016). Additionally,
a report called CHAOS from the Standish Group is released yearly with the success
rates of different types of software projects. A comparison between small projects
(to which this study is concentrated on) using Agile and using Traditional is shown
in Table 2.1. The table shows that projects using Agile project management method-
ologies are more successful compared to the traditional waterfall methodology.

TABLE 2.1: Comparison of success rates between small software

projects with Agile and Traditional (Hastie and Wojewoda, 2015)

Method Successful Challenged Failed

Small size Agile 58 % 38 % 4%

software projects
Waterfall 44 % 45 % 11%

One of the main differences between traditional and agile project management
is; the traditional project management uses approx. 33 % of the project duration
on the pre-planning phase and agile methodologies state that the maximum time
to be spent on this should be 10 % (Tripp, 2012). An other main difference are the
iterations used in agile methodology which allow the product to be pre-released
to the customer faster, allowing necessary feedback from the customer, and adding
value to the customer by a getting a usable product faster (Tripp, 2012).
A study suggests that Agile has a positive impact on effectiveness and overall
stakeholder satisfaction against organizational goals. This study also stated that the
higher percentage of agile projects compared to traditional projects there are in a
company, the higher is the percentage of successful projects. (Serrador and Pinto,
2015)
2.2. Scrum 11

There is also research with the aim to defend traditional project management
over Agile. In one of these results it is stated that Agile project management provides
higher quality and that the final products made this way provide higher satisfaction
for the customer mostly from the fact that the product requirements are more than
satisfied. This study also states that traditional way would provide a lower cost and
shorter project time but this statement can be said to have been affected by the stance
of the researcher toward the traditional methods (Stare, 2013).
Many studies have been conducted over the years about Agile v. Traditional
but in only a few the differences between each agile methodology have been held
under the microscope (Tripp, 2012). One study about the differences between Agile
methods states that there is actually no difference in benefits between each Agile
method but instead the difference in results comes from the people and the selected
process Critical Success Factors (CSF) 2 . These two things, the people and the CSF’s,
are the only two which can be said to affect the agile project success in areas of cost,
quality, scope, and time (Litchmore, 2016). This result eases the selection of an Agile
methodology from the vast selection of different ones hence in reality there is no
need for deep comparison.
In the next sections Scrum and Lean project management are introduced which
were eventually selected as the main frameworks from which the tailored frame-
work is made. Moreover, further justifications for choosing these two frameworks
are presented in both sections addressed to these methodologies.

2.2 Scrum
In this section Scrum methodology is introduced and the main parts of its frame-
work are explained hence they are to be used in the tailored framework. These main
parts are composed of Scrum Core Team, Scrum Events, and Scrum Artefacts. Fur-
thermore, as an added value there is a subsection on Scrum culture and what to take
into account before implementing. This subsection also adds to the justification of
Scrum implementation.

2.2.1 Introduction to Scrum

Scrum is a project management methodology developed for software development
projects first introduced by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland in 1995 (Schwaber and
Sutherland, 2016). It belongs under the umbrella term Agile project management
and instead of focusing on the process of software development it focuses on the
project management side. Compared to traditional project management where the
planning is mainly done in advance, with high expenses on changes happening after
the project has started, in Scrum the planning is spread throughout the project with
lower expenses regarding unexpected changes (Mahnic and Drnovscek, 2005).
The main characters of Scrum are; iterative development, transparency, customer
involvement, and one physical location for the project team. There are two main
roles within a Scrum team which are the Product Owner and the Scrum Master. A
Product Owner is in great contact with the client of the project and translates the
2
Critical Success Factors are the things that need to go well for ensuring success of an organization.
They represent managerial or enterprise areas that must be given special and continuous attention in
order to bring high performance. Critical Success Factors include issues which are vital in a company’s
current operating activities and are vital for its future success (Boynton and Zmud, 1984)
12 Chapter 2. Literature Review

product into backlogs for the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master is involved with in-
spiring and managing the team on following the Scrum values and practices. (Kautz,
Johansen, and Uldahl, 2014)
Scrum’s foundation is made of three pillars (Azanha et al., 2017):

• Transparency
• Inspection
• Adaptation

The first pillar, transparency, makes sure that the results are steady and within
the predefinitions by keeping the development process visible and known to all in-
volved parties. The second pillar, inspection, ensures that any disobedience by team
members does not occur in the development process. The third, and the final pil-
lar, adaptation, assures that previous faulty practices do not become a part of future
projects / sprints. (Azanha et al., 2017)
On top of the three founding pillars, the scrum methodology can be characterized
with six definitions (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016):

• Flexible delivery
• Flexibility of deadlines
• Local teams
• Collaboration
• Orientation

In Flexible delivery; the contents of a delivered product are set as close as possible
to the client’s needs which requires flexibility. Flexibility of deadlines; there is a huge
probability for a change in the deadlines which should be managed, i.e. having
flexibility in the deadlines. Local teams; a local team should be composed of around
six members, and positively less. Collaboration; being focused on being adaptive to
change opposed to the client’s needs, revisions are made frequently. Orientation;
the team should be well oriented on what is required from them. (Schwaber and
Sutherland, 2016)
The main tool in Scrum projects are the Backlogs. The Backlog, created by the
Product Owner, is a list of items necessary to be conducted for the product in ques-
tion. This list is prioritized, so that the top items are the most important ones and
the latest might not even be conducted for the finished product. (Kautz, Johansen,
and Uldahl, 2014).
Another important part of the Scrum methodology are Sprints. A Sprint can last
from 5 days up to 30 days. After the first Sprint a publishable product should have
been created. This allows for the product owner to receive feedback from the client
and to update the product backlog, i.e. add new items or / and re-prioritize the
existing ones, for the next sprint. (Kautz, Johansen, and Uldahl, 2014)
A Scrum project includes meetings held with the project members. These are
Daily Scrum Meetings, Sprint Review Meetings, and a Retrospective Meeting. In
the Daily Scrum Meetings, the members of the team discuss what they did on the
previous work day, what obstacles they might have had, and what are the tasks for
the current day. In the Sprint Review Meetings the team, the management, Prod-
uct Owner, and representatives from the client meet for discussing the success of
the Sprint against what was expected. In the Retrospective Meeting the Scrum Mas-
ter, Product Owner, and the team hold a meeting focused on possible improvement
points for the future. (Kautz, Johansen, and Uldahl, 2014)
2.2. Scrum 13

2.2.2 Scrum Functionality: Previous Research

Out of agile software development practices Scrum is the most used one (Barabino
et al., 2014). One reason for the popularity of Scrum are the benefits it has shown in
multiple research studies.
Results from case studies about Scrum show that the method increases value
of the projects toward the companies and their customer, gives tremendous time
savings (80 %) and cost savings (50 %), and deliverables are ready sooner. This
naturally increases confidence on projects and value of projects (Azanha et al., 2017).
These results are confirmed by other authors which highlights the success of Scrum
over traditional project management (Serrador and Pinto, 2015).
One study raised five main findings on the value of Scrum to organizations and
these were (Cornelius, 2014):

• The Scrum framework supports a higher level of team empowerment and col-
laboration
• The Scrum framework supports efficiency and elimination of waste
• The Scrum framework supports the product teams to accomplish strategic
alignment and transparency
• The Scrum framework supports improved customer experiences
• The Scrum framework supports satisfaction of customer demands, as the prod-
uct can be released earlier

Additionally this study confirms that Scrum can be implemented without in-
volving Organizational Change Management practices but this was the rarest case
of implementation. (Cornelius, 2014)

2.2.3 Scrum Theory

There are multiple sources for gathering information on the theory surrounding
Scrum but the most used source is the Scrum Guide which is published on https:
//www.scrum.org (Diebold et al., 2015). An other one, which carries the stamp of
Body of Knowledge similar to the book called A Guide to the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), called SBOK Guide. These two literature re-
leases are the main sources of information in the theory part in order to maintain
consistency and uniformity.
The Scrum process flow for product development is shown in Figure 2.1 and the
different points presented in the figure are explained in Scrum Events Subsection.
The Project Vision Statement and Project Business Case are documents that are al-
ready included in both of the case companies’ product development processes and
are not therefore further explained or needed.

Scrum Core Team

The core team has three parties; the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and the Devel-
opment Team. (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016)
The Product Owner tries to maximize the value of the product and leads the
development team to achieve optimum labour value balance. The Product Owner is
solely responsible for the management of the product backlog (SCRUMstudy, 2016).
The main tasks of a product owner are; developing product backlog items (being the
voice of the customer), prioritizing the backlog items, optimizing the development
teams work, ensuring the visibility and understandability of the backlog, and tells
14 Chapter 2. Literature Review

F IGURE 2.1: Scrum Process Flow (SCRUMstudy, 2016)

what the development team does next (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016). Moreover,
the product owner should keep a dual view in the project; understanding the needs
of the stakeholders and the Scrum team. (SCRUMstudy, 2016)
The Scrum Master is responsible of delivering knowledge about Scrum and
making sure that Scrum views are followed. This person also serves all the other par-
ties in the Scrum core team. He / she helps the product owner on backlog practices,
product planning, and facilitating Scrum events. Scrum Master aids the develop-
ment team in self-organization, creation of high-value products, progress obstacles,
and facilitating Scrum events. An other important role of the Scrum Master is guid-
ing the introduction, implementation, and sustainment of the Scrum methodology
in the organization. (SCRUMstudy, 2016)
The Scrum Team i.e. the development team is that group of people who do the
backlog items and work on delivering a working product after each sprint. Basically,
the self-organizing ability means that the team decides how they manage and work
on the backlog items. The overall effectiveness arises from the self-organizing ca-
pability of the Scrum Team which is empowered by the organization. The qualities
of the team members are cross-functional, so that the team is able to perform all the
tasks required in the backlog. No matter the specialized skills of a team member,
they are always referred to as developers. The team takes accountability on their
actions as a whole (SCRUMstudy, 2016). An acceptable size of the team is from 3 to
9 people. The logic behind the team size drives from the functionality, where less
than 3 decreases interaction and therefore the results, and more than 9 people makes
the coordination difficult (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016).
In reality the companies where Scrum has been implemented, the theory is not
usually fully followed e.g. the team size in real-world situations has in some cases
been below 3 or over 9. The reason for increased number of team members comes
from the fact that if there are multiple small teams, the coordination of all of them
becomes complex. Fewer but larger teams can be seen as a better option compared
to this. Moreover, some companies have outsourced some aspects of the product
development. (Diebold et al., 2015)
2.2. Scrum 15

Scrum Events
The events are an important part of Scrum hence they create regularity and they are
the so-called processes of the methodology. All of the events are time-boxed3 sim-
ilar to the traditional project management’s activity time periods i.e. an event has
a fixed duration which aims to achieve less overhead and higher velocity (SCRUM-
study, 2016). The events are designed so that they allow critical transparency and
inspection – two of the main values of Scrum (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016).
The Sprint is the main event during which all the other events happen and it
begins right after the last sprint has finished. The fixed time of a sprint should be
from 4 to 6 weeks with the exception being when there are changes expected in
the project requirements, here the fixed sprint time can be reduced up to 1 week
(SCRUMstudy, 2016). During the sprint the sprint goal remains and no changes
that endanger it are made, quality goals remain the same, and the scope can be
renegotiated between the product owner and the development team. Short sprints
reduce the risk to approx. one calendar month of costs and ensure inspection and
adaptation of progress toward the sprint goal (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016).
Sprint Planning is when the sprint is planned by the whole team. This planning
phase has been time-boxed to eight hours for a one month long sprint. This means
that the time can be shorter for shorter sprints and longer for longer sprints but
there are no rules for this. Scrum Master schedules the event, makes sure everyone
is present and that the planning lasts as long as required. Mainly the planning tries
to answer the following questions: "What can be delivered from this sprint?" and
"How will this be achieved?" (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016). These questions
divide the sprint planning meeting to objective definition and task estimation. In
the objective planning the input is the prioritized product backlog of which the most
prioritized ones are explained by the product owner. The Scrum Team then creates
the sprint goal with the product owner. The other half of the meeting is for task
estimation. Here the development team decides how to succeed with the product
backlog. Moreover, the Sprint Planning has the following components (Schwaber
and Sutherland, 2016):
• Forecast the functionality of the product after the sprint
• Create an understanding of what will be done in the sprint
• Discuss the product backlog, latest product increment, capacity and past per-
formance of the development team
• How many and which backlog items will be done
• Create the sprint goal objective set which creates the reason for the sprint
• Connect the product backlog items to an execution plan to create a sprint back-
log
• Roughly design the system (product increment) as a whole and connect the
product backlog to it
• Plan enough to understand what can be accomplished during the sprint
• Development Team (Scrum Team) informs the Product Owner and Scrum Mas-
ter of their self-organizing plans to accomplish the sprint goal
Daily Scrum lasts for 15 minutes at the beginning of every working day. In the
daily Scrum a plan / forecast is made for that day and the previous day’s work is
3
In Scrum, time is seen as one of the most important constraints in project management. In order
to address the constraint of time, Scrum uses ’Time-boxing’ which means fixing a certain amount of
time for each process and activity in a project. This ensures that the team members take an optimum
amount of work in a particular period of time. Some benefits are a more efficient development process,
less overheads, and high pace for teams.
16 Chapter 2. Literature Review

inspected. The development team explains to each other what they did the previous
day toward the sprint goal and what they will do today and was there some obsta-
cles worth mentioning. The daily Scrum should be held at the same time at the same
location every time for decreased complexity. (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016)
Sprint Review is a 4 hour meeting for a sprint of 1 month. Scrum Master is
responsible for the scheduling and attendance of the meeting. In the meeting the
Scrum core team reflects on the increment and work that was done in the sprint
to the stakeholders. The Scrum Core Team and the stakeholders then go through
discussion on what can still be done to create value. In the sprint review there are
the following items (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016):

• Scrum Core Team and key stakeholders invited by the Product Owner attend
• Product owner lists the Product Backlog items that were done and not done
• The development team assesses the pros and cons of the development work
done during the sprint
• The development team shows their work and takes questions about the incre-
ment
• The whole group discusses what do next which aids the upcoming sprint plan-
ning
• Review on the product of what might have changed because of the market-
place or other influences
• Reviewing on time-line, budget, capabilities, and requirements for the next
assumed release
• Adjust the product backlog from the discussed items

Sprint Retrospective is held in between the Sprint Review and the Sprint Plan-
ning by the development team with the Scum Master as a peer. This meeting is
time-boxed to three hours for a one month sprint. The meeting focuses on improv-
ing the development process. There are three main points the team needs to discuss
(SCRUMstudy, 2016):

1. What are the best practices which the team should continue to do?

2. What are the process improvements the team should implement / start doing?

3. What are the process problems and bottlenecks which the team should stop
doing in future?

The Scrum Events mentioned here are an important part of practising a func-
tional Scrum. Even as these methods are seen as important, there are a lot of variety
in the actual occurrences happening in companies that have implemented Scrum.
Daily Scrum has been switched to a every-other-day Scrum or, in some cases, length-
ened to 30 minutes. The reason for different time-boxing or scheduling comes from
the team sizes where a larger team needs more time to discuss everything and a
smaller team does not deed to discuss for so long or so often.
The Sprint Planning is mostly conducted as proposed by the Scrum theory be-
cause this has proven to be beneficial as in accurate planning and estimating.
With the Sprint Review, all of the companies practising Scrum have a meeting
dedicated to it. In one company the review meeting has been split in two where in
the first meeting developers from other projects are included to review the results
and in the other one the client for the project is included. This gives the team a
change to make minor changes before an increment is shown to a customer.
2.2. Scrum 17

Finally, the Retrospective Meeting is a part of most Scrum practitioners and it

is held on the same day as the review but the time-boxing varies greatly. (Diebold
et al., 2015)

Scrum Artefacts
Product Backlog is a list of things which need to be done in the current / future
sprint(s). These are features, changes, fixes, requirements, and functions. The items
on the list are always changing since the requirements toward the product are also
changing from feedback of the market place, development team and the customer.
The Product Backlog is to be prioritized by the Product Owner. The items situated
higher are in written in more detail than the lower ones. For a sprint the items are
redefined so that they are clear and have a possibility to reach a "done" state – this
estimate that an item can reach "done state within a sprint is done by the develop-
ment team. The product backlog should have the following attributes: description,
order, estimate, and value. (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016)
Prioritized Product Backlog is a single document with all the requirements and
features prioritized for the product in question (SCRUMstudy, 2016). This can be
used for monitoring the progress toward the goal. Some tools for forecasting the
progress of a process are called burn-downs, burn-ups, and cumulative flows.
(Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016)
Sprint Backlog is a forecast made by the development team about how much
will be released in the increment after the sprint. The Sprint Backlog should re-
flect the sprint goal i.e. the Sprint Backlog is redefined during the sprint toward the
agreed sprint goal as the development team acknowledges new information. Sprint
Backlog is solely for the development team but it should be transparent and visible
for the other parties also. This backlog should be revised in the Daily Scrum Meet-
ings for monitoring the progress of the sprint against the sprint goal. (Schwaber and
Sutherland, 2016)
Increment is the collection of all the product backlog items completed in a sprint.
Completed means that the item fulfils the requirements of being "done" defined by
the whole Scrum core team. The definition of "done" must be understood between
all the members of the Scrum Team. This is a valuable consensus hence it is a big
part of the produced quality. (Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016)
All of the artefacts mentioned here should be highly transparent inside the Scrum
organization. The transparency is maintained and increased by the Scrum Master.
(Schwaber and Sutherland, 2016)
Stories, themes, and epics, which are the main items on backlogs, are often cre-
ating confusion in the Scrum implementation phase and hence it is good to compare
them to each other. User stories are the main tool for sprints. In definition a user
story is a sentence written with the voice of a customer; "As a customer I would like
to get suggestions about similar purchases as I am currently looking on the web-
page". Themes, on the other hand, are user stories grouped together based on their
similarity. Finally, epics are seen as big user stories which are connected together as
stories for one user experience. Epics usually only have value when all the stories in
the epic are completed (Jarrell, 2014).
Release Planning Schedule is a phased product deployment schedule which
should be shared with the project stakeholders. The length of a Sprint is also de-
clared here. It tells which deliverables are going to be released to the customers,
planned intervals, and dates for the releases. There may not be a release scheduled
18 Chapter 2. Literature Review

at the end of every Sprint iteration. Sometimes, a release can be planned only af-
ter a set of Sprint iterations are done. Depending on the organization strategy, the
schedule creation may be driven by product functionality – the objective is to deliver
when a predetermined functionality is developed – or the planning may be driven
by date – the release happens on a predefined date set by the client and company
together. A deliverable should be released when it gives sufficient value to a client.
This schedule is prepared during the first Sprint Planning. (SCRUMstudy, 2016)
How the practitioners of Scrum make use of the artefacts in their everyday work
is very similar to how the Scrum theory describes them. One artefact which seems
to have least value to the practitioners is the definition of done. The definition of
done comes more from the user stories which are the main source of requirements
seen from the client’s side. (Diebold et al., 2015)

2.2.4 Scrum Culture

In times the implementation of a Scrum methodology in a company is unsuccessful.
One reason for unsuccessful implementations raises from the organizational change
viewpoint where Scrum might differ greatly from the original organizational values
and views which can become an insurmountable challenge. Therefore, it is impor-
tant to address some of the main theories surrounding organizational change and
Scrum implementation. (Maximini, 2015)
The different aspects of traditional project management culture v. Scrum culture
can be best presented by using a two column table (see Table 2.2).

TABLE 2.2: Organizational Culture Comparison Between Traditional

Project Management and Scrum

Traditional Culture Scrum Culture

Position Role
Expert Generalist
Team lead Scrum master
Project manager Product owner
Passiveness Activeness
Vast pre-planning Light pre-planning
Semi-transparency Transparency
Presence Accomplishment
Low involvement from client High involvement from client
Delegation of responsibility Adoption of responsibility
Control over employees Self-control
Job Passion

Based on Gloger and Häusling (2011)

2.2. Scrum 19

The Scrum culture follows some distinct rules. The culture revolves around a dis-
agreement toward most of the things that the so-called waterfall culture represents
i.e. top-down management, abundant planning in advance, information secrecy etc.
The most appreciated quality in the Scrum culture is that all the members participate
and bring value to the attended goals with their labour input. The overall cultural
atmosphere is highly casual whether it comes to clothing or office space. Moreover,
the organizational infrastructure is flattened and even managers can be addresses
on their mistakes in front of the whole team. It should also be said that the Scrum
culture values the work hours which should not be exceeded. (Maximini, 2015)

2.2.5 Before Scrum Implementation

There are six different approaches to Scrum which should be addressed before any
kind of implementation is commenced. These are Scrum PRN4 , Virtual Scrum Soft-
ware Studio, Scrum Software Studio, Façade Scrum Organization, Profound Scrum
Organization, and Sustainable Profound Scrum Organization. (Maximini, 2015)

TABLE 2.3: Different Approaches to Scrum

Name Description Advantages Disadvantages

Scrum PRN Method only used Quick Temporary, no
when needed real improvement
Virtual Scrum An internal or- Permanent, small Necessary to fol-
Software Studio ganizational impact on or- low the standard
structure ganizational protocols in most
structures cases
Scrum Software An organizational High benefits pos- Scrum expertise
Studio unit i.e. own legal sible, clear rules needed, slow
entity for Scrum projects implementation
Façade Scrum Same processes None Nothing changes
with agile names
Profound Scrum Whole organi- All the advan- very long im-
zation supports tages of wholly plementation,
Scrum implemented requires a pulling
Scrum force of without
the implementa-
tion crumbles
Sustainable Pro- Same as profound A sustainable Traditional struc-
found Scrum but remains sta- Scrum culture has ture is mostly
ble even when no been established gone which might
pulling force bring change
resistance

Based on (Maximini, 2015)

4
PRN is from a Latin phrase "pro re nata" meaning "take as much as you need".
20 Chapter 2. Literature Review

Before the implementation of Scrum, a decision between different approaches

needs to be made. The comparison of these different approaches is laid out in Table
2.3. There are questions which aid on the decision making in this case. The following
information should be attained from a case company (Maximini, 2015):

1. What does the case company want to achieve with the introduction of Scrum?

2. Who is the leading force of the Scrum implementation and what position does
he have in the company?

3. What is supporting the decision of Scrum introduction?

4. How many teams and individuals will be directly affected?

5. Over what time should the Scrum be implemented?

6. What is the budget for the implementation?

7. Which experts can you count on?

On top of the aforementioned questions, some supporting information should

be acquired before the start of the implementation; the information on regard the
motivation and true need of a new project management method. If there is a demand
for Scrum in the company, some of the following statements should represent the
current situation (Maximini, 2015):

• The time of releasing a product lasts longer each time

• The schedules of releases are not kept
• The release stabilization lasts longer each time
• Planning phase takes a long time
• During one release it is hard to begin a new one
• During a release it is hard to make changes
• The software quality is decreasing
• There is more documentation needed from the project teams
• “Death Marches” affect the morale of the project teams
• Customer demands are increasingly not met
• High percent of implemented features are not used by the customer
• The project participants do not really understand what to expect from a project
• Project plans get outdated fast when a project starts and there is almost no
predictability
• Project members are getting less motivated
• The costs of projects is increasing
• Projects benefits are not evaluated well
• Risks are realized too late into a project when countermeasures are difficult

If most of the aforementioned points are happening on some level at the com-
pany a Scrum or agile methodology implementation can be justified.

2.3 Lean Project Management

The original lean concept was introduced by Toyota in the 1980’s but it was only on
the year 2003 when the concept of lean was connected with software development
by Mary and Tom Poppendieck (Kumar and Shankar, 2016). In this Master’s thesis
the reference of Lean is towards the software development lean concept.
2.3. Lean Project Management 21

Lean project management is about focusing on the things that matter, eliminating
waste, and doing the right things at the right time (Maurya, 2010). The aforemen-
tioned Scrum methodology is said by some researches not to be only under Agile
project management but also close to Lean project management (Kniberg and Skarin,
2010). In this section the Lean approach to software development is introduced and
the differences toward Scrum are shown. The main values that surround the Lean
project management methodology are (Kliem, 2016):

• Focus on the customer

• Eliminate waste
• Separate value-added and non-value-added
• Product should be pulled by the market rather than pushed to the market
• Add standardization
• Use available technology to your advantage
• Seek information over data
• Emphasize continuous flow
• Aim for simplicity and flexibility; less is more
• See the forest from the trees
• Trust and confidence at the core of organization culture
• Seek continuous improvement by educating people and transparency

Lean project management does not differ much with Scrum at the value level.
As it can be observed from the list, focusing on the customer, pull over push, contin-
uous flow, simplicity and flexibility, trust and confidence, and transparency all are
similar values to the Scrum methodology. The added value from Lean methodology
is mostly about concentrating on the waste in order to cut the project costs which
was one of the main limitations of Scrum; not being able to reduce this (Suetin et al.,
2016). Moreover, out of the values mentioned in the list there are seven main princi-
ples for lean which are: eliminating waste, building quality in, creating knowledge,
deferring commitment, delivering fast, respecting people, and optimizing the whole
(Poppendieck, 2007).
The two main arguments supporting lean software development approach are
that when it is correctly applied the projects are finished with the lowest possible
cost and that the projects are finished quickly (Poppendieck, 2007). These were the
downsides of Scrum which is able to provide flexibility and quality but lacks the
ability to manage the budget and schedule (Kumar and Shankar, 2016).

2.3.1 Continuous Improvement

The creation of a lean environment is performed by using 8 steps illustrated in Figure
2.2.
Determine context step is where the status quo is challenged by the person driv-
ing the change. The context can be either an environment where the change needs
to be done on top of an existing structure or an environment where the change is
created on the side without affecting an existing structure (Kliem, 2016). With the
case companies the change is made on top of an existing structure which is usually
the case.
Map current and proposed value streams is the step where, in this case, the
current value stream is mapped using the value stream mapping provided by the
Lean methodology where the actions from start to the end of a project are mapped
(see the tool in Subsection 2.3.2) (Kliem, 2016).
22 Chapter 2. Literature Review

F IGURE 2.2: General loop for practising lean (Kliem, 2016)

Define requirements is a step where the requirements from the customer side
are defined. The important requirements can be defined using a tool called cause-
and-effect diagram (see Subsection 2.3.4). This tool is for understanding which of the
process parts inside the value stream need most attention (Kliem, 2016). An other
tool for finding whether there are requirements outside the process is called a pareto
chart (see Subsection 2.3.3).
Gather data and information step is a necessary step in order to base the decision
of change on something but there are no data gathering methods provided by the
lean methodology. Therefore, it is sensible to use the data gathering methods already
mentioned in Section 4.2.
Perform analysis step is where the gathered data and information from the com-
pany is analysed for concluding whether some or all of the following things are
happening: excessive inventory, product defects, long lead time, long queue time,
large backlog, changeover time, lack of coordination, inadequate communication,
and unmotivated workers (Kliem, 2016).
Apply tools and techniques to find a solution, this step is formed of the possi-
bility to use multiple different tools provided by the lean methodology. Most used
tools by the practitioners are listed here: Kanban (see Sub section 2.3.5), Just-in-Time
(see Subsection 2.3.6), and 5S (see Subsection 2.3.7) (Kliem, 2016).
Recommend solutions, in this step solutions that have been found by applying
the tools should be recommended to the management by using a situation, target,
proposal document which defines the current state, the wished state, and the solu-
tion to reach the wished state from the current state (Murray, 2007).
Plan and execute means to plan how the proposed solution will be implemented
and executed. In this case it follows the way described in Chapter 4.2.

2.3.2 Value Stream Mapping

Value stream mapping helps to determine where in the internal process of software
development value is added to the customer and where value is not added i.e. waste.
Creating a value stream map is relatively easy and it should not take more than 30
minutes to make. The point is to create a flow chart of the development process’
2.3. Lean Project Management 23

main parts and then connect each step and space between steps with a time. (Pop-
pendieck and Poppendieck, 2003)

2.3.3 Pareto Chart

The name Pareto Chart derives from the Pareto Principle which states that usually
within an effect out of the contributing forces to that effect only a few can be said
to be the main cause for the effect. Pareto chart is a chart where the contributing
forces are listed as bars so that the ones with the highest level of contribution are
on the left and lowest on the right. An accumulating line with the percentages is
also drawn which shows how much e.g. the first three bars are contributing. This
chart helps the team or the researcher to find the vital few contributors and to focus
most of the energy on solving these problems for example. (Institute for Healthcare
Improvement, 2004)

2.3.4 Cause-and-Effect Diagram

The process of working through a cause-and-effect diagram is relatively easy and it
can be done using six steps (Kniberg, 2009):

1. Select a problem and write it down

2. From the problem start looking for visible causes upwards – from the problem
3. Then solve downwards for what causes the problem – to the problem
4. Find and identify cycles i.e. circular paths
5. Do the previous steps couple of times to clarify the diagram
6. Decide on the root causes and start looking for countermeasures

The aforementioned countermeasure is an experiment and it does not promise a

pure solution to a problem. After the countermeasures have taken place the cause-
and-effect diagram process can be made again (Kniberg, 2009).

2.3.5 Kanban
In simple, Kanban is a way of, in this case, managing tasks. Kanban board is a tool
which helps to have the tasks at hand when they are needed and by this way reduc-
ing Work-in-Process (WIP). WIP is one of the things Lean practises try to minimize.
There are three main rules for using Kanban:

1. Visualize work-flow
2. Limit WIP
3. Measure and improve flow

Behind these rules are multiple actions that need to be done to get the Kanban
successfully implemented.
Map your work-flow is the first necessary step where the process in which the
Kanban is to be implemented is mapped into main work-flow parts. It is important
to map an existing process and not an ideal non-existing process. As the work-flow
is mapped, a Kanban board should be created where the tasks will move from each
step to an other.
Visualize WIP is where the tasks are added on the Kanban board and each task
is given attributes e.g. creation date, deadline, created by, priority etc. depending on
the needs.
24 Chapter 2. Literature Review

Set your initial WIP limits is a step where the team working within the pro-
cess should be involved. It should be mentioned to the team that a lower WIP has
two benefits: it reduces the overall lead time and improves quality produced by the
task. The WIP limits should be written on the Kanban board to enforce it so that the
workers follow this.
Get the "Pull" this step brings the main quality of Kanban into action. There are
two types of ways tasks can move forward; either they are pushed forward by the
persons who make the tasks or they are pulled forward by the persons who require
the tasks to be completed. Kanban works on the pull-manner. This means that there
are tasks needed to be done and the ones with the highest priority are pulled forward
as there is a person available on doing them.
Look for bottlenecks is a part of keeping the flow of work steady. As there
are many tasks on the WIP and tasks waiting to be started this can be seen by the
workers and management from the Kanban board and action can be taken. The WIP
limit helps to manage the bottlenecks as the WIP limit is reached the bottleneck can
be avoided hence the people work faster as there are less tasks at hand.
Inspect and Adapt is mainly done by keeping track on the lead time of the project
/ iteration and the cycle times of each task. This is usually done by an application
used by the company. By tracking the cycle times the managers can see if the tasks
are being completed on time, and by tracking the lead time which eventually form
from all the cycle times helps to visualize whether the project will be finished on
time. (Klipp, 2014)
A study on Kanban board has found that Kanban is a beneficial visualization
tool but it should be used appropriately in order for the true benefits to be shown
(Al-Baik and Miller, 2015).

2.3.6 Just-in-Time
Just-in-Time (JIT) differs from the aforementioned tools because it is not a true tool
with a user manual on how to do it. Instead, it is an allowing force for using pull-
method for the task movement. JIT means that things are done just when they are
needed to be done, not before and not after. Implementing this ideology will have
advantages such as lessened WIP but it requires that the ideology is accepted by
the whole organization. Pull and JIT work hand in hand as when the pull-method
is working well also is the JIT but in order for this to be achievable there needs to
be transparency and high level of communication between workers, and between
workers and management. (Poppendieck and Poppendieck, 2003)

2.3.7 5S
Even with processes where the work is mainly done by using computers and with-
out the usual industrial working environment with different kind of tools, standard-
izations is something that should be done in places where it gives benefits for the
process. For standardization the best tool to use is 5S. Where the 5 S’ are Sort,
Straighten, Scrub, Systematize, and Standardize. Sort is about, in this case, to dis-
card all the redundant files stored at the company’s data storage e.g. a cloud service.
Straighten is to place the leftover important data in places where it can be easily
found and not disturb the work-flow. Scrub could be used to keep the equipment
used, which in this case is mainly computers, clean. Systematize could be used for
keeping sure that the 5S’ is followed in the company. Standardize would be to imple-
ment 5S into as many places as possible. 5S in not so straightforward when used in
2.3. Lean Project Management 25

a software development environment but by applying it even somehow it can give

advantages for the company (Kliem, 2016).

2.3.8 Lean over Scrum

Lean is currently the fastest growing product development methodology (Al-Baik
and Miller, 2015). Lean studies are mostly providing similar results as ones made
about Scrum; both methodologies aid on conducting successful projects. Lean, on
the other hand, shows better results in managing the project schedule over the Scrum
methodology and slightly better results in managing project budget (Lei et al., 2017).
In one case study a company working on Software Innovation replaced Scrum
methodology with a Lean version and got beneficial results in the product lead time;
this was halved, reduced generation of bugs; 10 % decrease, and improved produc-
tivity (Sjøberg, Johnsen, and Solberg, 2012). Another study which simulated the
effects of using Scrum v. Lean v. Waterfall concluded that Scrum is better than Wa-
terfall but Lean is better than Scrum because it uses frequent releases, as does Scrum,
but also the WIP is kept at minimum (Cocco et al., 2011).
One study put the challenges faced in Scrum projects and offered solutions from
Lean practices. Some of these are shown in Table 2.4.
To conclude on Table 2.4, Scrum framework is very good as it is but the Lean
viewpoint acts as a good way of avoiding the pitfalls that seem to occur when using
Scrum.

2.3.9 Scrumban and Conclusion to Lean

At this point it is good to clarify the terms Lean, Kanban, and Scrumban. Lean
is made on following the Lean beliefs which were mentioned in Section 2.3. Lean
also includes Kanban into its tools and practices but on top of this Kanban is also
an independent Agile method broken away from the Lean method. This separate
Kanban approach will not be further mentioned hence it is already well presented
inside the Lean methodology. The Scrumban, on the other hand, is a methodology
developed from Lean and Agile best practices but mostly focusing on the Kanban
view which is based only on three core points; work-flow visualization, limiting
WIP, and measuring lead time (Nikitina, Kajko-Mattsson, and Stråle, 2012). Because
of the lack of definite rules the Kanban method is the least descriptive from all the
Agile project management methods as seen in Figure 2.3.

F IGURE 2.3: Three popular agile methodologies on a scale from pre-

scriptive to adaptive (adapted from (Shankarmani et al., 2012))

In its essence Scrumban uses the combination of both Scrum and Kanban and
creates a framework which cannot truly be seen as a new framework, just as those
two frameworks; Scrum and Kanban. There are cases in practice where a company
has started with Scrum but later included some parts of Kanban e.g. Kanban Board
to their framework (Nikitina, Kajko-Mattsson, and Stråle, 2012). Unfortunately, lit-
erature does not tell how this combination has been implemented. The researcher
26 Chapter 2. Literature Review

TABLE 2.4: Challenges faced by Scrum answered by Lean (Dharma-

pal and Sikamani, 2014)

Scrum Challenge Lean Solution

Unwanted user stories in the backlog Identify waste at an early stage
Integration of stories on independent Look at the system as a whole all the
software parts difficult time
Too many stories in backlog Decide on stories on when required
Tools do not capture all necessary infor- Use technology as your advantage and
mation acquire such a tool
Resources not available on time Eliminate waiting time and plan re-
source requirements
Product owner not fully understanding See the systems as a whole and begin
requirements and goal development only when requirements
are clear
Unavailability of workers with ade- Emphasize that right work should go to
quate skills right resource
Meetings take too much time Shorten the meetings as much as possi-
ble, bring lean mentality
Scope does not get frozen but it keeps Freezing the scope as early as possible
changing helps to get the product delivered faster
Too much flexibility in the deadline Freeze the deadline as soon as possible
for faster delivery
No acceptance criteria Make the acceptance criteria clear so
that the team does not do excess work -
waste
Improper estimates of work Empower the team to understand the
importance of work estimates
Incorrectly prioritized user stories Product owner should pay more atten-
tion on prioritizing hence this help to
eliminate waste
No time arranged for reviews This is a very important part of quality
- empower the team to do reviews
No demo to customer A demo helps create honesty and trust
between the customer

has discovered only one book on Scrumban (Reddy, 2016) which tries to explain the
implementation and practices identified by the Scrumban methodology but a peer
review made on this book suggests that the book does not succeed in explaining any
of the aforementioned topics (Cetnerowski, 2015). Therefore, Scrumban will not be
further presented in this study but this finding provides an extra reason for tailor-
ing a framework using Scrum and Lean with Kanban hence there is not sufficient
knowledge on this area.
2.4. Tailoring Project Management Methodologies 27

To conclude this section, the Lean project management framework developed by

Mary and Tom Poppendieck covers a sufficient amount of Lean practices and some
Agile practices as well but the researcher feels that by using the Scrum methodology
as a the foundation and adding Lean tools presented by the Poppendieck couple,
while keeping in mind the Agile Manifesto, a better suiting framework can be gen-
erated for the two case companies (the sources with page numbers for more detailed
explanations on the Lean tools can be found from Appendix F.

2.4 Tailoring Project Management Methodologies

There are some articles and a Ph.D. thesis written about tailoring project manage-
ment frameworks from traditional and agile methodologies, and from mixed agile
methodologies (Jyothi and Rao, 2011) (Lee and Yong, 2013) (Campanelli and Par-
reiras, 2015) (Wang, Conboy, and Cawley, 2012) (Uikey and Suman, 2016) (Špun-
daka, 2014). There has also been studies on how to add Kanban practices to an ex-
isting Scrum practice (Nikitina, Kajko-Mattsson, and Stråle, 2012) (Rutherford et al.,
2010). And one study, found by the researcher, on tailoring a framework from Scrum
and Lean methodologies (Dharmapal and Sikamani, 2014). Additionally, there is
one article which studied the usage of different Scrum methods by the practitioners
(Diebold et al., 2015). This section will present the highlights of these aforemen-
tioned studies as a literature collection on tailoring project management methodolo-
gies which will then be used as a base for aiding the development of the Scrum with
Lean framework for the two case companies.
No pure Agile methodology works perfectly without using some other method-
ology as a support. There is also a difference in the tailoring when small projects5
are in consideration hence small projects require different approaches compared to
larger ones. With small projects it has been studied that the Agile methods are more
feasible than traditional methods. Some of the reasons why traditional project man-
agement methods are not suitable are listed here (Lee and Yong, 2013):

• Inadequate planning
• Low priority
• Project teams are inexperienced
• Project manager has multiple roles
• Traditional project management methods are aimed for large projects

All of the aforementioned points occur at the case companies. The low priority
toward projects at the case companies arises from the fact that there are close to 60
projects yearly at each of the companies of which all have, more or less, the same
priority.
Although this study has recognized, on some level, that Agile methodologies
are suitable for the case companies, a method for the tailoring attempt should be
followed. A systematic literature review on Agile methods tailoring has been per-
formed and the results point to Method Engineering as the best practice for develop-
ing a tailored agile framework. Figure 2.4 displays this method. (Campanelli and
Parreiras, 2015)
The first part of a tailoring attempt is to recognize the beneficial and most suitable
project management methodologies for a company in question. A helpful tool for
5
There is no distinct differentiation between small and large projects but generally Very Small En-
tities / Enterprises (VSEs) which employ less than 25 people are involved with small projects and this
is the case with the companies in this study
28 Chapter 2. Literature Review

F IGURE 2.4: Method Engineering practice for tailoring a project man-

agement framework (based on (Campanelli and Parreiras, 2015) and
(Lee and Yong, 2013))

this is to identify five risk-based agility factors from the project environment and
characteristics. These factors are (Lee and Yong, 2013):

1. Team size – lower number points to agile

2. Criticality of project – less critical points to agile
3. Amount of requirement changes during a project – higher points to agile
4. Work culture – more chaos points to agile

It should be kept in mind that it is also necessary to understand the project envi-
ronment and project characteristics. For this the Case Study method is used in this
thesis. Additionally it is also important to study the current project performance
even though there are no agile methodologies implemented. This, as seen from Fig-
ure 2.4, can be used to aid on the correct selection of the tools and methods.
The second part of the Method Engineering is to select the methods and tools
from the ones that appear in the selected methodologies. The researcher has not been
able to find a method for selecting appropriate tools and practices. Only method
seems to be to "identify" the most suitable tools and practices (Qumer, 2010). In the
case of Lean methodology an aiding method is found from one study which recog-
nizes the challenges in Scrum and uses tools and techniques from Lean Development
to address these (Dharmapal and Sikamani, 2014). This can be beneficial for select-
ing the correct tools from the Lean methodology. For Scrum one study found out
what are the most used practices in companies that already have implemented and
integrated Scrum into their projects (Diebold et al., 2015). This view from practice
can be seen as beneficial when selecting Scrum practices.
The final part is when the ideology, tools, and methods have been gathered. After
this an implementation of the practices is ready to be started. When the implemen-
tation is complete the project environment, characteristics, and performance should
be studied again and the ideology, tools, and practices adjusted accordingly.
 29

Chapter 3

Problem Formulation

After the literature review and a pre-analysis of the case companies the problem can
be generated. In order to succeed in stating the problem, two sides of the study
should be taken into account; the academical and the practical. The academical
viewpoint gets a greater weight since this Master’s thesis exists mainly to support
and add value to the research area of project management, more accurately to the
area of Agile project management. The other side is the practical one which needs to
be taken into account since this study also aims to give value for the involved case
companies.
There is evidence found in the literature that a research gap exists in the area
of combining agile methodologies together, mainly methodologies of Scrum and
Lean project management. Moreover, the following needs have been identified that
lead to the aforementioned gap; finding a way to combine different project manage-
ment methodologies together (Špundaka, 2014), investigate the impacts of Lean and
Scrum1 , study the trade-off’s when implementing Lean and Scrum together (Nur-
diani, Börstler, and Fricker, 2016), additional results on combining Scrum and Lean
in projects (Lei et al., 2017) (Theocharis et al., 2015), and general need for conducting
different studies on Agile and Lean project management (Azanha et al., 2017).
The two companies have multiple challenges of which many can possibly be
solved by implementing methodologies from both Scrum and Lean methodologies.
The reason for choosing both Scrum and Lean for the tailored methodology is the
argument that Scrum provides product development companies with agility, qual-
ity, and added value for the customer. The Lean methodology, on the other hand,
provides benefits in the cost and schedule part of project success. Therefore it is
supported, for the practical side, to choose to combine these two methodologies.

3.1 Problem Statement

The problem statement has been formulated as the following:

Lean and Scrum project management methods have both shown benefits for
product development companies but both of the methodologies have weaknesses.
The hypothesis is that Lean and Scrum can offer higher benefits for this type of com-
panies if best of each are implemented as a combination.
Many researcher have tried to combine agile with traditional project manage-
ment but only a few have tried the same with Scrum and Lean. Therefore, there
exists a gap between Lean and Scrum research which is the combination of these
two.
1
In many studies the methodology from Scrum is used but the researchers refer to it only as Agile.
In this study these references are identified from the articles and referred here as Scrum.
30 Chapter 3. Problem Formulation

The problem is; how can the most suitable and beneficial project management
methodologies be tailored for the case companies?

3.2 Research Questions

In order to answer the proposed problem statement, some other questions need to
be answered. These are the research questions and they are formulated as the fol-
lowing:

1. Which Critical Success Factors (CSF) should be used to measure the project
success’?

2. How are the Critical Success Factors ranked at the companies?

3. Which methdologies could increase the low ranked CSF’s?

4. Which tools and practices from these methodologies should be included in the
tailored framework?

There are two approaches on answering these questions which both have been
used; conducting a literature review for answering RQ1, and using project manage-
ment tailoring practices found from the literature study supported by the case study
method with interviews, questionnaires, and observations for answering, RQ2, RQ3,
and RQ4.
 31

Chapter 4

Theoretical Framework

4.1 Research Design

The selection of the research design pointed into a case study in the beginning be-
cause of the agreement between the case companies and the researcher. But the
decision can not fully depend on this reasoning alone, therefore the decision was
based on methods from literature.
The choice of a research design can be largely based on the research question. If
the research question is trying to answer questions "how?" or "why?", a case study
method can be applied. The good fit of a case study method increases when the prob-
lem requires extensive understanding of the system in question. With the problem at
hand an in-depth description of the system is necessary which the close co-operation
with the case companies favours. (Yin, 2009)
The three conditions for choosing the research method are (a) type of the research
question, (b) how much control the researcher has on behavioural events, and (c) the
level of focus on contemporary events. There are five main research methods from
which to choose the one to be used; experiment, survey, archival analysis, history,
and case study. These are shown with the three conditions in Table 4.1.

TABLE 4.1: Selection of a research method by conditions (Yin, 2009).

METHOD Type of research Level of control on Level of focus

question behavioural events on contemporary
events
Experiment how, why? yes yes
Survey who, what, where, no yes
how many, how
much?
Archival who, what, where, no yes/no
Analysis how many, how
much?
History how, why? no no
Case Study how, why? no yes

Hence the problem statement is a "how?" one, the problem requires in-depth un-
derstanding of the system, there is no need to control the the behavioural events,
and the study focuses on contemporary events, it can be argued that a case study
method fits within this context. Although, the case study method is similar to the
32 Chapter 4. Theoretical Framework

history method, the case study adds two important things; it allows direct observa-
tions from the events at the company and sources information from the composed
interviews. Moreover, in a case study the researcher is able to gather all sorts of
information from documents, interviews, artefacts, and observations.
There are different types of research purposes which also help to guide whether
a single case study is preferable or would a multi-case study be more suitable. The
purpose of the research is to refine the existing theories under agile project manage-
ment. By looking at a table that links the research purpose with research questions
and research structure, the most suitable research structure can be discovered (see
Table 4.2).
TABLE 4.2: Discovering research structure through purpose and re-
search question (Voss, Tsikriktsis, and Frohlich, 2002).

Purpose Research question Research structure

Exploration
Discover areas in theory Is there something worth In-depth case study
development discovering? Longitudinal field study
Theory building
Identifying and describ- What are the key vari- In-depth case studies
ing variables, their link- ables? Multi-site case study
ages, and why they occur Best-in-class case studies
Theory testing
Prediction of future out- How an existing theory Experiment
comes survives under empirical Quasi-experiment
data? Multiple-case study
Theory refinement
Improve the structure of How generalizable is a Experiment
a theory in light of at- theory? Quasi-experiment
tained new information Case study

By looking at the table, it can be discovered that under the row Theory refine-
ment is the most suitable option. The problem at hand is looking at an existing
theory which has not yet been extensively researched and the structure still needs
refinement. From here the case study option is found and therefore selected as the
main research structure for this study. Additionally, case study method is usable
in software engineering cases because the study is held in a natural context where
a contemporary phenomena is studied. The objects of the study are private com-
panies developing software products which also suits well within the case study
method (Runeson and Höst, 2009).

4.2 Case Study Method

Case study is an empirical study and the acceptance towards these kind of studies
in a software development environment has been increasing in the passed decade.
Some of the problems faced in this environment are very complex hence they are
effected by multiple components e.g. processes, people, and office environment.
4.2. Case Study Method 33

Therefore, this kind of system can be difficult to study with analytical quantitative
research methods where as a case study method can provide valuable and impor-
tant knowledge when applied. Acquiring knowledge from situations as software
development can be argued to bring more significance than a statistical analysis.
(Runeson and Höst, 2009)
Before going into detail with the case study method it is important to distinguish
between it and action research. Action research tries to change some aspect of the
thing under research e.g. improve the software development process. This method
is very close to case study but when the study involves pre- and post-event studies
the method used should be case study (Runeson and Höst, 2009). To conclude, in
this thesis, the case study method is presented and used instead of action research
because these two are very similar to each other and the case study method suits
better for the purpose.
A case study, in this case, is a study of current phenomena getting its informa-
tion from multiple different sources. The information sources include direct obser-
vations, interviews, and archives (Yin, 2009). The steps of a case study research are
shown in Figure 4.1.

F IGURE 4.1: Steps for the Case Study Research Method (Yin, 2009)

As mentioned before, the characteristics of the method was found to be in the-

ory refinement i.e. improvement. An other characteristic of this case study is ex-
ploratory which means to find out what is happening, finding new understanding,
and coming up with new ideas and hypotheses for future research (Runeson and
Höst, 2009). In away, these two characteristics overlap in this study since the system
is both improved and observed at the same time.
When a real world situation is being studied, a trade-off or balance between con-
trol and realism is to be made. In software development case study research this
balance is usually forced to the the realism side because there are no ways of in-
creasing the controllability of the situation. (Runeson and Höst, 2009)
The research process itself can be characterized of being either flexible or fixed.
In this case the study is flexible because the parameters of the study change as new
information is found from interviews or surveys. This is typical for case studies.
(Runeson and Höst, 2009)
34 Chapter 4. Theoretical Framework

Such a thing as triangulation is used for increased precision and validity of the
research. Triangulation stands for taking multiple angels toward the studied phe-
nomenon. This can be achieved by collecting the same data (interviewing) from
different individuals, using different data collection methods, and using the differ-
ent sources for the base theory (Runeson and Höst, 2009). All of these triangulation
methods are used in this study; the data is gathered from as many individuals as
possible, both interviews and surveys are used for data collection, and the theory is
collected from multiple different sources with different standings toward the theory.
The overall research method characteristics are listed in Table 4.3:
TABLE 4.3: Chosen research method characteristics

Methodology Primary objective Primary data Design

Case study Explanatory Qualitative Flexible
(Improving)

Because in a case study there are usually more variables than data points, it will
not provide results with statistical significance. A case study will base its arguments
on many different types of evidence from observations, interviews, and question-
naires (Runeson and Höst, 2009)
The validity of the study comes from three aspects; internal validity, external
validity, and reliability. Internal validity comes from understanding that there is a
third factor influencing the first one, the second factor influencing the first one is
not the only one. External validity can be achieved by understanding the context of
things and how the results of the study can be generalized to other cases which is
important for defining a theory. Reliability is concerned with the reproducibility of
the study. The study should be conducted so that hypothetically the results should
be the same if an other researcher does replicates the study. (Runeson and Höst,
2009)
To conclude, there are three types of data analysis for qualitative data; hypothesis
generation, hypothesis confirmation, and negative case analysis techniques. These
techniques can be used in combination (Runeson and Höst, 2009). For this study the
negative case analysis technique is selected i.e. "If it is not valid for this case, then it
is not valid for any (or only few) cases"1 . This is because of the nature of case study
research. It gives less academical value if a case study supports the results from
previous studies than if a case study does not support the previous results. This
means if the results of this case study imply that Scrum mixed with Lean theory does
not provide benefits compared to Scrum or Lean alone, this disrupts the previous
results and gives more reason to study the effects of Scrum and Lean combination in
a negative light.

4.3 Quantitative Analysis

Although the primary data for this study is qualitative, there is a possibility to con-
duct quantitative analysis on the questionnaire answers. This supports the study
and can be used for finding whether the two case companies are statistically sim-
ilar. In order to perform this kind of analysis 3 statistical tests are performed; the
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (K-S), Shapiro-Wilk test, and the Levene’s test (if the data
1
This quote is from (Flyvbjerg, 2006) page 14.
4.4. Conducting Interviews 35

points are normally distributed) or the Mann-Whitney test (if the data is non-normally
distributed).
The K-S and the Shapiro-Wilk test whether a distribution is normal or not i.e.
how much the distribution deviates from a normally distributed one with the same
mean and standard deviation as the data set. The test results with p > .05 mean that
the data set is not significantly different to a normally distributed one and test results
with p < 0.5 mean that the data is significantly different from a normally distributed
(Field, 2010). Both of these tests are recommended to be used with a sample size
less than 50 (Ghasemi and Zahediasl, 2012). After discovering whether the data is
normally distributed or not one of the following tests should be performed.
The Levene’s tests the null hypothesis that the variances between two groups is
zero. If the Levene’s test result is significant (p ≤ .05) then the variances between
the two groups are significantly different or with p > .05 the null hypothesis can still
be considered viable. This test only works on normally distributed data sets. (Field,
2010)
The Mann-Whitney test is a non-parametric test i.e. it is designed for groups
that are not normally distributed. This test relies on ranking the data where the
lowest value gets the rank 1, next highest rank 2, etc. The analysis is done on these
ranks rather than on the actual data. This test is used for finding whether there is a
statistically significant difference between the two selected groups. (Field, 2010)
The tests run for this study are all run with a program called R-Studio.

4.4 Conducting Interviews

The interviewing dialogue between the study subjects and the researcher is based
on the interview questions provided by the researcher. These questions surround
the interest of the study and they should be formulated to support the developed
research questions. There are two types of questions; open or closed. Open questions
can be answered openly by the subject and closed questions can be answered from
a set of different answers given by the researcher.
The structure of an interview can be unstructured, semi-structured, or fully struc-
tured. In an unstructured interview the conversation is guided by the researcher
based on the interests and it can develop into any direction depending on the inter-
action between the subject. In a semi-structured interview there are some planned
questions but they can unfold themselves in any order. Finally, a fully structured
is mostly like a questionnaire and it is not of interest hence questionnaires are also
used in this study (Runeson and Höst, 2009).
To conclude, the interviews held in this study are open and semi-structured. The
interviews start with predefined questions but at some point of the interview when
the questions have run out the unstructured part comes in – this is referred to as a
pyramid model of conducting interviews (Runeson and Höst, 2009). The question-
naires held can naturally be seen as closed and fully structured interviews.

4.5 Metrics
The interview and questionnaire questions need to be focused on achieving a com-
mon goal. The common goal for the questions is to find out the performance of
projects keeping in mind the Scrum and Lean methodologies. There are multiple
performance metrics identified for project success which have also been catego-
rized. These are communication factors, technical factors, organizational factors,
36 Chapter 4. Theoretical Framework

environmental factors, product factors, team factors, and project management fac-
tors. Within each category there are approx. 10 critical success factors (CSF) with the
exception of project management factors of which there are 30. (Sudhakar, 2012)
For a full project success realization all of these categories should be taken into
account. Rather than doing such a profound inspection on project success, it makes
more sense for this thesis to focus on metrics which support answering the problem
statement.
Out of all the critical success factors for project success found from the literature,
the chosen ones are listed in Table 4.4. Each of the CSF’s is numbered and in total
there are 23 CSF’s. From these 23 questions are formed to be used in the question-
naire for both of the case companies.

TABLE 4.4: Chosen Critical Success Factors from Sudhakar 2012

# CSF Factor Category

1 Communication
Communication
2 Cooperation
3 Business process re-engineering
Organizational
4 Increasing efficiency
5 Customer involvement Environmental
6 Quality control
Product
7 Realization of user requirements
8 Select right project team
9 Project team coordination
10 Task orientation Team
11 Team commitment
12 Team empowerment
13 Project planning
14 Project control mechanisms
15 Project schedule
16 Project manager’s competence
17 Clear project goal
18 Availability of resources Project management
19 Project monitoring
20 Progress meetings
21 Project review and feedback
22 Project management methodology
23 Clear responsibilities and accountability

As seen in Table 4.4 most of the CSF’s are from the Project Management factors,
second most from the Team factors, Product, Organizational and Communication
having the same amount, and Environmental the least. This spread of factors gives
4.5. Metrics 37

a reason to also weight the amount of questions on the same way. The best way to do
this is to ask one question on each of the factors. This is done only for the question-
naire held at the case companies. The reason for this is because a questionnaire is
more structured compared to interviews which helps to compare the project success
before and after the implementation (if an implementation is done). The interviews
on the other hand are used to support the results by the reason of triangulation.
The basis for choosing these critical success factors to be used for forming and fo-
cusing the questions on was because they can be affected by the new tailored frame-
work. There is no reason to choose factors that arguably cannot be affected.
To conclude, the difference between project success and project management
should be addressed. In literature there is a mention of reasons for project failure
from unsuccessful project management. These are; wrong basis for project, incom-
petent project manager, non-supportive top management, badly defined tasks, lack
of project management methods, management techniques not used well, and lack
of commitment (Munns and Bjeirmi, 1996). If these aforementioned points are com-
pared to the CSF’s in Table 4.4, it can be seen that all of these are well presented
which means that the CSF’s also give away any defects in the project management
part of project success.
 39

Chapter 5

Case Studies

5.1 Introduction to Case Companies

The companies used for the case research are both situated in Bogotá, Colombia. The
companies are called Canned Head, employing 14 persons, and Diip, employing 11
persons. Therefore, they are both classified as Very Small Entities (VSEs) based on
the ISO standard 29110; the companies employ less than 25 people. The European
Commission classifies the companies as SEs, small enterprises with less than 50 em-
ployees but more than 10.

5.1.1 Canned Head Studios

Canned Head Studios was established in 2015 by three entrepreneurs. Their main
products are the development of web pages, community management tools, search
engine marketing (SEM) solutions, web- and smart-phone applications, and digital
marketing solutions.
The organization is formed from six departments; development, design, sales,
marketing, customer relationships, and finance.
The company produces its products in a way of short intense projects. Each
project lasts approximately for 1 month and in a year there are close to 50 finished
projects. Hence there are over 4 projects per month, on each project works partly or
fully only 3 persons from development, 2 from marketing and 1 from design. The
project life cycle for each project follows similar steps as in the pure waterfall model.
First a meeting with a client from which the requirements are specified (also viewed
as conception). Then the project is initiated, the product requirements are analysed,
and a design for the product is created, all following the waterfall model. Then the
product is constructed, tested and deployed. All of these product development steps
are highly linked to cooperation from the customer’s side.
Canned Head Studios has began building a more detailed project process for
their product type with the highest demand called "web application". Web appli-
cation refers to a system that works on a web browser and is suitable for mobile
browsing, and which is used for interaction with the client’s customers. Developing
this kind of product is most requested by clients and therefore the most often devel-
oped product by the company. These projects are small and there is always a new
request around the corner. The company wishes to improve the process of develop-
ing web applications in order to increase the profitability and to decrease the project
duration.
The process improvement requires a deeper understanding of the AS-IS situation
at the company. As mentioned earlier the company has began their process mapping
with the help of the researcher. The current process is simplified in Figure 5.1 (look
Appendix A for a more detailed figure).
40 Chapter 5. Case Studies

F IGURE 5.1: Project flow chart of AS-IS for web application develop-
ment in Canned Head Studios.

The process of developing a web page consists of 34 phases. The phases are
explained in a more detailed fashion in Table 5.1.
Looking the detailed process flowchart in Appendix A the minimum time for
5.1. Introduction to Case Companies 41

TABLE 5.1: Web application process steps explained

# Label & Explanation WD*

1, 2 A| The client is received trough the sales team – the project man- 1
ager meets with the client and receives information on the re-
quired product
3 B| Based on the aforementioned information project proposal is 1
created
4, 5, 6 C| The project proposal is presented to the client and they are 3
given 2 days to decide
7 D| Introductory mail with registration is send to client – client’s 2
response is waited
8, 9, 10 E| 50 % of the product value is invoiced – client’s payment is 6
waited
11 F| Client is informed about the project initiation, schedule, etc. 1
12, 13, G| Product structure is created and send for the client – client’s 7
14, 15, response is waited, if it is no or if the client requests changes, 2
16 changes can be negotiated with extra charge
17 H| The final product structure is created 1
18, 19, I| A form requesting necessary details is send to the client, 7
20, 21, client’s response is waited and if still insufficient it is requested
22 again
23 J| A detailed work document and tasks are created with the 2
project deadline by with help from designers and programmers
24 K| The project is initiated internally and all the tasks related to 7
the product are done by the team members, this is a straight for-
ward process
25, 26, L| The finished product is shown to the client and client’s ac- 5
27, 28, ceptance is waited – if client does not accept final product, two
29 changes can be negotiated and created
30, 31, M| Invoice request for the rest of sale price is sent and client’s 7
32, 33, payment is waited – during the wait training is given for the
34 client and when the payment is received the web page is con-
nected to real domain and project is finalized
*WD = Working Days approximation based on interviews

a project to be done from beginning to finish is 27 days but mostly because of the
possible delays caused by the customer, the maximum time for a project comes to
56 days. This means that depending on whether the interaction between the client
and the company is not working fluently, a project can last approx. double of what it
would last if the interaction was instantaneous. Furthermore, in Table 5.1 the times
are averaged based on the interviews. There the total time comes to 49.5 working
days for a project duration.
In order to realize more clearly how the time is spent in the process and how
42 Chapter 5. Case Studies

much of that time is non-value adding, a value stream mapping (VSM) is performed
on the process. For this procedure the literature is followed and the main process
steps are identified (labelled in Table 5.1 as A, B, C,..) and these are put on a horizon-
tal line with vertical differences showing whether the process step is value added or
not. The VSM is shown in Figure 5.2.

F IGURE 5.2: Value Stream Mapping for Canned Head Studio’s Web
Application Development

From Figure 5.2 it is seen that for the process of developing web applications at
Canned Head the value added time is 26 days and the non-value added time is 24
days. By analysing the reasons behind the non-value added time i.e. waste, it comes
from the cooperation with the client. The process wastes approx. 24 days for waiting
for the client in a project. There are multiple points where the client does not either
respond in time or the client wants to make changes which causes great delays for
the project lead time.
It needs to be noted that here the process is seen as a whole from the first meeting
with the client to the termination of the project. A more detailed view on the value
added days would be necessary to find whether all hours in these days are actually
value added. Hence, the fact that 48 % of the total project time is already waste,
gives reason to focus on this problem instead of making a more detailed analysis.

5.1.2 Challenges faced by Canned Head

Based on the first interviews (before April 2017) shown in Appendix B there are
multiple challenges faced by the company. The most important ones which imply
problems in the project management practices are listed in Table 5.2:
These aforementioned causes and effects happening in the project management
area of the company indicate a strong need for more clear roles for team members
in projects; a project manager should have the main task of managing a project or
projects and this task should not be compromised for other tasks. Also, new pro-
cesses like reviewing what others have done should be in the agenda. Furthermore,
most of the challenges like budget, schedule, lack of skills, lack of well defined roles,
and handling simultaneous projects at once can be answered, to some extend, by im-
plementing suitable project management practices. Suitable methodology for defin-
ing roles, increasing quality, and increasing capability to handle multiple project can
be said to be Scrum. Suitable methodology for helping the projects stay within bud-
get and schedule can be said to be Lean project management. Basing the arguments
on the literature review part of this thesis.
For a deeper understanding on the overlaying causes for a low project success, on
top of the aforementioned ones, cause-and-effect diagram method can be used. This
diagram is developed based on the literature review Subsection 5.2 and it is shown
in Figure 5.3. Additionally, in order to categorize the causes, the success factors from
5.1. Introduction to Case Companies 43

TABLE 5.2: Cause and effect relation in Canned Head project man-
agement challenges

Cause Effect
Too many simultaneous projects com- Creates confusion and disorder
pared to workforce
Not enough time to the project deadline Resources work overtime and some-
times additional staff is hired which
creates more disorder and cost
Contract creation is difficult because Because of competition and the need
clients demand short deadlines and for work bad contracts are accepted
low budgets which means projects are not as prof-
itable as wanted
Developers lack skills and code does Hard to maintain and deliver high
not get reviewed enough quality
Because developers lack necessary Most of the work (60 %) is still done by
skills the three owners
Lack of a true project management fig- Assigned project managers spend more
ure time on other things rather than on
project management activities

a project management star are used. A project management star has two triangles on
top of each other like in the Star of David. The first triangle consists of scope, cost,
and time, and the second triangle consists of risk, quality, and resources. (Project
Management Institute, 2013)

F IGURE 5.3: Cause-and-Effect Diagram for Canned Head’s Project

Management Practices

As seen in the figure, the causes having an effect to the low project success are
happening in all of the areas defined by the project management star except in the
quality area. This figure mainly shows that the causes are spread on a wide range
of different areas so that a profound change in the project management methods is
necessary.
44 Chapter 5. Case Studies

5.1.3 Diip
Diip is a more matured company compared to Canned Head Studios. It was estab-
lished in 2008 by a single entrepreneur. Diip products comprise of film production,
post-production, graphic design, experimental and interactive design. The company
employs 11 people of which many have wide skill sets. The company has a yearly
revenue of around 300 000 euros but has stated their goal as to increase their revenue
up to 1 000 000 euros within 5 years. Some of the challenges for the company are:
lack of professionals in their field in Colombia, competition bringing the prices down
to unbearable level, lack of monitoring project progress, and poor overall methods
for managing projects on a high level.
A normal project for Diip has three main phases: pre-production, production,
and post-production (see figure 5.4).

F IGURE 5.4: Main processes for Diip to develop a product.

All of these processes are different and important for a successful product but
because of time restrains and the fact that agile project management has been most
proven in software development environments (Conforto et al., 2014), the natural
choice is to only take post-production under the case study which has most resem-
blance with software development process. Moreover, some projects of Diip only
use this aforementioned phase i.e. it is a major process requiring improvement.
The post-production process is not as well defined as it is with Canned Head
Studios. This is because there is no clear structure to the detailed operations and
only the main steps of the process are followed. These steps are shown in Figure 5.5.

F IGURE 5.5: Lightly detailed post-production process followed at

Diip.

There is no need for a deeper look into this development process hence this thesis
is scoped to only focus on the project management process. The fact is still that the
development process at Diip should be more detailed and this might currently be
causing some of the problems on top of the project managemenet related ones.
5.2. Collected Data and Analyses 45

5.2 Collected Data and Analyses

In this section all of the collected data from interviews, questionnaires, and observa-
tions is presented with the intention of continuing the chain of evidence which was
started in the beginning of this chapter. The information presented here is the main
aid for creating the tailored Agile project management framework.

5.2.1 Interviews
There were multiple interviews held for each of the case companies. The interview
pattern followed the pyramid model as mentioned in literature where the questions
began with predefined ones and ended with improvised ones. The main point for
the interviews was to collect general information about the companies hence both of
the companies were new for the researcher. Additionally some of the more impro-
vised and open questions did reveal deep information on the current project man-
agement practices at the companies.
Best way to present the information gathered from the interviews is to use cat-
egorizing methods with the main findings. For this the categories from the Critical
Success Factors are used which were Communication, Organizational, Environmen-
tal, Product, Team, and Project Management. The findings for Diip are shown in
Table 5.3 and for Canned Head in Table 5.4. For the whole interviews see Appendix
B.
In both Canned Head Studios and Diip the strong points are CSF Categories in
Communication, Product, and Team. The badly performing CSF Categories in both
cases are Organizational, Environmental, and Project Management.

5.2.2 Questionnaire
An identical questionnaire was held for both of the companies, for all of the avail-
able employees, and the company founders. The questionnaire had information in
the beginning stating that it is anonymous, respondents should answer truthfully
and there was information about how the questionnaire is formed. The researcher
was present with each of the respondents in case there were misunderstandings with
the questions. The last part of the questionnaire had open questions which are cat-
egorized as part of an interview, they are presented in the interview section (see
Section 5.2.1). All of the questions and the questionnaire itself can be found from
Appendix D.
In all of the questionnaire questions the answer was given in a scale from 1 to
5, where 1 represented a lot to improve and 5 nothing to improve. The questions
are based on the aforementioned CSF’s which can be seen from Table 4.4 and the
question numbers are directly connected to the CSF’s. The questions are listed in
Table 5.5
In Figure 5.6 the average results are shown as a bar chart for Diip’s answers. The
answers with average results less than 4 are shown next to their representative bars.
In Figure 5.7 the average results for Canned are shown. The reason for choosing
the answers averaging below 4 is because the framework developed in this study is
to achieve two main goals; it should be easily implementable and it should increase
the project performance. These two goals cross each other and therefore it is neces-
sary to make the line between how much contribution for the implementation can be made
and how much improvement is wanted. In this case the companies feel satisfied with
the level 4 and want to increase the success of the CFS’s below 4.
46 Chapter 5. Case Studies

TABLE 5.3: CSF Categories Linked with Interview Findings for Diip

Negative effect / Positive effect

CSF Category Finding

Communication Good communication between team members and
management
Organizational Lack of constant learning and improvement
Environmental Client is too involved – delays occur because client has
too much say in changes
Client’s needs are often misinterpreted – there is a need
to involve the creative employees in the process
Product Product quality is high – team members have good
technological knowledge
User requirements are realized well
Team Some roles are not well defined or not followed by em-
ployees
Team commitment is high
Concentration can be low at times
Project Management The availability of resources is not well known
Not enough feedback about projects
The team is not aware of the project progress or all of
the projects being carried out
Schedule forecasts are wrong – lack of knowledge on
resource availability knowledge
Lack of development process
Some reliabilities of roles are not followed – badly as-
signed roles

5.2.3 Observations
Because the researcher spent over three months working with the case companies on
a daily basis, observations happened continuously. A big importance for acquiring
information trough observations is to find proof of realness from the information
gathered via interviews and questionnaires. Additionally, observations add to the
validity of the data based on the triangulation theory. (Runeson and Höst, 2009)
In order to do the aforementioned, the poorly performing categories are enforced
by trying to find supportive arguments from the observation. The same is done for
the well performing categories.
In Communication it was noticed that the teams in both cases have a good level
of communication – the teams are situated in the same room and no one is afraid to
announce themselves when having problems or misunderstandings. On the other
hand, there was a noticeable amount of unnecessary communication between indi-
viduals in the same team or other teams. This could be also seen as a cultural differ-
ence from the researcher’s side. It can be confirmed that Communication category
5.2. Collected Data and Analyses 47

TABLE 5.4: CSF Categories Linked with Interview Findings for

Canned Head

CSF Category Finding

Communication Communication problems when changes are made ill-
informed to others
Overall communication between team members is
good
Organizational Lack of well defined processes
Environmental Problems with getting proactive feedback from client –
or information is not passed well to development team
Product Good quality is always reached in the end with user
requirements satisfied
Team Strong commitment from the employees
Teams feel empowered at all times
Task orientation is usually good
Project Management Poor task allocation in beginning of project – hard to
forecast and create reliable schedule
Transparency of tasks lacks uniformity – sometimes
tasks are given only face-to-face
Scheduling is made but it is not conformed
Lack of progress meetings during projects

does not need improvement. In the case of Canned Head’s questionnaire answers
the first answer point (#1 in Figure 5.7) was given less than a 4 average but with the
observations and interviews pointing to a higher point it can be arguably left out
from necessary improvements.
The Organizational CSF category does not get support or opposition from the
observations hence this would have required a longer observation time (CSF’s in
this category are Business process re-engineering and Increasing efficiency).
The Environmental category is one of the biggest weak points for both compa-
nies. The customer is truly not that well included with the development process for
Canned Head. There seems to be an unnecessary will to include the client as much
as possible in the beginning of the project but almost totally discontinue the face-
to-face communication after this – client is mostly only met if there are problems
which freeze the project process. With Diip there were no mentionable observations
concerning this category.
The Product category was one of the highlights for both of the companies. As a
witness for the end products, the researcher can confirm that the client is close on
always satisfied with the quality and the realized user requirements. Although this
is the case, this is done by wrong means. The team is pushed to the limit with long
days and overwhelming amounts of tasks. In the long run this is not sustainable for
neither of the companies. This being part of the Project Management category, it is
discussed in a forthcoming paragraph.
The Team category was a high performing one in the interviews but had some
48 Chapter 5. Case Studies

TABLE 5.5: Questions Asked in the Questionnaire

# Question
1 How would you rate the communication between all the participants in
projects?
2 How would you rate the cooperation between all the participants in
projects?
3 Have the project practices improved from project to project?
4 Has the efficiency of projects improved from project to project?
5 How much is the client involved with the projects?
6 How well is the quality of the product controlled?
7 How well are the user requirements realized?
8 How well are the project teams formed? Is the mixture and amount of team
members good?
9 How well is the team coordinated by the project manager or management?
10 How well do you understand the tasks given to you?
11 How would you rate the team commitment?
12 Do you feel trusted and supported (empowered) in a team?
13 How well are projects planned before projects and / or during projects?
14 How well is the project controlled? How well does the project steer towards
the goal?
15 How well are the project schedules kept?
16 How competent do you see the project manager(s)? If you are one, rate
yourself
17 Is the goal of a project usually clear to you?
18 How would you rate the availability of resources / workers in a project?
Are you usually doing more tasks than you can handle or do you have
time to finish all tasks on time?
19 How do you feel the project is monitored? Do you know how much of the
project is left and whether the project is going well or bad?
20 Do think there are enough project progress meetings and whether they are
performed well or badly?
21 Are project review meetings held, where you can give feedback, and are
they performed well or badly?
22 Are you aware whether some project management methodology is fol-
lowed in projects?
23 How clear are your responsibilities and accountability?

points below a 4 average from the questionnaire for both of the companies. These
points were "Select right project team" for Diip, and "Project team coordination" for
Canned Head. By using the observations these points can be understood better.
5.2. Collected Data and Analyses 49

F IGURE 5.6: Average Results from Questionnaire for Diip

There are not many employees at Diip, so the teams are forcibly formed. The real
problem for Diip lies on the Project Management side with the poorly elected and
followed roles. For Canned Head the project team is well coordinated with the used
methods but there is a lack of understanding of the development process and the
lack of project management methodologies does not help i.e. with a common under-
standing on the development and project management process the problem of team
coordination can be argued to be less severe. Finally, based on these arguments the
Team category can be left out from the necessary improvement points faced by the
Agile project management framework.
The Project Management category has within it most of the CSF’s and it is a
weakly performing one in both the interviews and the questionnaires. The main rea-
son for this is that in reality there is no real project management methodology that is
being followed. The formula is simple; plan a lot before the project is initiated and
trust the schedule and budget forecasts. These forecasts rarely come out as planned –
this was discussed in the problem definition part of this study. Additionally, there is
some knowledge on project management practices at both of the companies but this
knowledge is not put into use because the persons with this knowledge are too oc-
cupied with other tasks. Both of the companies are starting to realize the importance
of an exploited functional project management framework.
50 Chapter 5. Case Studies

F IGURE 5.7: Average Results from Questionnaire for Canned

5.3 Data Analysis with R-Studio

The data from the questionnaires is analysed in this section in order to support the
creation of the tailored agile project management framework.
First interest is to look at the questionnaire answers to see whether the results
from Diip and Canned Head Studios were similar. For this statistical analysis is
made following Section 4.3. The R code can be seen from Appendix E where the
normality tests, K-S and Shapiro-Wilk, resulted in p-values less than 0.5; the answers
are not normally distributed – hence the Mann-Whitney test was run.
The results from the final Mann-Whitney tests pointing out the questions that can
be considered statistically similar, with p > .05, are shown below (x = Canned Head Studios,
y = Diip).
5.3. Data Analysis with R-Studio 51

data: x$‘Question 2‘ and y$‘Question 2‘

W = 35.5, p-value = 1
alternative hypothesis: true location shift is not equal to 0

data: x$‘Question 3‘ and y$‘Question 3‘

W = 41.5, p-value = 0.52
alternative hypothesis: true location shift is not equal to 0

data: x$‘Question 17‘ and y$‘Question 17‘

W = 41.5, p-value = 0.5153
alternative hypothesis: true location shift is not equal to 0

data: x$‘Question 22‘ and y$‘Question 22‘

W = 34.5, p-value = 1
alternative hypothesis: true location shift is not equal to 0

Hence the results from questions 2, 3, 17, and 22 can be considered having the
same answers, only one which was considered to require improvement is ques-
tion number 22 (CSF: Project management methodology, Category: Project man-
agement). This means that Canned Head Studios and Diip both have same view
on the current condition of the usage of project management methodology which
on average is rated 3.2 for Canned Head and 3.4 for Diip. Finally, by looking at
these results it can be concluded that overall the companies cannot be viewed sim-
ilar which means that they should both have different tailored project management
frameworks.
Furthermore, a box plot was made for both of the companies’ answers which
displays the variance of the answers and the differences between the companies.
These two box plots are shown in figures 5.8 and 5.9.
5
4
3
2
1

Question 1 Question 5 Question 9 Question 13 Question 17 Question 21

F IGURE 5.8: Box Plot of Canned Head Questionnaire Answers

52 Chapter 5. Case Studies

5
4
3
2
1

Question 1 Question 5 Question 9 Question 13 Question 17 Question 21

F IGURE 5.9: Box Plot of Diip Questionnaire Answers

The box plots show that most of the answers for Canned Head are situated be-
tween 3 and 4, and most of the answers for Diip are situated between 4 and 5. Also,
the variance between answers is much lower for Diip and much higher for Canned
Head.

5.3.1 Collected Results from Data Analyses

The previous sections of this chapter have shown and analysed both the qualitative
data (interviews and observations), and the quantitative data (questionnaire). To
conclude this chapter these results are collected in this section, giving the base for
the tailoring effort.
The CSF’s for that require improvement by tools and methods from the tailored
framework are shown in Table 5.6:
These CSF’s will be connected with each of the framework suggested for each of
the companies.
5.3. Data Analysis with R-Studio 53

TABLE 5.6: CSF’s that need improvement (pointed by company

name)

Category CSF # Company

Communication Communication 1
Cooperation 2
Organizational Business process re-engineering 3 Canned, Diip
Increasing efficiency 4 Canned, Diip
Environmental Customer involvement 5 Canned, Diip
Product Quality control 6
Realization of user requirements 7
Team Select right project team 8
Project team coordination 9
Task orientation 10
Team commitment 11
Team empowerment 12
Project Project planning 13 Canned, Diip
management Project control mechanisms 14 Canned
Project schedule 15 Canned, Diip
Project manager’s competence 16 Canned
Clear project goal
Availability of resources 18 Canned, Diip
Project monitoring 19 Canned
Progress meetings 20 Canned
Project review and feedback 21 Canned
Project management methodology 22 Canned, Diip
Clear responsibilities and accountability 23 Canned, Diip
 55

Chapter 6

Tailored Framework

In this chapter the tailored framework is developed for both of the case companies.
The tailoring attempt is supported by the knowledge gathered in Chapters 5 and 2.
The aim is to develop a framework following the steps described in Section 2.4.

6.1 Selecting the Methodologies

Hence there are two case companies, the two sections explaining and presenting
the frameworks can be compressed so that the tailoring process is only followed for
Canned Head but not repeated for the Diip, where only the differences are shown.
Selecting the methodologies section follows the first 2 aforementioned steps from
Section 2.4.
1st step of the tailoring attempt is to recognize the beneficial and most suitable
project management methodology area. Whether to continue with methodologies
from Traditional and Agile or from Agile and Agile combination can be based on
the 4 factors; team size, criticality of project, amount of requirement changes during
a project, and work culture. These factors are shown in Table 6.1.

TABLE 6.1: Selection between Traditional and Agile hybrids

Selection Factor Value Preferred Methodology

Team Size Low (2-5 persons) Agile
Criticality of Project Low (over 50 projects per Agile
year)
Requirement Changes High Agile
Work Culture Start-up like (Chaos is Agile
present)

The table shows that the right methodology should be tailored from Agile method-
ologies, based on the method provided by (Lee and Yong, 2013).
2nd step is to select the most suitable methodologies under the Agile project man-
agement area. It has already been proven in the previous parts of this study that
Scrum and Lean are suitable for both of the case companies but this can be argued
further by comparing the most used agile methodologies (Litchmore, 2016) together
to find whether the argument of using Scrum and Lean actually holds. The compar-
ison is made in Table 6.2.
Table 6.2 shows a list of different Agile methodologies with small descriptions
and arguments whether the methodology is suitable or not. The researcher found
56 Chapter 6. Tailored Framework

TABLE 6.2: Comparison of Agile Methodologies modified from

(Litchmore, 2016)

Agile Methodology Definition Suitability

Adaptive Software De- Focuses on large and Not suitable, projects are
velopment (ASD) complex projects not large nor too complex
Agile Modelling For modelling and docu- Not suitable, lacks
(AMOD) menting a software based project management
system practices
Agile Unified Process Relatively easy approach Not suitable, aimed for
(AUP) for developing business large business software
application software us- development
ing agile techniques and
concepts
Business Analyst De- Method for designing Not suitable, designed
signer Methods (BADM) business change for business analysts
Crystal Clear Methods For small teams focusing Suitable, similar to scrum
on efficiency and people but focuses more on cod-
ing
Disciplined Agile Deliv- Combines multiple ag- Not suitable, too wide for
ery (DAD) ile methodologies, aimed easy implementation
for scaling
Dynamic Systems Devel- Focuses on project bud- Not suitable, does not
opment Method (DSDM) get and deadlines focus on time and re-
sources
Extreme Programming Focuses on the develop- Not suitable, not enough
(XP) ment method project management
practices
Feature-Driven Develop- Combines different in- Suitable, similar to scrum
ment (FDD) dustry best practices but focuses more on cod-
ing
Lean Software Develop- Uses lean manufactur- Suitable, adds value and
ment ing principles on soft- lacks research
ware development
Kanban (Development) Uses Kanban from manu- Suitable, also within
facturing for software de- Lean Software Develop-
velopment ment
Scrum An iterative and incre- Suitable, focuses mostly
mental agile method for on project management
managing software engi- side
neering projects
Scrumban Tries to merge Kanban Not suitable, already
and Lean but within Lean and Scrum
6.2. Selecting the Tools and Practices 57

that Crystal Clear Methods, FDD, Lean Software Development, and Kanban (De-
velopment) are the only truly suitable ones for Canned Head. Kanban can be re-
duced from the list because it is already included within the Lean framework. Crys-
tal Clear, FDD, and Scrum are all similar methodologies but Scrum is the one with
the largest acceptance in the industry which implies that it also has the most well
defined methodology. Therefore, Scrum can be chosen over Crystal Clear and FDD.
Additionally, one study declares that within the industry it is most common to have
Scrum supported by Lean as a followed framework (Wang, Conboy, and Cawley,
2012).
Finally, Scrum and Lean are chosen for the methodologies to be used for the
tailored project management framework.

6.2 Selecting the Tools and Practices

3rd step is to select the most beneficial methods and tools from the chosen method-
ologies. In order to aid the selection, the CSF’s from the Table 5.6 are used. The CSF’s
that need improvement and the tools and practices from both Lean and Scrum are
connected in Table 6.3.
For the selection of the tools all of the knowledge gathered during this study was
used; interviews, questionnaires, observations, and development process analysis.
For Canned Head and Diip the most suitable framework is to follow Lean method-
ology’s Continuous Improvement tool for beginning to involve business process re-
engineering into their organizational behaviour – this tool was also used partly in
this study for understanding that the client needs to be more involved with the de-
velopment at Canned Head. Both of the companies should also include JIT and
Kanban from Lean. This could be done hand-in-hand with the Sprint Backlog (also
for both of the companies).
As with the problems occurring with Customer involvement CSF, the compa-
nies should add the role of Product Owner and start following the values of Scrum
culture. The Project planning CSF can be increased by implementing the Sprint Plan-
ning practice from Scrum. The project schedule CSF was also low rated at both of
the companies. For this, the Sprint Backlog should be implemented. The availabil-
ity of resources CSF can be supported by implementing the Sprint Planning from
Scrum. This allows the teams to have a manageable workload. Moreover, both of
the companies should implement the Scrum Core Team to support having clear re-
sponsibilities and accountability. This basically means to involve the roles of Scrum
Master, Product Owner, and the Scrum Team. For Canned the project control mech-
anisms CSF should also increase after this implementation hence it covers the Scrum
Team.
Finally, there are some parts of the framework only for Canned Head which are
the Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective. By implementing these
the Project monitoring, Progress meetings, and Project review and feedback CSF’s
should increase after the implementation. The sections are shown next to the tools
and practices in Table 6.3 for the Companies to study.
58 Chapter 6. Tailored Framework

TABLE 6.3: Connecting the chosen CSF’s with available tools and
practices (Poppendieck and Poppendieck, 2003) (SCRUMstudy, 2016)

CSF Methodology Tool / Practice Company

Business process re- Lean Continuous Improve- Canned, Diip
engineering ment (Section 2.3.1)
Increasing efficiency Lean JIT, Kanban (Section Canned, Diip
2.3.6, 2.3.5)
Customer involve- Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Canned, Diip
ment Culture (Section 2.2.3,
2.2.4)
Project planning Scrum Sprint Planning (Sec- Canned, Diip
tion 2.2.3)
Project control mecha- Scrum Scrum Team (Section Canned
nisms 2.2.3)
Project schedule Scrum Sprint Backlog (Sec- Canned, Diip
tion 2.2.3)
Project Manager’s Scrum Scrum Master (Section Canned
competence 2.2.3)
Availability of re- Scrum Sprint Planning (Sec- Canned, Diip
sources tion 2.2.3)
Project monitoring Scrum Sprint Backlog (Sec- Canned
tion 2.2.3)
Progress meetings Scrum Daily Scrum (Section Canned
2.2.3)
Project review and Scrum Sprint Review, Sprint Canned
feedback Retrospective (Section
2.2.3)
Project management Scrum All previously as- Canned, Diip
methodology signed Scrum practices
cover for this
Clear responsibilities Scrum Scrum Core Team (Sec- Canned, Diip
and accountability tion 2.2.3)
 59

Chapter 7

Discussion of Findings

This is the final chapter of this thesis. It covers the conclusion, discussion, and fu-
ture work. In conclusion the big picture of the thesis is told, synthesized, the pieces
are fitted together, and the reasons for the importance of this thesis are further ex-
plained. In discussion the findings are given meaning by the researcher and how
valuable they are, and the reasons for their value. In future work the possible next
steps are considered, for the companies and academicians.

7.1 Conclusion
This thesis was written in hopes of creating a suitable and beneficial project man-
agement frameworks for two Colombian companies; Canned Head Studios and
Diip. The path of the thesis was to first analyse the companies using the Case
Study method in order to find the weak points in their project management prac-
tices. This was done by using literature for discovering applicable Critical Success
Factors (CSF’s) to be measured against both of the companies. Then the CSF’s were
used as a base in creating interviews and questionnaires with the aim of ranking the
CSF’s. Observations were used to back up the findings from the questionnaires and
interviews.
Additionally, the product development processes were analysed for understand-
ing whether there were some critical problems to be found. This was not the case
and the focus remained on the project management practices.
From ranking the CSF’s, it was discovered that both of the companies had some
weak performing CSF’s which could be enhanced by implementing a new project
management framework. Furthermore, the questionnaire results about the CSF’s
for the companies were statistically different – it was concluded that the companies
cannot share the same framework but need to have tailored ones for each.
The literature suggested that the most beneficial framework should be a tailored
one and from the Agile umbrella’s methodologies. By using both the weak perform-
ing CSF’s and the literature it was found that a tailored framework from Scrum and
Lean methodologies would be most suitable. Finally, the tools and practices from
the aforementioned methodologies were selected for each of the companies based
on their suitability.
There are multiple results from this thesis which amplify its importance. First, it
was discovered that there was a strong need for suitable project management prac-
tices at the companies. This can be argued to be the case with similar companies
around the world. Second, it was found that although the companies performed
differently on the CSF’s, suitable tools and practices were found for both from only
Scrum and Lean methodologies. This implies that tailoring Scrum and Lean together
60 Chapter 7. Discussion of Findings

is a good solution for other similar companies. Third, the failed implementation ef-
fort (See Section 7.2.1) supports the claims found from literature where it is said that
it requires high investments, time- and budget-wise, from companies trying to add
new project management practices into their organization. One person without pro-
fessional understanding of this kind of implementation is not enough. Additionally,
some considerations to be taken into account before implementation are presented
in this thesis.
Finally, this thesis provides not only frameworks for the case companies but also
an overall framework for other small companies wishing to improve their project
success, by presenting a way of discovering project performance and selecting right
methodologies to follow.

7.2 Discussion
It was found that both of the case companies lack a proper project management
framework. This affected the performance of the projects in the three dimensional
project goal; project cost, requirements, and time. Two of the under performing
dimensions were cost and time. This was one of the reasons to conduct the study of
tailoring new project management frameworks. The other reason for conducting the
study was the finding that there is a lack of proper understanding within academia
about tailoring project management methodologies and not enough studies done
considering the project management practices in small companies.
The case study analysis on the companies revealed more details on why the
projects were unsuccessful. Conducting interviews, questionnaires, and observa-
tions to measure the performance of project success CSF’s revealed that the com-
panies performed well on the Communication, Product, and Team categories but
badly on Organizational, Environmental, and Project Management categories. This
implies that in small companies the work environment is friendly and tight-knit and
the main focus is on delivering a quality product – on which both of the companies
succeeded well. On the other hand, the lack of followed project management frame-
works, badly assigned roles, and insufficient contact with the clients were seen as
the main reasons for the overall low success of projects.
In order for companies, like the ones been in this study, to increase their project
successes, it is necessary for them to run a similar analysis done in this thesis for
suitable CSF’s and a similar methods engineering effort in order to connect the weak
performing CSF’s with suitable methodologies.

7.2.1 Implementation Effort

In this subsection the implementation effort is discussed. During this study there
became a point of time where the researcher was forces to make a decision to start
an implementation effort at Canned Head although the framework was not final-
ized. This was because of the time frame of 5 months of which the first month was
spent on generating the problem and the second month on the literature review. The
deeper analysis on the CSF’s was just began at this point but because the projects
at Canned Head last approx. 1 month and at least 1 month would be needed for
the analysis, it was necessary to begin implementation efforts even without a clear
framework. From the initial analysis it was discovered that there are problems with
the roles, progress monitoring, and client cooperation. For this it was decided to
7.3. Future Work 61

begin implementing Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Daily Scrum practices to
address the aforementioned problems.
The researcher had a brief meeting with Canned Head’s management about
starting the implementation. The management agreed on this and pointed one of
the project managers at the company to support the researcher on the implementa-
tion.
After meeting with the project manager it came clear that the project manager
would be too busy to also have the role of Product Owner, and start holding the
Daily Scrum meetings. Furthermore, only person for being able to acquire the role
of Scrum Master would have been the researcher himself. Hence the researcher did
not fully understand the detailed processes involved with the development process,
he could not be assigned with the role of Scrum Master.
Because of the aforementioned problems, it was decided not to implement a
framework during this study.

7.3 Future Work

The next obvious step for the case companies is to begin planning how they will im-
plement the presented frameworks. The companies should invest time on reading
this thesis and the pages from the Lean and Scrum books shown in Appendix F. The
researcher feels that the best way for a successful implementation is that one of the
company employees who knows the organization should be given a new task for at
least 3 months to only focus on the implementation effort. In Section 2.2.5 are pre-
sented some questions the companies should ask themselves in order to find further
reason and motivation for beginning implementation. Additionally, the companies,
hence they are very accepting of a researcher’s / student’s presence, could invite
a researcher for aiding and recording the implementation effort. This would be a
logical continuum for this thesis.
Whether the companies succeed or not in the implementation, the results could
be studied and analysed in order to find whether the frameworks presented in this
thesis provide benefits. Furthermore, the work in this thesis should be repeated by
an other researcher for enforcing or challenging its functionality.
For academia, a gap in the literature was found; both methodologies Lean and
Scrum are widely studied regarding their successfulness but, for aiding the tailoring
effort, the researcher was unable to find a list of tools and practices from either the
Scrum or Lean side where the functionality of the tools and practices would have
been under critical inspection and whether they are independent of each other or
interconnected. This would have helped in linking the low performing CSF’s with
suitable methods.
 63

Appendix A

Canned Head Studios Project

Process Flowchart
64 Appendix A. Canned Head Studios Project Process Flowchart
Appendix A. Canned Head Studios Project Process Flowchart 65
66 Appendix A. Canned Head Studios Project Process Flowchart
Appendix A. Canned Head Studios Project Process Flowchart 67
68 Appendix A. Canned Head Studios Project Process Flowchart
Appendix A. Canned Head Studios Project Process Flowchart 69
 71

Appendix B

Interviews With the Case

Companies

TABLE B.1: General interview with Canned Head and Diip 6.2.2017
part 1

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: When was the company founded?
Canned Head: July 2015
Diip: 2008

Researcher: What is the target market and customer?

Canned Head: Agencies, big companies
Diip: SME’s, individuals, agencies, artists, music producers, pub-
licity agencies

Researcher: What does the company provide for its customers?

Canned Head: Services; web pages, community management, search engine
marketing, applications, web-based applications, digital mar-
keting
Diip: Production, post-production, design, graphic design, experi-
mental design, interactive design

Researcher: How many people work in the company?

Canned Head: 14
Diip: 11

Researcher: How would you categorize the employees?

Canned Head: Into development, design, marketing, and sales
Diip: Into administrative, design team, and marketing
72 Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies

TABLE B.2: General interview with Canned Head and Diip 6.2.2017
part 2

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: How many people in each category?
Canned Head: Development: 4, design: 2, marketing: 3, sales: 1, customer
relationships: 1, accounting: 1
Diip: Administrative: 3, design team: 6, marketing: 2

Researcher: Is the product development done as projects?

Canned Head: Yes
Diip: Yes and ongoing services

Researcher: What is the average length of a project?

Canned Head: 1 month
Diip: 1.5 months but exceptions of 6-8 months

Researcher: How many projects in a year?

Canned Head: 48
Diip: 80

Researcher: How many employees involved in a single project?

Canned Head: 3 for software and 2 from marketing but marketing juggles
other projects as well
Diip: 3 in design, 1 marketing, and 1 administrative

Researcher: How many simultaneous projects?

Canned Head: Around 25 for development and around 3 for marketing
Diip: Between 5 and 7 projects
Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies 73

TABLE B.3: Project process challenges interview with Canned Head

and Diip 6.2.2017 part 1

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: Do you have an existing project process of some kind?
Canned Head: Talk with the client, write the requirements, fit it with the re-
sources, even without resources projects are accepted, “har-
vest” and “asana” tools are used, every monday put the tasks
in asana and set up a goal, harvest and asana are connected,
asana timetable management, marketing time management
is harder because not done in asana.
Diip: Brief from client and diip proposes vision, negotiation of
price (customer decides), after this divide two administra-
tive and design teams. Administrative goes through all the
legal parts. The design team project manager, activities are
divided. Tasks subdivided for pre-production (the plan-
ning 1,5 weeks), production (actual work 2 days tops), post-
production (4 weeks). Asana is the task tool, and Google
drive is used.

Researcher: Biggest issue when thinking about the project process?

Canned Head: Not enough time, contract creating, quality (most important)
Diip: Not enough people because of the agreed budget always too
small and no hiring of workforce can be made

Researcher: Which part seems most problematic; initiating, planning, ex-

ecuting, monitoring & controlling, closing?
Canned Head: Monitoring and controlling is only done in harvest which
records the time used for each process step so this needs im-
provement. Also, in executing, 60 % of the work is performed
by the three founders and 40 % is done by the development
team. This is unwanted.
Diip: Monitoring done after the project, biggest issue with the plan-
ning of accurate duration of tasks

Researcher: Are projects finished on time; percentage of late?

Canned Head: 20 %
Diip: 5%

Researcher: Do projects run over budget; percentage of over?

Canned Head: 30 %
Diip: 25 %
74 Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies

TABLE B.4: Project process challenges interview with Canned Head

and Diip 6.2.2017 part 2

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: Does the project scope remain; percentage of narrower scope
at delivery?
Canned Head: Scope usually remains! Had a project where the understand-
ing between the client and the company was uncertain and
the company had to use over a year for creating what the
company actually wanted. This has not happened after-
wards.
Diip: Always at least the minimum. Sometimes scope changes to a
broader one

Researcher: What is the average quality / customer satisfaction percent-

age between 0 % and 100 %?
Canned Head: 95 %
Diip: 100 %

Researcher: Where is most improvement needed from the previous ques-

tions?
Canned Head: Most important is to stay within budget and that the projects
are delivered on time
Diip: Keeping budget needs most improvement, the customers pay
(6 months) after the project is finished

Researcher: Where do you see the company in 10 years? What is the over-
all goal?
Canned Head: 50 % of growth per year
Diip: Diip wants to grow and get the processes clear. 300 000 dol-
lars / yearly, after 5 years a 1000 000 / year
Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies 75

TABLE B.5: Interview with Diip’s project manager 8.3.2017 Part 1

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: Tell me about the post-production process?
Diip: First we go for a brief with a client after a request from the
client where they explain what they want and we present
what we can offer. We take 40 % of project value in advance,
30 % after the project has finished and 30 % after one month
of finishing. Sometimes it takes more time to get the pay-
ment from the customer. After the project has been agreed
with the customer the information goes to the accounting (ac-
counting process follows the same steps always) and also the
project manager is informed here. In post-production we use
the editing team which tasks are managed, controlled and
observed by the project manager. We follow similar post-
production pipeline as Dreamworks studios.

Researcher: Tell me about the personnel involved in post-production?

Diip: We have an operations manager who is the founder of the
company and also with the widest skill set, his main task is
to make sure that all the operations run smoothly. We have a
director of post-production who is supposed to be in charge
of the post-production process but instead he is mainly work-
ing on animation. We have an executive producer who’s main
tasks are sales, being in contact with the customers and pro-
posals. I am the project manager in charge of overall project
success by being in contact with clients and the operative
manager, I also manage the teams. Then we have an Illustra-
tor from whom the overall picture about the company comes
from. This person is very important for us, a key member.
We also have a director who’s task is mainly to keep cut the
film and make sure the flow is good. We have a junior ani-
mator and an animator. Other persons are in administrative
being in charge of sales and contact with clients and financial
things.

Researcher: How do you manage the team and the projects?

Diip: I use ASANA tool where I create and assign tasks for people.
Managing the team is mainly day to day thing as I am all the
time in contact with everybody. I set minor goals for tracking
the progress of a project.
76 Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies

TABLE B.6: Interview with Diip’s project manager 8.3.2017 Part 2

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: Are there some problems that come to mind in the project
process?
Diip: Some of the roles are not well defined. The director of post-
production can be more focused on animation on example
than on the actual task which would be to focus on manag-
ing the post-production process. Sometimes the client is too
involved with the design and decisions on final design get
delayed a lot. Sometimes we do not involve the client and we
need to make change in very late in the project to satisfy the
customer.
Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies 77

TABLE B.7: Interview with Canned Head’s project manager 22.3.2017

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: I heard from the management that you started to manage 3
projects, tell me shortly about these projects?
Canned Head: Actually I manage around 7 projects. But one is currently on
its beginning phase as I’m ready to send a mock-up (a web
page image showing some of it’s main parts) to a customer.

Researcher: What is your role for these projects and tell about your typical
project?
Canned Head: I have many roles. I manage the projects and I’m also a prod-
uct owner and I do other tasks demanded by the manage-
ment. For a project I usually use ASANA to set out tasks but
sometimes I do not have time so I delegate tasks face to face.
One of the hard parts about a project for me is the time esti-
mations I get from developers which are usually too long and
inaccurate. Other problems I face is the overall time man-
agement. I can manage my time well but when I get new
tasks from the management or when a customer suddenly
demands something the days become almost too busy.

Researcher: How are the teams for each project, how many persons, and
what are their roles?
Canned Head: I have two team members in a usual project and me of course;
one in development and one in design, I do other tasks such
as being in contact with the client to create the requirements
and control the changes asked by the customer. Because I
have so many simultaneous projects my schedule is really
full.

Researcher: How long do you expect each project will last?

Canned Head: A project should last for one month and this is what we call
a sprint. Usually this is the time we aim at but regarding on
the customer it can last more or even can be finished before
deadline. Usually, though, we go over the deadline.
78 Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies

TABLE B.8: Interviews with All Diip Employees 1.4 - 17.4.2017 Part 1

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: What are the main improvement elements in projects from
your point of view?
Respondent 1: I think that organization and prioritization are key in project
performance, since sometimes projects can not be completed
in time because we are starting other projects. I suggest orga-
nizing times and defining priorities for the projects better.
Respondent 2: More feedback among all, and make the team aware of all the
projects that are being carried out so that everyone is on the
same page.
Respondent 3: Better communication between the client, executives and the
"creative" employees. If ideas were developed between the
three, they would be better and better suited to users, times
and tools.
Respondent 4: Improve the calculation of the schedule that is offered to the
client in contrast to the available human resources.
Respondent 5: Problems can be seen in efficiency of time, concentration of
employees, pro-activity towards clients needs, constant im-
provement and constant learning of.
Respondent 6: We must improve on the tracking of goals and elaboration
of schedules, because we do not follow a specific method of
project management, then there is no order or steps to follow
at the moment when a project starts. Currently it’s all very
intuitive.
Respondent 7: Network; we no longer use pen-drives, build a better net-
work for that.
Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies 79

TABLE B.9: Interviews with All Diip Employees 1.4 - 17.4.2017 Part 2

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: What are the main successful elements in projects from your
point of view?
Respondent 1: The management supervision and the accompaniment of the
directors of the area the efficiency of the team and their will-
ingness to the projects.
Respondent 2: I think there is a good synergy between all the elements of the
team, that is, we get along and that helps to make the work
more efficient with better results.
Respondent 3: A very good quality in terms of the technical knowledge. The
people who work here are very good, even though we are
few.
Respondent 4: Excellent communication within the groups and as well the
constant professional challenges being faced.
Respondent 5: Friendly work environment. Cute projects to perform. Posi-
tive leadership. Quality.
Respondent 6: Timely delivery on the date agreed with the customer. Also,
we keep the customers involved at all times in the process,
which is why the final product is successful because we al-
ways went hand in hand with them and we could interpret
what was their final desire.
Respondent 7: The team, everyone is really good in their field.
80 Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies

TABLE B.10: Interviews with All Canned Head Employees 1.4 -

17.4.2017 Part 1

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: What are the main improvement elements in projects from
your point of view?
Respondent 1: As for the development of projects, a point to improve can be
to better estimate the delivery times, allocate as many tasks as
possible when starting a project to estimate the time of each
task.
Respondent 2: Establish all user cases together with the client from the be-
ginning so as not to make last-minute adjustments to cus-
tomer requests.
Respondent 3: Better planning.
Respondent 4: Better scheduling, normally it is hard to get the full content
and feedback from the client.
Respondent 5: Improvement in planning and communication during the
project. Many changes are made on the fly and there are very
few team meetings. The work will also be more efficient if the
teams are constructed better.
Respondent 6: Lack of personnel, lack of well defined processes.
Respondent 7: Communication, monitoring and reviewing of projects need
improvement.
Respondent 8: Be clear about the scope of the project and the processes to
carry them out.
Respondent 9: Increase the number of meetings so that the whole team is
aware of their tasks for the week and goals to meet in front
of the team and the client. Better detail and understanding of
the need of the client and work to be done.
Respondent 10: It is necessary to organize the projects better, to handle the
schedule and to conform to the scheduled thing.
Appendix B. Interviews With the Case Companies 81

TABLE B.11: Interviews with All Canned Head Employees 1.4 -

17.4.2017 Part 2

Person Question / Answer

Researcher: What are the main successful elements in projects from your
point of view?
Respondent 1: One of the elements, in my opinion, the most successful has
been the commitment of all members, regardless of the area
in which they operate, and I also consider that support and
unconditional support are always present, in order that ev-
eryone, and in my particular case, grow personally and pro-
fessionally. Another important element is the seriousness and
the effort with which each project and each client are always
faced, and thus always deliver a quality product.
Respondent 2: The knowledge that the working group has for effective
decision-making when carrying out a project.
Respondent 3: The communication.
Respondent 4: The teams are good.
Respondent 5: The main successes are commitment and teamwork.
Respondent 6: Commitment, good communication with the client and end
product quality.
Respondent 7: Commitment, teamwork, compliance.
Respondent 8: The commitment and knowledge of the team.
Respondent 9: Have a clear and friendly communication with the client from
the beginning to the end. That the team takes responsibility
for their tasks. (Commitment in times of delivery). Perfec-
tionism. Help in the team. Make the project clear from every
point of view. (For each department as: design - develop-
ment).
Respondent 10: Teamwork, commitment and coordination
 83

Appendix C

Consent Agreement

Consent Agreement 
Name of Researcher: Perttu Villehard Puonti 
Contact Information: [email protected] 
 
Purpose of empirical study: 
 
Studying the effects of agile software development methodology implemented in a 
company where the current methodology is based on traditional methods in order 
to see whether this brings benefits. The effects are analyzed by using interviews 
conducted from different individuals inside the company before and after the 
implementation of new methods. 
 
Procedures: 
 
Some of the main elements in the project management practices will be changed 
e.g. roles of team members, meeting times and frequencies, and task management 
procedures. Additionally, the process under study will be examined before the 
implementation by using tools e.g. flowcharting and value stream mapping. 
 
Participation, risk, and benefit: 
 
Participation is voluntary from the individuals and names of the participants will 
not be published. There is a risk that the change in project management practices 
will hurt the success / outcome of the pilot project. No matter what the result of this 
study is, there are benefits for the company. An outsider’s viewpoint brings 
valuable information on the organizational system’s functioning and tells whether 
it is a good idea to rethink the project management approaches used in the 
company. 
 
 
 
 
23.3.2017, Bogotá, Colombia 
Date and Place 
 
 
__________________       ___________________       ___________________ 
Perttu Puonti ​             ​ ​Juan David Florez ​       ​Oscar Otero 
 
 
___________________       ___________________  
Sergio Rodríguez          Julián Martínez 
 85

Appendix D

Questionnaire for Canned Head

Studios

29/03/2017 Before Implementation / Antes de la implementación

Before Implementation / Antes de la implementación
The intention of this questionnaire is to find out how the organization views its project management 
process currently ­ what is good and what is bad / La intención de este cuestionario es averiguar 
cómo la organización ve actualmente su proceso de gestión de proyectos: lo que es bueno y lo que 
es malo

*Required

1. What is your role in the company? Checkmark all the roles you have / ¿Cuál es tu rol en la
empresa? Marque todos los roles que tiene *
Tick all that apply.

 Developer / Desarrollador
 Designer / Diseñador
 Project Manager / Manager de proyectos
 Community manager
 Writer / Escritor

 Other: 

Notes for respondents / Notas para los encuestados

This questionnaire is anonymous / Este cuestionario es anónimo 
 
Read all the questions carefully / Lea todas las preguntas cuidadosamente 
 
Answer truthfully / Responda con sinceridad 
 
Remember that in the scale 5 means perfect with nothing to improve and 1 means imperfect with a lot 
to improve / Recuerde que en la escala 5 significa perfecto con nada que mejorar y 1 significa 
imperfecto con mucho que mejorar 
 
This questionnaire tries to find out the performance of projects so when answering think as generally 
about projects in your company as possible / Este cuestionario trata de averiguar el desempeño de los 
proyectos en general, cuando responda piense sobre los proyectos de su empresa de la forma más 
general  posible

2. How would you rate the communication between all the participants in projects? / ¿Cómo
calificaría la comunicación entre todos los participantes en los proyectos? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Totally satisfactory /
Totally unsatisfactory / Totalmente
Totalmente
insatisfactorio
satisfactorio

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dCG8TTrwy5sy-ilw0z_A9vfZ4PTnTRXK09qE7cF-n44/edit 1/6
29/03/2017 Before Implementation / Antes de la implementación
3. How would you rate the cooperation between all the participants in projects? / ¿Cómo
calificaría la cooperación entre todos los participantes en los proyectos? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Totally satisfactory /
Totally unsatisfactory / Totalmente
Totalmente
insatisfactorio
satisfactoria

4. Have the project practices improved from project to project? / ¿Las prácticas del proyecto
han mejorado de un proyecto a otro? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Not at all / De ningún Substantially /
modo Sustancialmente

5. Has the efficiency of projects improved from project to project? / ¿Ha mejorado la
eficiencia de los proyectos de un proyecto a otro? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Not at all / De ningún Substantially /
modo Sustancialmente

6. How much is the client involved with the projects? / ¿Qué tanto está involucrado el cliente
en los proyectos? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Barely at all / En Substantially /
absoluto Sustancialmente

7. How well is the quality of the product controlled? / ¿Se controla la calidad del producto? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Not at all / De ningún Substantially /
modo Sustancialmente

8. How well are the user requirements realized? / ¿Qué tan bien se cumplen los requisitos del
usuario? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Barely / Apenas Fully / Completamente

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dCG8TTrwy5sy-ilw0z_A9vfZ4PTnTRXK09qE7cF-n44/edit 2/6
29/03/2017 Before Implementation / Antes de la implementación
9. How well are the project teams formed? Is the mixture and amount of team members
good? / ¿Qué tan bien están formados los equipos del proyecto? ¿Es buena la mezcla y la
cantidad de miembros del equipo? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Unsuccessfully / Sin éxito Successfully / Exitosamente

10. How well is the team coordinated by the project manager or management? / ¿Qué tan bien
está coordinado el equipo por el gerente o director del proyecto? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Unsuccessfully / Sin éxito Successfully / Exitosamente

11. How well do you understand the tasks given to you? / ¿Qué tan bien entiendes las tareas
que te han sido asignadas? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Barely / Apenas Completely / Completamente

12. How would you rate the team commitment? / ¿Cómo calificaría el compromiso del equipo?
*
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Fully committed /
Not committed at all / No
Totalmente
comprometido en absoluto
comprometido

13. Do you feel trusted and supported (empowered) in a team? / ¿Sientes apoyo y credibilidad
(empoderado) en un equipo? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Barely / Apenas Completely / Completamente

14. How well are projects planned before projects and / or during projects? / ¿Qué tan bien se
planifican los proyectos antes de los proyectos y / o durante los proyectos? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Barely at all / En absoluto Successfully / Exitosamente

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dCG8TTrwy5sy-ilw0z_A9vfZ4PTnTRXK09qE7cF-n44/edit 3/6
29/03/2017 Before Implementation / Antes de la implementación
15. How well is the project controlled? How well does the project steer towards the goal? /
¿Qué tan bien se controla el proyecto? ¿Qué tan bien dirige el proyecto hacia la meta? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Barely at all / En absoluto Successfully / Exitosamente

16. How well are the project schedules kept? / ¿Qué tan bien se mantienen los calendarios del
proyecto? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Barely at all / Apenas en Successfully /
absoluto Exitosamente

17. How competent do you see the project manager(s)? If you are one, rate yourself / ¿Cuán
competente ve el (los) gerente (s) del proyecto? Si usted es uno, califiquese usted mismo *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Fully competent /
Not at all competent / Lo mas
Totalmente
minimo competente
competente

18. Is the goal of a project usually clear to you? / ¿La meta de un proyecto suele ser clara para
usted? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Not at all / De ningún modo Fully / Completamente

19. How would you rate the availability of resources / workers in a project? Are you usually
doing more tasks than you can handle or do you have time to finish all tasks on time?
¿Cómo calificaría la disponibilidad de recursos / trabajadores en un proyecto? ¿Suele
hacer más tareas de las que puede manejar o tiene tiempo para terminar todas las tareas a
tiempo? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Poor availability / Mala Successful availability /
disponibilidad Disponibilidad exitosa

20. How do you feel the project is monitored? Do you know how much of the project is left and
whether the project is going well or bad? / ¿Cómo siente que el proyecto es monitoreado?
¿Sabe cuánto del proyecto queda y si el proyecto va bien o mal? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Successfully
Unsuccessfully monitored / monitored /
Monitorizado sin éxito Monitorizado
correctamente

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dCG8TTrwy5sy-ilw0z_A9vfZ4PTnTRXK09qE7cF-n44/edit 4/6
29/03/2017 Before Implementation / Antes de la implementación
21. Do think there are enough project progress meetings and whether they are performed well
or badly? / ¿Crees que hay suficientes reuniones de progreso del proyecto y si se realizan
bien o mal? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Sufficient and
Barely any meetings / Casi
successful / Suficiente
ninguna reunión
y exitoso

22. Are project review meetings held, where you can give feedback, and are they performed
well or badly? / ¿Se llevan a cabo reuniones de revisión de proyectos donde se puede dar
retroalimentación? Se realizan bien o mal? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Sufficient
and
No project review meetings / No hay
successful /
reuniones de revisión del proyecto
Suficiente y
exitoso

23. Are you aware whether some project management methodology is followed in projects? /
¿Sabe si se sigue alguna metodología de gestión de proyectos? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Some methodology is
I believe none is followed / followed successfully /
Creo que no se sigue ninguno Algún método se sigue
con éxito

24. How clear are your responsibilities and accountability? / ¿Cuán claras son sus
responsabilidades y su responsabilidad? *
Mark only one oval.

1 2 3 4 5

Not clear at all / No está claro en Totally clear /
absoluto Totalmente claro

25. What are the main improvement elements in projects from your point of view? / ¿Cuáles
son los principales elementos de mejora de los proyectos desde su punto de vista? *
 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dCG8TTrwy5sy-ilw0z_A9vfZ4PTnTRXK09qE7cF-n44/edit 5/6
29/03/2017 Before Implementation / Antes de la implementación
26. What are the main successful elements in projects from your point of view? / ¿Cuáles son
los principales elementos exitosos en los proyectos desde su punto de vista? *
 

Powered by

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dCG8TTrwy5sy-ilw0z_A9vfZ4PTnTRXK09qE7cF-n44/edit 6/6
 91

Appendix E

R Code

# Clear console

cat("\setminus014")

# Combine data to usable values

x <- c(Canned)
y <- c(Diip)

# ks.test for all Canned Head Questionnaire answers

ks.test(x$‘Question 1‘, pnorm)

ks.test(x$‘Question 2‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 3‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 4‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 5‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 6‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 7‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 8‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 9‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 10‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 11‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 12‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 13‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 14‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 15‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 16‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 17‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 18‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 19‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 20‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 21‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 22‘, pnorm)
ks.test(x$‘Question 23‘, pnorm)

# ks.test for all Diip Questionnaire answers

92 Appendix E. R Code

ks.test(y$‘Question 1‘, pnorm)

ks.test(y$‘Question 2‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 3‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 4‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 5‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 6‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 7‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 8‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 9‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 10‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 11‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 12‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 13‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 14‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 15‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 16‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 17‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 18‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 19‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 20‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 21‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 22‘, pnorm)
ks.test(y$‘Question 23‘, pnorm)

# shapiro.test for all Canned Questionnaire answers

#(only Question 15 p>0.5)

shapiro.test(x$‘Question 1‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 2‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 3‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 4‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 5‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 6‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 7‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 8‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 9‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 10‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 11‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 12‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 13‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 14‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 15‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 16‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 17‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 18‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 19‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 20‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 21‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 22‘)
shapiro.test(x$‘Question 23‘)
Appendix E. R Code 93

# shapiro.test for all Diip Questionnaire answers

shapiro.test(y$‘Question 1‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 2‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 3‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 4‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 5‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 6‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 7‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 8‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 9‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 10‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 11‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 12‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 13‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 14‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 15‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 16‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 17‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 18‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 19‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 20‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 21‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 22‘)
shapiro.test(y$‘Question 23‘)

# wilcox.test comparing Canned Head and Diip Questionnaire

# answers (Canned Head Question 15 was the only
# one with p value over 0.5 from shapiro.test but Diip had none.
# For Levene’s test comparing Diip and
# Canned Head answers requires both p values to be over 0.5.
# Hence they weren’t, only wilcox.test - equivalent
# to the Mann-Whitney test - is done.)

wilcox.test(x$‘Question 1‘, y$‘Question 1‘)

wilcox.test(x$‘Question 2‘, y$‘Question 2‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 3‘, y$‘Question 3‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 4‘, y$‘Question 4‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 5‘, y$‘Question 5‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 6‘, y$‘Question 6‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 7‘, y$‘Question 7‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 8‘, y$‘Question 8‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 9‘, y$‘Question 9‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 10‘, y$‘Question 10‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 11‘, y$‘Question 11‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 12‘, y$‘Question 12‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 13‘, y$‘Question 13‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 14‘, y$‘Question 14‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 15‘, y$‘Question 15‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 16‘, y$‘Question 16‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 17‘, y$‘Question 17‘)
94 Appendix E. R Code

wilcox.test(x$‘Question 18‘, y$‘Question 18‘)

wilcox.test(x$‘Question 19‘, y$‘Question 19‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 20‘, y$‘Question 20‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 21‘, y$‘Question 21‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 22‘, y$‘Question 22‘)
wilcox.test(x$‘Question 23‘, y$‘Question 23‘)

# Box plot of Questionnaire answers from Canned and Diip

boxplot(x)
boxplot(y)
 95

Appendix F

Tools and Practices from Scrum

and Lean Listed with Sources

TABLE F.1: Lean Software Development tools from book ’Lean

Software Development: An Agile Toolkit’ (Poppendieck and Pop-
pendieck, 2003)

Tool Name Page Number

Continuous Improvement 136-140
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) 22-27
Kanban 76-81
Just-in-Time (JIT) 65-67
5S 18-22

TABLE F.2: Scrum practices from book ’A Guide to the Scrum Body
of Knowledge (SCRUMstudy, 2016)

Practice Name Page Number

Scrum Core Team 41, 103
Product Owner 41, 43-45, 300
Scrum Master 41, 45-47, 309
Scrum Team 156, 309
Sprint 33, 36-37, 178, 295, 310
Sprint Planning 34, 208, 311
Daily Scrum (Daily Stand-up Meeting) 223-224, 286, 289
Sprint Review 34, 247, 311
Sprint Retrospect 236, 249-253
Product Backlog 111, 266, 300
Prioritized Product Backlog 86, 90, 100, 110-111, 167-173, 190, 300
Sprint Backlog 205-209 ,311
Release Planning Schedule 174-179, 304
Scrum Culture 22-23
 97

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