Paper 75-Challenges and Solutions of Agile Software Development
Paper 75-Challenges and Solutions of Agile Software Development
Abstract—One healthcare organization in Indonesia has develop. The condition creates scaling problems, which
implemented Agile software development (ASD) to complete require head adaptation and expansion of basic dexterity
software development. The organization's problems are post- methods [2]. The problem is also the case in Saudi Arabia,
deployment system bugs, and some software development where participants agreed that adopting Agile can be difficult
projects must carry over to the following year. This study aims to when dealing with customers from government bodies, as the
assess and provide recommendations for improving agile working style tends to be based on Waterfall. They are
software development by identifying the challenges faced. usually unwilling to be involved in the development team
Research conducts literature reviews on previous research to and require comprehensive documentation.
identify challenges in ASD in several organizations. Research is
also conducted using quantitative methods by surveying software One of the organizations in Indonesia provides health
development teams to validate implementation challenges and services to the people of Indonesia of 265 million
provide recommendations for these challenges. The results of this participants. In providing health services to all participants,
study were in the form of a survey attended by thirty-one the organization collaborates with health facilities in
respondents. The study results found that 14 challenges were Indonesia, such as hospitals or doctor's clinics. The
faced in other organizations, and 11 were faced by one healthcare organization is a public legal entity, a government, and a
organization in Indonesia. Healthcare organizations in Indonesia bureaucrat with racy characteristics. The organization runs
can apply recommendations to make awareness related to
the business using technology and digitalization. The
understanding agile software development culture and make
demand for IT development is increasing, in addition to the
adjustments to project documentation by aligning with agile
values.
demand for speed in project completion, and the limited
numbers of teams are challenges in completing system
Keywords—Agile Software Development; challenge solutions; development. Organizations have IT resources in the
IT projects; information technology; application implementation; software development process.
healthcare organization; Literature Review Ninety-six applications are run and developed by the
I. INTRODUCTION organization's development team, most of which use the
waterfall method. In 2022, project development will be
Information technology (IT) can improve customer dominated by projects with a high urgency category, with a
service and become an efficient tool. IT implementation is percentage of 43%, as shown in Fig. 1 [5]. This development
often considered one of the most challenging initiatives for request requires a rapid completion of development, but
organizations, including in the government sector [1]. there are unclear requirements due to policy changes in the
Several organizations have changed their software organization.
development methods from Waterfall to Agile. By adopting
the Agile method, organizations get several benefits, such as The organization in the case study implemented an agile
shorter time, increased flexibility in handling changing software development project. However, in its
needs, increased productivity, and better alignment between implementation, standards or frameworks have not been
business and IT [2]. Agile methods also need to maintain implemented as a reference. The problems were that some
predictability and controllability [3]. Another agile principle projects carried over to the following year, and there were
is to welcome changing software development needs and complaints from application users post-implementation. The
produce software that works regularly with a preference for number of bugs adds work to the I IT development team,
shorter timeframes [4]. where the same group currently holds the development and
maintenance functions [6].
However, transforming into an organization operating in
the public sector, especially in an organization with a In study [6] by looking at some of the existing problems
complex hierarchical structure such as government, is not and impacts, evaluating and improving the software
easy to change the existing bureaucracy. The existence of development process using Agile is necessary. This
layers of bureaucracy can hinder the application of agile evaluation is for the software development process to
methods [1]. Large organizations usually have many become better, achieve targets, and produce quality products
products and products that are too large for a single team to as stated in the organization's vision and mission and the
organization's vision and mission. Evaluation is being done
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Fig. 6. This graph shows numbers representing the percentage of 31 respondents from the one that strongest agrees to the not agree.
1) A Challenge of the highest percentage: Fig. 6. shows each documentation requires the approval of each
three challenges with high percentage values, including unit". In previous studies [2], many organizations faced
project documentation, managing requirements, and cultural challenges related to inadequate documentation and the
behavior. Most respondents agree with these challenges in opposite issue of excessive documentation that wastes
time and resources on unnecessary information. Agile
implementing agile software development in organizations.
development presents a solution through a streamlined
Project documentation. This factor gets the highest approach to comprehensive documentation that
percentage in the context of technology. One requires less time and effort. However, it is crucial for
respondent mentioned in answering an open-ended upper management to support this approach and for
question on the questionnaire that "current project customers to agree upon it from the project's inception
documentation is not yet flexible. The characteristics of [3], [11].
documentation are currently still waterfall-based where
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Culture and structure of an organization. In previous these challenges are challenges in implementing agile
research [3], it was also stated that the primary software development.
challenge in adopting Agile lies in the culture and
structure of an organization. For Agile to thrive, there Interpersonal conflict. This factor gets the lowest score,
must be a genuine embrace of Agile values and namely 26%, meaning that the team is good enough or
principles. A hierarchical organizational structure often has no internal conflict, which is a challenge in agile
poses a significant hurdle to Agile adoption since it implementation. Leadership challenges get the highest
necessitates redistributing power and responsibility score, namely 65.2%, then agile values, 60.9%, and the
from management to the development team. other three challenges, namely personal commitment,
Additionally, Agile thrives in a dynamic, supportive, decision making, and individual competence, get the
and collaborative environment, which rigid same deal, 52%.
organizational cultures can hinder. Competency is not a challenge in implementing agile,
Respondent's statements related to this challenge were "It and this has something to do with demographic results
takes a common understanding between the IT team and because most respondents are workers with more than
UKPF in implementing the agile process," Statements from five years of experience, so they have abilities in their
other respondents, "The entire team must understand the goal fields.
of agile," and "The team is not yet familiar with the concept 3) An Additional Challenge from respondents: Different
of agile comprehensively."
challenges are identified from the case study based on the
The current organizational structure is still suitable for open-ended question at the end of the questionnaire, in which
the Waterfall methodology. One of the respondents the organization experiences another challenge, namely
mentioned, "Basically, the organizational structure is still Overloading work. Based on one of the respondents' answers,
waterfall-based, and each unit works on unit coordination. It "Another challenge is the unbalanced workload of each
should be project-based, and an agile team should be more
programmer. A programmer must be able to do many things
independent and committed."
briefly simultaneously, causing stress from the programmer's
Managed Requirement. The challenges faced by IT psychological side. Something like this needs to be resolved
project management received the highest score, by the project manager on how user needs are balanced with
namely, 34.8% agreed, and 52.2% strongly agreed. existing resources," and the other, "The challenge is the lack
This factor is a challenge to the organization's agile of resources so that one person holds several applications that
implementation. Regardless of project management
are being chased by the dateline at the same time."
tools, the respondent stated, "There are no valid tools
that are used for project monitoring. So far, they have B. Recommendation
relied on Excel". There are no tools for project Based on the challenges faced by the organization, the
monitoring or tools that can be used for standard team researchers then provide recommendations that can be taken
collaboration by the entire team. The team found it in the future to make changes to current conditions. Later, it
difficult to see the progress of each process in system is hoped that the organization will get better results from
development. Another problem is that there is no agile implementation and support organizational goals. The
project manager role in the team, making it difficult for recommendations are as follows.
the team to conduct project development tasks.
The following are recommendations based on previous
2) A Challenge of the lowest percentage: Based on Fig. 6, research, and recommendations are given based on the
3 challenges with high percentage values are project results of questionnaires that get a percentage of agree and
documentation, management requirements, and culture strongly agree with a value of more than 50%. The
behaviour, which get high scores. Most respondents agree that recommendations are given in Table IV.
TABLE IV. RECOMMENDATION IN TECHNOLOGY CONTEXT
Challenge Recommendation
Technique & Ceremony Use tools or technologies to support Agile work in the organization [3]. E.g., Trello or Jira
Lack of discipline in the development processes Build a Continuous Delivery pipeline with stages involving both sides[4]
Communicate only essential points that need to be documented. Agile identifies critical
important points to include in documentation, which is the main focal point for each
Project Documentation
methodology.[15] Meetings assist individuals in a proper understanding of how to collect
Lacks sufficient documentation to support its development
information and through what medium the process of gathering information will be
beneficial [15]
A strong culture requires a deep understanding of the organization's goals
Culture Behavior & Agile Values
Show success stories of agile adoption.
The organization shows resistance or lack of encouragement in
transitioning to agile values. Provide training and increase employee awareness and acceptance of new culture [3].
[3]
Communication Running an effective meeting [16]
Communication and coordination among team members are Regular face-to-face meetings should be established, as they provide clear communication
ineffective. [7] [13]
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Challenge Recommendation
Transparency and efficiency in communication [4].
Agile teams operate differently from traditional project management structures as they do
not rely on project managers. Instead, Agile methodologies like Scrum and XP outline
Management Requirement specific roles such as the product owner, scrum master, and coach. These roles are designed
The project schedule is delayed, requirements are unclear, and there
to facilitate effective collaboration and ensure the smooth execution of Agile practices. By
is little anticipation in handling changes.
assigning responsibilities to these distinct roles, Agile teams can streamline communication,
enhance productivity, and adapt quickly to changing project requirements. [17].
Roles in Project Team Reorganize the team by forming small teams, like the scrum team, to create a dedicated
The roles of the team are not clearly defined, leading to minimal team responsible for agile development [18].
contributions and duplicated work.
Involving top-level management in the change planning and implementation process can
Top Level Management
increase the sense of ownership and responsibility.
There is a lack of top-level management support and little
knowledge of the execution process. Hire outside experts to be involved in team adaptation as this can provide a better
recommendation of benchmarks [18].[15]
Internal Policy Creating standards for IT software development on an internal basic policies and supporting
Inadequate agile adoption of skills, experiences, and knowledge. existing management can support agile implementation [1]
Collaboration Use tools or technologies to support Agile work in the organization [3]. E.g., Trello Jira or
Team collaboration is limited because team members are spread out bit bucket [4]
in different locations.
Organization Structure Create a small project team like the Scrum team [1].
Organizing meetings is challenging due to convoluted bureaucratic Arrange a dedicated team that is responsible for agile development [18].
processes. Channeling expert's efforts to address high-level issues and to manage collaboration [4].
They used to meet weekly and later twice a month, only when required and usually
Overloading of work after working hours.
This factor is a challenge in agile implementation. Individuals get Skipping the daily meetings affected the learning process between the team members.
more than one job at the same time. This factor eventually led to the failure to learn and implement the agile method
correctly [11].
awareness related to agile culture among all IT employees.
V. CONCLUSION Regarding problems in Project Documentation, organizations
Researchers conducted a literature review of several can adjust project documentation to align with agile values.
previous studies and identified challenges in implementing Problems in organizations with bureaucracy, such as
ASD in other organizations with characteristics of the public government, making changes in the development process
sector, government, or bureaucracy. Researchers use become obstacles because of the many administrative
quantitative methods with surveys to validate and facilitate processes and approvals given to superiors. Therefore,
the exploration of the challenges in implementing ASD in organizations can adjust the project team to match the role in
One healthcare organization in Indonesia. This method is Agile. Agile using the roles contained in scrum. By
simple but can solve the problems faced. It is a differentiator assigning responsibilities to these different roles, Agile
from previous research [8] studies used challenge validation teams can streamline communication, increase productivity,
using document observation. and adapt quickly to changing project requirements [17].
Based on several previous studies, 14 challenges faced by 1) Research implications: Other similar organizations can
organizations were obtained. This study's findings determine use the results of this study to see the challenges in agile
what challenges and recommendations can be provided for implementation and solutions from best practices suitable for
the organization. Based on the survey results, researchers organization healthcare or bureaucratic governance.
found 11 challenges with a percentage value above 50%, 2) Limitations of suggestions for further research: This
agreeing that challenges to other organizations. The three
study has several limitations on the respondents. Respondents
challenges with the highest survey results are project
documentation, IT Project Management, and cultural are still limited to the software development technical team.
behavior. At the same time, the 3 challenges with the lowest Future research can be carried out for other IT teams, such as
survey results were below 50%, which means that most IT operations and IT infrastructure.
respondents disagreed that these challenges were felt today
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