Viktoria Stray

Selected publications

Stray, Viktoria, and Nils Brede Moe. 2020. “Understanding Coordination in Global Software Engineering: A Mixed-Methods Study on the Use of Meetings and Slack.” Journal of Systems and Software 170 (December): 110717 (open access). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2020.110717

Stray, Viktoria, Nils Brede Moe, and Mehdi Noroozi. 2019. “Slack Me If You Can! Using Enterprise Social Networking Tools in Virtual Agile Teams.” Proceedings - 2019 ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Global Software Engineering, ICGSE 2019, 111–21. Download paper. https://doi. org/10.1109/ICGSE.2019.00031

Florea, Raluca, Viktoria Stray, and D.I.K. Sjøberg. 2023. “On the Roles of Software Testers: An Exploratory Study.” Journal of Systems and Software 204 (open access). https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.jss.2023.111742

Stray, Viktoria, Raluca Florea, and Lucas Paruch. 2022. “Exploring Human Factors of the Agile Software Tester.” Software Quality Journal 30: 455–481 (open access). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11219-021-09561-2

Moe, N.B., V. Stray, D. Smite, and M. Mikalsen. 2023. “Attractive Workplaces: What Are Engineers Looking For?” IEEE Software, 1–8 (open access). https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2023.3276929

Florea, Raluca, and Viktoria Stray. 2019. “The Skills That Employers Look for in Software Testers.” Software Quality Journal 27 (4): 1449–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-019-09462-5

Stray, Viktoria, Jan Henrik Gundelsby, Rasmus Ulfsnes, and Nils Brede Moe. 2022. “How Agile Teams Make Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) Work.” In ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, 104–9 (open access). https://doi.org/10.1145/3529320.3529332

Stray, V., Memon, B., Paruch, L. 2020. “A Systematic Literature Review on Agile Coaching and the Role of the Agile Coach.” In: Morisio, M., Torchiano, M., Jedlitschka, A. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12562. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64148-1_1

Bai, Aleksander, Viktoria Stray, and Heidi Mork. 2019. “"What Methods Software Teams Prefer When Testing Web Accessibility” Advances in Human-Computer Interaction Article ID 3271475, 14 pages (open access). https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/3271475

Stray, Viktoria, Nils Brede Moe, and Gunnar R. Bergersen. 2017. “Are Daily Stand-up Meetings Valuable? A Survey of Developers in Software Teams.” In Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming, XP 2017, Cham: Springer International Publishing, edited by Hubert Baumeister, Horst Lichter, and Matthias Riebisch, 274–81 (open access). https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-319-57633-6_20

Stray, Viktoria, Nils Brede Moe, and Dag I.K. Sjoberg. 2020. “Daily Stand-Up Meetings: Start Breaking the Rules.” IEEE Software 37 (3): 70–77. https://doi.org/10.1109/MS.2018.2875988.

Stray, Viktoria, Dag I. K. Sjøberg, and Tore Dybå. 2016. “The Daily Stand-up Meeting: A Grounded Theory Study.” Journal of Systems and Software 114 (April): 101–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jss.2016.01.004

Stray, Viktoria Gulliksen, Nils Brede Moe, and Torgeir Dingsøyr. 2011. “Challenges to Teamwork: A Multiple Case Study of Two Agile Teams.” In: Sillitti, A., Hazzan, O., Bache, E., Albaladejo, X. (eds) Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming. XP 2011. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 77. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Download paper. https: //doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20677-1_11

• Saltz, Jeffrey; Anderson, Edward; Sutherland, Alex & Stray, Viktoria (2024). Agile and Lean: Organization, Products and Development. In Bui, Tung X. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 57th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). ISSN 978-0-9981331-7-1. Show summary

  gile and Lean software development methods have become ubiquitous during the past two decades and have been shown to decisively improve the rapidity and success of software projects. However, the rise of virtual teams and ever more complex products have changed the context for which these methods were originally developed. The result are new organizational challenges that threaten to make Agile and Lean irrelevant. Additional pressure comes from new methods such as DevOps and BizDevOps that are increasing team diversity. Agile and Lean research, however, has not kept pace with these changes, creating the risk that Agile and Lean may become irrelevant in the near future.

• Ulfsnes, Rasmus; Berntzen, Marthe; Moe, Nils Brede; Barbala, Astri Moksnes; Sporsem, Tor Thorsrud & Stray, Viktoria (2024). Exploring the Organizational Models for Data Science in Agile Software Development: Challenges and Strategies from a Multi-Case Study. In Bui, Tung X. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 57th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). ISSN 978-0-9981331-7-1.
• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede; Bergersen, Gunnar R. & Kirkerud, Jeanette (2024). Behavioral Aspects of Agile Software Development: A Case Study on Meeting Practices . In Bui, Tung X. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 57th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). ISSN 978-0-9981331-7-1. p. 7720–7729. Show summary

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

• Barbala, Astri Moksnes; Sporsem, Tor Thorsrud & Stray, Viktoria (2023). Data-Driven Development in Public Sector: How Agile Product Teams Maneuver Data Privacy Regulations. In Stettina, Christoph Johann; Garbajosa, Juan & Kruchten, Philippe (Ed.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming: 24th International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2023, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 13–16, 2023, Proceedings. Springer. ISSN 978-3-031-33976-9. p. 165–180. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-33976-9_11. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Datafication processes, the ongoing strive for making organizations data-driven, have in recent years entailed data-focused software projects and more interdisciplinary teamwork. Simultaneously as agile product teams have been directed towards increased use of data for software development, stronger data protection regulations such as GDPR have further complexified the software developer role, whose responsibilities and expectations now expand far beyond mere coding. Seeking to develop an understanding of how data-intensive product teams in the public sector maneuver the legal hurdles emerging in the wake of data governance, this paper builds on 19 interviews with members of two agile product teams in the Norwegian organizations NAV and Entur. Our findings indicate that including a legal expert in the team can boost confidence in data handling practices and avoid delays in deliveries, but it requires effort to synchronize and overcome interdisciplinary barriers.

• Olsen, John Olav; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2023). Business Development in Large-Scale Agile Software Development: Barriers and Enablers. In Kruchten, Philippe & Gregory, Peggy (Ed.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming – Workshops: XP 2022 Workshops, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 13–17, 2022, and XP 2023 Workshops, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 13–16, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. Springer. ISSN 978-3-031-48550-3. p. 161–170. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-48550-3_16. Show summary

  Currently, many financial organizations must undergo a digital transformation. In this study, we investigated a transformation in a Norwegian fintech company with the aim of understanding how the tasks performed by business development can be better aligned with the work of cross-functional development teams. Specifically, we examined the enablers and barriers to coordination between business development and software product development in large-scale agile software development. The organization under study had 25 software product development teams that followed an in-house agile model. We collected data by conducting 13 interviews and collecting various documents. Our findings suggest that having cross-functional fora, having a common understanding of what business development is, and coaching the whole organization to be more agile can improve coordination between business and software development.

• Liu, Zixuan; Stray, Viktoria & Sporsem, Tor Thorsrud (2023). Organizational Debt in Large-Scale Hybrid Agile Software Development: A Case Study on Coordination Mechanisms. In Kruchten, Philippe & Gregory, Peggy (Ed.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming – Workshops: XP 2022 Workshops, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 13–17, 2022, and XP 2023 Workshops, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, June 13–16, 2023, Revised Selected Papers. Springer. ISSN 978-3-031-48550-3. p. 75–84. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-48550-3_8. Show summary

  Software development is a complex human-centered activity, increasingly complicated by agile organizations scaling and adopting hybrid work. While technical debt has been extensively studied, other forms of debt-organizational, process, cultural, and social-have received less attention. We conducted a case study using ten semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis to identify coordination mechanisms used in large-scale hybrid agile. We identified organizational debt challenges such as a lack of shared mental models, team coordination, team cohesion, and team learning. Also, the hybrid working arrangement was found to create tension between increased individual autonomy and team objectives, as well as between team autonomy and inter-team coordination. We found 23 coordination mechanisms that the teams used to address challenges in their organization. We propose that implementing many of these mechanisms may help manage organizational debt.

• Rosenkranz, Christoph; Stray, Viktoria & Wiesche, Manuel (2023). Call for Papers, Issue 1/2025, The Future of Systems Development: Managing Technology, Social, and Individual Aspects. Business & Information Systems Engineering (BISE). ISSN 2363-7005. doi: 10.1007/s12599-023-00819-6.
• Tkalich, Anastasiia; Moe, Nils Brede; Andersen, Nina Haugland; Stray, Viktoria & Barbala, Astri Moksnes (2023). Pair Programming Practiced in Hybrid Work, Proceedings of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). IEEE conference proceedings. ISSN 978-1-6654-5223-6. doi: 10.1109/ESEM56168.2023.10304797. Full text in Research Archive
• Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria; Smite, Darja & Mikalsen, Marius (2023). Attractive Workplaces: What Are Engineers Looking for? IEEE Software. ISSN 0740-7459. 40(5), p. 85–93. doi: 10.1109/MS.2023.3276929. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Competing for talents requires a conscious effort to offer an attractive workplace, which, until recently, involved increasing employee empowerment and engagement and offering opportunities for bottom-up innovation. Today, this is not sufficient, pushing tech companies to harmonize existing strategies with remote work.

• Berntzen, Marthe; Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Hoda, Rashina (2023). Responding to change over time: A longitudinal case study on changes in coordination mechanisms in large-scale agile. Empirical Software Engineering. ISSN 1382-3256. 28. doi: 10.1007/s10664-023-10349-0. Full text in Research Archive
• Florea, Raluca Madalina; Stray, Viktoria & Sjøberg, Dag (2023). On the roles of software testers: An exploratory study. Journal of Systems and Software. ISSN 0164-1212. 204. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2023.111742. Full text in Research Archive
• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede; Vedal, Henrik Aspenes & Berntzen, Marthe (2022). Using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Slack: A Case Study of Coordination in Large-Scale Distributed Agile. In Bui, Tung (Eds.), The proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. University of Hawai'i at Manoa. ISSN 978-0-9981331-5-7. p. 7360–7369. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

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

• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede; Strode, Diane & Mæhlum, Emilie (2022). Coordination value in Agile software development: a multiple case study of coordination mechanisms managing dependencies. In Prechelt, Lutz & Rodríguez-Pérez, Gema (Ed.), CHASE '22: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering . Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 978-1-4503-9342-3. p. 11–20. doi: 10.1145/3528579.3529182. Show summary

  Background: Agile software projects involve a high degree of coordination between project members to manage complexity and frequent change. There is a need to understand what coordinating mechanisms are valuable for project and team coordination. Coordination mechanisms, such as meetings and Slack, can foster a smooth workflow but also fragment work by interrupting the focused work of developers. Objective: This study aimed to investigate valuable coordination mechanisms and how they can be balanced against the need for uninterrupted work periods. Method: We conducted 30 interviews and observed 109 meetings in five companies using agile software development methods. We used coordination-dependency mapping to identify valuable coordination mechanisms. Results: Valuable coordination mechanisms included instant messaging tools, daily stand-up meetings, boards, open work area, Scrum of Scrums, bug crush days, BizDev meetings, and Make it Happen meetings. Conclusion: We advise companies to identify valuable coordination mechanisms using coordination-dependency mapping and then to bundle, schedule, and substitute these coordination mechanisms to reduce interruptions to development work.

• Stray, Viktoria; Gundelsby, Jan Henrik; Ulfsnes, Rasmus & Moe, Nils Brede (2022). How agile teams make Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) work. In Carleton, Anita (Eds.), ICSSP'22: Proceedings of the International Conference on Software and System Processes and International Conference on Global Software Engineering. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 978-1-4503-9674-5. p. 104–209. doi: 10.1145/3529320.3529332. Show summary

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

• Moe, Nils Brede; Ulfsnes, Rasmus; Stray, Viktoria & Smite, Darja (2022). Improving productivity through corporate hackathons: A multiple case study of two large-scale agile organizations. Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). ISSN 1530-1605. p. 7310–7319. doi: 10.24251/HICSS.2022.878. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Software development companies organize hackathons to encourage innovation. Despite many benefits of hackathons, in large-scale agile organizations where many teams work together, stopping the ongoing work results in a significant decrease in the immediate output. Motivated by the need to understand whether and how to run hackathons, we investigated how the practice affects productivity on the individual and organizational levels. By mapping the benefits and challenges to an established productivity framework, we found that hackathons improve developers' satisfaction and well- being, strengthen the company culture, improve performance (as many ideas are tested), increase activity (as the ideas are developed quickly), and improve communication and collaboration (because the social network is strengthened). Addressing managerial concerns, we found that hackathons also increase efficiency and flow because people learn to complete work and make progress quickly, and they build new competence. Finally, with respect to virtual hackathons we found that developers work more in isolation because tasks are split between team members resulting in less collaboration. This means that some important, expected hackathon values in virtual contexts require extra effort and cannot be taken for granted.

• Berntzen, Marthe; Hoda, Rashina; Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2022). A taxonomy of inter-team coordination mechanisms in large-scale agile. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. ISSN 0098-5589. 49(2), p. 699–718. doi: 10.1109/TSE.2022.3160873. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In large-scale agile software development, many teams work together to achieve overarching project goals. The more teams, the greater the coordination requirements. Despite the growing popularity of large-scale agile, inter-team coordination is challenging to practice and research. We conducted a case study over 1.5 years in a large-scale software development firm to better understand which inter-team coordination mechanisms are used in large-scale agile and how they support inter-team coordination. Based on a thematic analysis of 31 interviews, 113 hours of observations, and supplemental material, we identified 27 inter-team coordination mechanisms. From this, we offer the following contributions. First, we propose a taxonomy of inter-team coordination with three categories: coordination meetings, such as communities of practice, inter-team stand-ups, and retrospectives; coordination roles, such as the program architects and the platform team; and coordination tools and artefacts, such as Slack and JIRA as well as inter-team task boards, product backlogs, and roadmaps. Second, the coordination mechanisms displayed combinations of four key characteristics, technical, organizational, physical, and social (TOPS), which form the basis of the TOPS framework to capture the multifaceted characteristics of coordination mechanisms. Technical relates to the software product and/or technical tools supporting software development. Organizational pertains to the structural aspects of the organization. Physical refers to tangible or spatial characteristics. Social captures interpersonal and community-based characteristics. Finally, the taxonomy and the TOPS framework provide a knowledge base and a structured approach for researchers to study as well as for software practitioners to understand and improve inter-team coordination in large-scale agile.

• Gustavsson, Tomas; Berntzen, Marthe & Stray, Viktoria (2022). Changes to team autonomy in large-scale software development: a multiple case study of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) implementations. International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management. ISSN 2182-7796. 10(1), p. 29–46. Full text in Research Archive
• Mikalsen, Marius; Moe, Nils Brede; Wong, Sut I & Stray, Viktoria (2021). Agile Information System Development Organizations Transforming to Large-Scale Collaboration. In Valacich, Joe (Eds.), ICIS 2021 Proceedings. Association for Information Systems (AIS). ISSN 978-1-7336325-9-1. Show summary

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

• Ulfsnes, Rasmus; Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Smite, Darja (2021). Innovation in Large-scale agile - Benefits and Challenges of Hackathons when Hacking from Home. In Gregory, Peggy & Kruchten, Philippe (Ed.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming – Workshops: XP 2021 Workshops, Virtual Event, June 14–18, 2021, Revised Selected Papers. Springer. ISSN 978-3-030-88582-3. p. 23–32. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-88583-0_3. Full text in Research Archive
• Lindsjørn, Yngve; Almås, Steffen & Stray, Viktoria (2021). A Case Study of Teamwork and Project Success in a Comprehensive Capstone Course . NIKT: Norsk IKT-konferanse for forskning og utdanning. ISSN 1892-0713. 4. Show summary

  Teamwork is essential in agile software development projects. Therefore, software engineering students who participate in a software engineering capstone course involving teamwork are better prepared for the industry. This study investigated student teams over three years in a comprehensive capstone course offered by the University of Oslo. The collaboration between the students involved in the course changed from in person in 2019 to virtual in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we aimed to explore the differences in teamwork and the effect on project success when the student teams collaborated in person versus virtually. A mixed-methods case study was conducted. The quantitative data consisted of surveys representing 126 student teams and 595 individual respondents. The qualitative data included eight semi-structured interviews. The results indicate that the student teams in such software engineering capstone courses perform well even when collaborating virtually, but they are less satisfied than they are when in person. The student teams found it hard to motivate themselves when they suddenly had to work virtually. Still, the motivation increased when they found ways to collaborate and make the project case exciting. The teams found adequate collaboration tools and managed to carry out the teamwork virtually. Even though it was harder to work virtually, project success was not significantly affected. The student teams that performed well also used virtual collaboration proficiently.

• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede; Mikalsen, Marius & Hagen, Elin (2021). An Empirical Investigation of Pull Requests in Partially Distributed BizDevOps Teams. In Bendraou, Reda & Smite, Darja (Ed.), 2021 IEEE/ACM Joint 15th International Conference on Software and System Processes (ICSSP) and 16th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE). IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 978-1-6654-1401-2. p. 110–119. doi: 10.1109/ICSSP-ICGSE52873.2021.00021. Full text in Research Archive
• Vedal, Henrik Aspenes; Stray, Viktoria; Berntzen, Marthe & Moe, Nils Brede (2021). Managing Dependencies in Large-Scale Agile. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. 426, p. 52–61. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-88583-0_6. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

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

• Berntzen, Marthe; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2021). Coordination Strategies: Managing Inter-team Coordination Challenges in Large-Scale Agile. In Gregory, Peggy; Lassenius, Casper; Wang, Xiaofeng & Kruchten, Philippe (Ed.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming: 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Virtual Event, June 14–18, 2021, Proceedings. Springer. ISSN 978-3-030-78097-5. p. 140–156. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_9.
• Stray, Inga Viktoria Ågesdatter Gulli; Tkalich, Anastasiia & Moe, Nils Brede (2021). The Agile Coach Role: Coaching for Agile Performance Impact. Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). ISSN 1530-1605. p. 6816–6825. doi: 10.24251/HICSS.2021.817. Full text in Research Archive
• Stray, Viktoria; Florea, Raluca-Madalina & Paruch, Lucas (2021). Exploring human factors of the agile software tester. Software quality journal. ISSN 0963-9314. p. 1–27. doi: 10.1007/s11219-021-09561-2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Although extensive research has been conducted on the characteristics of the agile developer, little attention has been given to the features of the software-testing role. This paper explores the human factors of the software testers working in agile projects through a qualitative study focusing on how these factors are perceived. We interviewed 22 agile software practitioners working in three international companies: 14 testers, five developers, and three designers. Additionally, we observed 11 meetings and daily work of 13 participants in one of the companies. Our findings show that the views on the human factors shaping the agile software tester’s role were crystallized into seven traits, which the agile team members saw as central for the software-testing role: the ability to see the whole picture, good communication skills, detail-orientation, structuredness, creativeness, curiosity, and adaptability. The testers spent half their day communicating and learned how to mitigate the fact that they had to bring bad news to other project members. They also facilitated communication between the business side and development. Based on our results, we propose the seven traits as dimensions to consider for organizations recruiting agile software testers, as well as a reference for IT and non-IT professionals considering a software-testing career.

• Smite, Darja; Mikalsen, Marius; Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria & Klotins, Eriks (2021). From Collaboration to Solitude and Back: Remote Pair Programming During COVID-19. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. 419, p. 3–18. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_1. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Along with the increasing popularity of agile software development, software work has become much more social than ever. Contemporary software teams rely on a variety of collaborative practices, such as pair programming, the topic of our study. Many agilists advocated the importance of collocation, face- to-face interaction, and physical artefacts incorporated in the shared workspace, which the COVID-19 pandemic made unavailable; most software companies around the world were forced to send their engineers to work from home. As software projects and teams overnight turned into distributed collaborations, we question what happened to the pair programming practice in the work-from-home mode. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of remote pair programming in two companies. We conducted 38 interviews with 30 engineers from Norway, Sweden, and the USA, and used the results of a survey in one of the case com- panies. Our study is unique as we collected the data longitudinally in April/May 2020, Sep/Oct 2020, and Jan/Feb 2021. We found that pair programming has decreased and some interviewees report not pairing at all for almost a full year. The experiences of those who paired vary from actively co-editing the code by using special tools to more passively co-reading and discussing the code and solu- tions by sharing the screen. Finally, we found that the interest in and the use of PP over time, since the first months of the forced work from home to early 2021, has admittedly increased, also as a social practice.

• Stray, Viktoria; Bakhtawar, Memon & Paruch, Lucas (2020). A Systematic Literature Review on Agile Coaching and the Role of the Agile Coach. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS). ISSN 0302-9743. LNCS, 12562, p. 3–19. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-64148-1_1. Show summary

  There has been a recent increase in the use of agile coaches in organizations. Although the use of the job title is popular, empirical knowledge about the tasks, responsibilities and skills of an agile coach is lacking. In this paper, we present a systematic literature review on agile coaching and the role of the agile coach. The initial search resulted in a total of 209 studies identified on the topic. Based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 67 studies were selected as primary studies. Our findings suggest that agile coaching facilitates the adoption and sustainability of agile methods and deals with agile adoption challenges. Agile coaches help in training and developing software development teams and all the stakeholders involved in the agile adoption process. The primary skills of an agile coach identified herein are leadership qualities, project management skills, technical skills, and expertise in agile methods. Based on the findings, it can be argued that agile coaches play a significant role in addressing challenges in an agile transformation such as resistance to change. Coaches focus on removing barriers to team autonomy in agile teams and making agile meetings more valuable.

• Jøsang, Audun; Stray, Viktoria & Rygge, Hanne (2020). Threat Poker: Gamification of Secure Agile. In Hölbl, Marko; Rannenberg, Kai & Welzer, Tatjana (Ed.), 35th IFIP TC 11 International Conference on ICT Systems Security and Privacy Protection (IFIP SEC 2020). Springer. ISSN 978-3-030-58200-5. p. 142–155. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-59291-2_10.
• Holgeid, Knut Kjetil & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Factors Promoting Software Project Escalation: A Systematic Review. In IEEE, Computer Society (Eds.), 2020 IEEE 22nd Conference on Business Informatics (CBI 2020) . IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 978-1-7281-9926-9. p. 280–289. doi: 10.1109/CBI49978.2020.00037. Show summary

  A vast amount of resources is wasted on software projects delivering less than the planned benefits. The objective of this paper is to investigate the tendency to continue a project even when it is evident that it will not provide the expected benefits, often referred to as “project escalation” or “escalation of commitment.” We aim to identify factors that empirically have been found to promote software project escalation. We examined 1376 papers related to the phenomenon of escalating commitment to software projects and found that 44 of them included relevant empirical research. After reviewing these papers, we synthesized the results. We provide an overview of 46 factors that have been found to promote software project escalation. Thirteen of the factors were project-related, 20 were psychological factors, nine were social factors, and four were structural factors related to the project's contextual dimensions. We contribute to practice by systemizing empirical evidence of software project escalation that can be of help in avoiding it in the first place and uncovering already escalated situations. As most studies are investigations of only a few factors, we propose further research to study how factors potentially interplay as they contribute to escalation of software projects.

• Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria & Goplen, Marcus R. (2020). Studying Onboarding in Distributed Software Teams: A Case Study and Guidelines. In Li, Jingyue; Jaccheri, Maria Letizia; Dingsøyr, Torgeir & Chitchyan, Ruzanna (Ed.), EASE '20: Proceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9781450377317. p. 150–159. doi: 10.1145/3383219.3383235. Full text in Research Archive
• Florea, Raluca-Madalina & Stray, Viktoria (2020). A Qualitative Study of the Background, Skill Acquisition, and Learning Preferences of Software Testers. In Li, Jingyue; Jaccheri, Maria Letizia; Dingsøyr, Torgeir & Chitchyan, Ruzanna (Ed.), EASE '20: Proceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9781450377317. p. 299–305. doi: 10.1145/3383219.3383252.
• Paruch, Lucas; Stray, Viktoria & Blindheim, Charlotte Bech (2020). Characteristic Traits of Software Testers. In Li, Jingyue; Jaccheri, Maria Letizia; Dingsøyr, Torgeir & Chitchyan, Ruzanna (Ed.), EASE '20: Proceedings of the Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9781450377317. doi: 10.1145/3383219.3383270.
• Mikalsen, Marius; Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Backer, Idun (2020). Shifting conceptualization of control in agile transformations. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. 396, p. 173–181. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58858-8_18. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Agile transformation implies that organizations apply agile methods also outside of software development units. One particular way of doing such transformations is to create cross-functional software development units. This represents new challenges for control for organizations as the unformal agile control mechanisms from the software units meet the more formal, bureaucratic and hierarchical control from other units. The research on how to manage control in agile transformations, however, is scarce. Through a case study of a new, cross-functional unit in a financial institution, we report on their work to implement control in agile transformations. To analyze our results, we draw on new perspectives for control in the digital era, which challenges existing presumptions on control. Our findings indicate how agile transformations require rethinking traditional control mechanisms and experiment with new control perspectives more suitable for the digital era.

• Paruch, Lucas; Stray, Viktoria & Florea, Raluca-Madalina (2020). The human factors of the agile software tester. Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS). ISSN 1865-0929. 1266, p. 474–487. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58793-2_38.
• Løvold, Henrik Hillestad; Lindsjørn, Yngve & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Forming and Assessing Student Teams in Software Engineering Courses. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. p. 298–306. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58858-8_31. Show summary

  In software development projects, working in teams is essential. Therefore, software engineering courses often require the students to be working in teams to learn about team work behaviors and practices. The instructors of software engineering courses are presented with several challenges when teaching courses that require teamwork. For example, how to form high-performing student teams, and how to assess their work. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether there are differences in performance whether the students form the teams themselves, or if the teams are formed by the instructor. We evaluated a course involving agile software development by 200 students working in 39 teams. A total of 76% of the students chose to form their own teams, the remaining 24% were placed in teams by the instructors. Our findings indicate that teams formed by the students perform slightly better than the teams formed by the instructors.

• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2020). Understanding coordination in global software engineering: A mixed-methods study on the use of meetings and Slack. Journal of Systems and Software. ISSN 0164-1212. 170. doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2020.110717. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

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

• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Sjøberg, Dag (2020). Daily Stand-Up Meetings: Start Breaking the Rules! IEEE Software. ISSN 0740-7459. 37(3), p. 70–77. doi: 10.1109/MS.2018.2875988. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Daily stand-up meetings are commonly used for software teams to collaborate and exchange information, but conducting them in a way that benefits the whole team can be challenging. We describe factors that can affect meetings and propose recommendations for improving them.

• Stray, Viktoria; Bai, Aleksander; Sverdrup, Nikolai Johan Sand & Mork, Heidi Camilla (2019). Empowering Agile Project Members with Accessibility Testing Tools: A Case Study. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. 355, p. 86–101. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-19034-7_6. Show summary

  There is a growing interest in making software more accessible for everyone, which is emphasized by the numerous suggestions passed into law in many countries. However, many software organizations that use agile methods postpone or neglect accessibility testing. We aimed to understand how accessibility testing can be better integrated into the daily routine of agile projects by conducting a case study in a Norwegian software company. We investigated three accessibility testing tools: automatic checker, simulation glasses, and a dyslexia simulator. We hosted sessions at which agile project members used the tools while thinking out loud, responded to questionnaires, and were interviewed at the end. Additionally, we observed the project members for 18 workdays. Our results show that all three tools are suitable for agile projects. Especially the automatic checker and simulation glasses worked well in finding accessibility issues and were described as easy to use by the project members. Software organizations should empower their agile project members with low-cost and efficient accessibility testing tools to make their products more accessible for all. Doing this early and often in the development cycle may save the project from potential high costs at a later stage.

• Šmite, Darja; Moe, Nils Brede; Krekling, Thomas & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Offshore outsourcing costs: known or still hidden? In Calefato, Fabio; Tell, Paolo & Dubey, Alpana (Ed.), 2019 ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE). IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 9781538692127. p. 40–47. doi: 10.1109/ICGSE.2019.00022. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Offshore outsourcing of software development has been both famous for the promises of great cost reductions, and infamous for the hidden costs associated with the challenges of organizing software work over distance. Experience shows that many of these costs do not receive the deserved attention and are often excluded when making offshoring decisions. As a result, there is often a significant deviation between the expected and the realized costs of offshoring. In this paper, we investigate the awareness of the extra costs when making an offshoring decision, and the significance of the actual cost deviations. We conducted a single case study of a company that carried out an offshore outsourcing pilot project. We collected qualitative data from interviews, observations and a retrospective, and quantitative data on the costs and effort associated with the project. We conclude that the company was aware of the hidden cost factors, but largely underestimated their significance. The costs that surfaced in the studied project accounted for a total deviation of 181% and several individual cost categories with more than 400% overrun. The two main cost drivers in our study were the distance and poor process fit, which escalated the investments needed to make the collaboration work. Our results suggest that pilots are useful to understand the key problem areas in an offshoring collaboration, but too limited to shed light on all potential problems (e.g. turnover) due to the short timeframe. We also conclude that results of pilot projects shall not be the only data source when calculating the true costs of offshoring, since the start-up phase of an offshoring relationship carries large investments. Finally, we provide recommendations for companies in a similar situation on how to run and learn from offshore outsourcing pilot projects.

• Martini, Antonio; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2019). Technical-, social- and process debt in large-scale agile: An exploratory case-study. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. 364, p. 112–119. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-30126-2_14. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Large-scale agile projects bring inter-teams interaction challenges. Teams need to be autonomous, but often crosscutting concerns affect many teams. If the teams fail to collaborate on these concerns, the negative effects might hinder agility in the medium and long term. In other words, the organization and the system accumulate debt, on which the teams pay a high interest. Such debt must therefore be prioritized and “repaid” timely. We conducted a case study with interviews, observations and document analysis. Via both team- and large-scale retrospectives we investigated how teams coordinate and discuss Technical-, Social- and Process Debts.

• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Noroozi, Mehdi (2019). Slack Me If You Can! Using Enterprise Social Networking Tools in Virtual Agile Teams. In Calefato, Fabio; Tell, Paolo & Dubey, Alpana (Ed.), 2019 ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE). IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 9781538692127. p. 111–121. doi: 10.1109/ICGSE.2019.00031. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

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

• Florea, Raluca-Madalina & Stray, Viktoria (2019). A Global View on the Hard Skills and Testing Tools in Software Testing. In Calefato, Fabio; Tell, Paolo & Dubey, Alpana (Ed.), 2019 ACM/IEEE 14th International Conference on Global Software Engineering (ICGSE). IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). ISSN 9781538692127. p. 143–151. doi: 10.1109/ICGSE.2019.00035.
• Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria & Hoda, Rashina (2019). Trends and Updated Research Agenda for Autonomous Agile Teams: A Summary of the Second International Workshop at XP2019. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. 364, p. 13–19. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-30126-2_2. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  To succeed in complex environments and handle the innovation, development and support, organizations have to find ways to support and regulate the autonomy of teams according to the environmental demands and limitations. Furthermore, there is no one-size-fits-all autonomy approach. The process of forming and implementing autonomous teams, as well as the effective functioning of such teams, is not yet adequately addressed and understood in the context of complex knowledge-intensive organizations. The second international workshop on autonomous teams investigated barriers for team autonomy: “What are the real-world problems to be solved for autonomous teams?” and “What concepts from the literature can be used to solve the problems?”

• Florea, Raluca-Madalina & Stray, Viktoria (2019). The skills that employers look for in software testers. Software quality journal. ISSN 0963-9314. 27, p. 1449–1479. doi: 10.1007/s11219-019-09462-5. Full text in Research Archive
• Berntzen, Marthe; Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2019). The product owner in large-scale agile: An empirical study through the lens of relational coordination theory. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. 355, p. 121–136. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-19034-7_8. Full text in Research Archive
• Bai, Aleksander; Stray, Inga Viktoria Ågesdatter Gulli & Mork, Heidi Camilla (2019). What methods software teams prefer when testing web accessibility. Advances in Human-Computer Interaction. ISSN 1687-5893. 2019:3271475, p. 1–14. doi: 10.1155/2019/3271475. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Accessibility has become an important focus in software development; the goal is to allow as many people as possible, regardless of their capabilities, to use software. We have investigated the methods that software teams prefer when testing the accessibility of their software. We conducted a large-scale study to evaluate six methods, using a sample of 53 people who work on various software teams. We present a detailed breakdown of the results for each testing method and analyze the differences between the methods. Our findings show that there are statistically significant differences in team members’ preferences, particularly for those with different roles. This implies that a software team should not choose a single method for all team members.

• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Aasheim, Andreas (2019). Dependency Management in Large-Scale Agile: A Case Study of DevOps Teams. In Bui, Tung X. (Eds.), Proceeding of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2019). AIS Electronic Library. ISSN 978-0-9981331-2-6. p. 7007–7016. doi: 10.24251/hicss.2019.840. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Managing dependencies between teams and within teams is critical when running large-scale agile projects. In large-scale software development, work is carried out simultaneously by many developers and development teams. Results are delivered frequently and iteratively, which requires management of dependencies on both the project and team level. This study explores coordination mechanisms in agile DevOps teams in a large-scale project and how the mechanisms address different types of dependencies. We conducted a case study where we observed 38 scheduled meetings and interviewed members of five DevOps teams and two teams supporting the DevOps teams. By using a dependency taxonomy, we identified 20 coordination mechanisms (eleven synchronization activities and nine synchronization artifacts). Eight of these mechanisms seem essential for coordination in large-scale projects because they addressed more than four types of dependencies. The main implication is that project management needs to combine many practices handling all the dependencies in large-scale projects.

• Moe, Nils Brede; Dahl, Bjørn Haug; Stray, Viktoria; Karlsen, Lina Sund & Schjødt-Osmo, Stine (2019). Team Autonomy in Large-Scale Agile. In Bui, Tung X. (Eds.), Proceeding of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2019). AIS Electronic Library. ISSN 978-0-9981331-2-6. p. 6997–7006. doi: 10.24251/HICSS.2019.839. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Large-scale software development is increasingly making use of agile practices. In large-scale projects, a team needs to align with other teams and the rest of the organization. This has been shown to threaten team autonomy, which, in turn, reduces responsiveness and flexibility. Hence, agile teams face challenges in adapting to larger-scale development. We conduct a multiple case study of three large-scale projects to investigate barriers to team autonomy in large-scale agile. Two barriers are identified: overall direction and external dependencies. We found that goals are often set by management without involving the teams, that they are often equal to deliverables and deadlines, and that team members often do not know what the goals are. Consequently, teams struggle with setting and communicating goals as well as establishing a shared direction. Organizational dependencies lead to teams having to deal with additional tasks, resulting in specific members shielding the teams from external noise.

• Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Hoda, Rashina (2018). Autonomous agile teams: Challenges and future directions for research. In Wagner, Stefan; Hoda, Rashina & Aguiar, Ademar (Ed.), Companion Proceedings: 19th International Conference on Agile Software Development (XP2018). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 978-1-4503-6422-5. doi: 10.1145/3234152.3234182. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

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

• Mikalsen, Marius; Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria & Nyrud, Helga (2018). Agile Digital Transformation: A Case Study of Interdependencies. In Baskerville, Richard & Nickerson, Robert (Ed.), Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Association for Information Systems (AIS). ISSN 9780996683173. Full text in Research Archive

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• Carroll, Noel; Nguyen Duc, Anh; Wang, Xiaofeng & Stray, Viktoria (2022). Software Business: 13th International Conference, ICSOB 2022, Bolzano, Italy, November 8–11, 2022, Proceedings. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-031-20706-8. 463(1). 360 p.
• Stray, Viktoria; Stol, Klaas-Jan; Paasivaara, Maria & Kruchten, Philippe (2022). Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming: 23rd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2022, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 13–17, 2022, Proceedings. Springer. ISBN 978-3-031-08168-2. 237 p.
• Wang, Xiaofeng; Martini, Antonio; Nguyen Duc, Anh & Stray, Viktoria (2021). Software Business: 12th International Conference, ICSOB 2021, Drammen, Norway, December 2–3, 2021, Proceedings. Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-91982-5. 434(*). 255 p.
• Stray, Viktoria; Hoda, Rashina; Paasivaara, Maria & Kruchten, Philippe (2020). Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming: Proceedings from the 21st International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2020. Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-49391-2. 254 p.

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• Stray, Viktoria (2024). A Case Study on Meeting Practices.
• Melteig, Elina & Stray, Viktoria (2023). Er møter arbeidsplassens største tidstyv? [Business/trade/industry journal]. Teknisk ukeblad.
• Kristiansen, Nina & Stray, Viktoria (2023). Hjernen blir sliten av digitale møter. [Internet]. Forskning.no.
• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2023). Pair Programming Practiced in Hybrid Work.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Strukturer tiden bedre og få mest ut av arbeidsdagen med disse knepene.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Møtekultur og time management m/Viktoria Stray .
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). For mange møter, for lite tid til å jobbe. [Internet]. Dagens Perspektiv pluss.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Møteforskerens beste tips til mer effektive møter. [Internet]. Reiseliv1.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Møteforskerens beste tips til mer effektive møter. [Internet]. Dagens Perspektiv pluss.
• Bjørkeng, Per Kristian; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2023). Konsentrerer vi oss virkelig dårligere enn en gullfisk? Det moderne mennesket makter bare å konsentrere seg i 47 sekunder, hevdes det. Men noe skurrer. [Newspaper]. Aftenposten.
• Stray, Viktoria & Ludvigsen, Elin (2023). – Nei, mobilen gjør deg ikke til en gullfisk. Norske tilstander, episode 6, sesong 3. [TV]. TV2. Show summary

  Er det sant at skjermer og dingser ødelegger vår evne til konsentrasjon og læring? Noen mener at vi er på nivå med gullfisker. Det er ingen grunn til panikk, sier forsker Viktoria Stray og psykolog Knut Inge Fostervold. Norske tilstander: Et informativt og underholdende aktualitetsprogram som tar opp aktuelle saker i norsk politikk.

• Stray, Viktoria (2023). En bedre møtehverdag med fart, flyt og smidighet.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Fart, flyt og smidighet i organisasjonen.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Påfyll hos NRK Produkt- og teknologiutvikling: Få en bedre møtehverdag med Viktoria Stray.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Koordinering med mening.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Twoday - Mer produktiv med bedre møter.
• Stray, Viktoria & Myklemyr, Anita (2023). Å jobbe i par beskytter mot forstyrrelser. [Newspaper]. Dagens Perspektiv.
• Stray, Viktoria (2023). Er møter arbeidsplassens største tidstyv? [Internet]. tu.no.
• Conboy, Kieran; Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria & Gundelsby, Jan Henrik (2023). The Future of Hybrid Software Development: Challenging Current Assumptions. IEEE Software. ISSN 0740-7459. 40(2), p. 26–33. doi: 10.1109/MS.2022.3230449.
• Wang, Xiaofeng; Martini, Antonio; Nguyen, Anh Duc; Stray, Viktoria & Wnuk, Kryzstof (2023). Special section on IST for ICSOB2021. Information and Software Technology. ISSN 0950-5849. 160. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107243.
• Stray, Viktoria (2022). Effektive digitale møter. [Internet]. YouTube.
• Stray, Viktoria & Grimsrud, Simen Aker (2022). Syns du det er for mange møter på jobb? Her er møteforskerens tips. [Internet]. Fontene.no.
• Stray, Viktoria (2022). Melina trodde Teams-møter skulle frigjøre tid. – Det er litt merkelig, for det har blitt mer hektisk. [Internet]. Fontene.no.
• Stray, Viktoria (2022). Den hybride møtekulturen: – Møter er ikke bare møter lenger. [Internet]. Psykologisk.no +.
• Stray, Viktoria (2022). Løper du fra møte til møte gjennom arbeidsdagen? Her er forskerens tips for en god møtekultur. [Internet]. Psykologisk.no +.
• Stray, Viktoria; Hoda, Rashina; Paasivaara, Maria; Lenarduzzi, Valentina & Mendez, Daniel (2022). Theories in Agile Software Development: Past, Present, and Future Introduction to the XP 2020 Special Section. Information and Software Technology. ISSN 0950-5849. 152. doi: 10.1016/j.infsof.2022.107058.
• Ravn, Johan Elvemo; Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria & Seim, Eva Amdahl (2022). Team autonomy and digital transformation: Disruptions and adjustments in a well-established organizational principle. AI & Society: The Journal of Human-Centred Systems and Machine Intelligence. ISSN 0951-5666. 37(2), p. 701–710. doi: 10.1007/s00146-022-01406-1. Show summary

  The organizational theory literature is reasonably unanimous that team autonomy is a key factor for employee well-being and motivation as well as organizational performance. However, team autonomy is challenged when its processes and outputs need to be aligned with actors and factors external to a team. There are likely challenges and conflicts between team autonomy and the need for coherence in the wider system. Team autonomy has a range of implications and is challenged by a number of factors, such as knowledge complexity and decision-making, learning, large-scale problems, product and technical interdependencies, the use of platforms, virtual collaboration and diversity. Alignment with the external is particularly necessary in multi-team environments with many technical interdependencies, where a single team’s failure to deliver a sufficient level of quality may lead to system-wide consequences. Therefore, teams in complex environments increasingly need to regulate and manage their work in cooperation with internal and external partners and systems. Such dependencies challenge team autonomy. In this special issue of AI&S, we want to address these topics in more detail, particularly in the context of software-intensive organizations and digital transformations. The scope and, thus, the consequences of a team’s work can be far-reaching when the team’s effort and output take place partially or completely in fully digitized contexts and processes. The articles in this special issue show various ways of dealing with the challenge of balancing autonomy and alignment with the external. A key focus is to show the buffering function: how teams, with the help of processes, technology, new organizational forms and time and space are able to find the buffer needed for maintaining team autonomy.

• Gramnæs, Katrine & Stray, Viktoria (2021). Denne feilen gjør mange i «hybride møter». [Newspaper]. e24.no.
• Stray, Viktoria (2021). Fortsatt behov for fysiske møter. [Newspaper]. Budstikka. Show summary

  Papirutgaven Også publisert i Budstikka pluss

• Stray, Viktoria (2021). Vurderer å fortsette med digitale foreldremøter etter pandemien. [Internet]. Budstikka.
• Ulfsnes, Rasmus; Stray, Viktoria; Moe, Nils Brede & Smite, Darja (2021). Innovation in Large-scale agile - Benefits and Challenges of Hackathons when Hacking from Home.
• Stray, Viktoria & Ulfsnes, Rasmus (2021). Hackathon - Ikke så dumt likevel.
• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2021). Understanding Coordination in Global Software Engineering: A Mixed-Methods Study on the Use of Meetings and Slack.
• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2021). An Empirical Investigation of Pull-Requests in Partially Distributed Teams. Show summary

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

• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2021). Understanding Coordination in Global Software Engineering: A Mixed-Methods Study on the Use of Meetings and Slack. Show summary

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

• Moe, Nils Brede; Stokke, Ole Petter Baugerød & Stray, Viktoria (2021). Én av tre misfornøyd med video­møter og sam­arbeid på hjemme­kontor. [Business/trade/industry journal]. Kode 24.
• Stray, Viktoria (2020). A systematic literature review on agile coaching and the role of the agile coach.
• Stray, Viktoria (2020). Mer produktiv med bedre møter.
• Stray, Viktoria (2020). Keynote: Coordination in large-scale agile.
• Torgersen, Eivind & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Hvordan blir jobbhverdagen etter koronakrisen? [Internet]. titan.no.
• Myklemyr, Anita & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Møteforsker – Benytt muligheten til å teste digitale møteverktøy . [Newspaper]. Dagens perspektiv.
• Mikalsen, Marius; Stray, Inga Viktoria Ågesdatter Gulli; Moe, Nils Brede & Backer, Idun (2020). Shifting Conceptualization of Control in Agile Transformations.
• Tkalich, Anastasiia & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Smidig coach: Hva har vi lært så langt?
• Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria & Stokke, Ole Petter Baugerød (2020). Unge utviklere minst effektive på hjemmekontor. [Internet]. Kode 24.
• Benjaminsen, Christina; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2020). Ten tips for productive online meetings. Gemini (English edition). ISSN 0804-8568. Show summary

  We are meeting as never before – online. Particularly in connection with our jobs this may present challenges, but it can also be very productive. Here is some advice from researchers for smart meetings in the virtual environment.

• Benjaminsen, Christina; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2020). Ti råd for effektive møter på nett. Gemini. ISSN 0802-085X. Show summary

  Vi møtes som aldri før – på nett. Særlig i jobbsammenheng kan dette oppleves som krevende, men det kan også være svært effektivt. Her er forskernes råd til smarte møter i det virtuelle landskapet.

• Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2020). AUTONOMOUS AGILE TEAMS – RESEARCH WORKSHOP. Show summary

  The third workshop on autonomous agile teams will facilitate knowledge sharing about the current practice of autonomous teams and deepen the knowledge about practices and strategies that enable autonomous teams. There is a need for new knowledge on how organizations shall organize for the right level of team autonomy to attain better performance, productivity, innovation and value creation, and thus increase competitiveness. There will be short presentations and interactive discussions. Nils Brede Moe and Viktoria Stray: Opening Lucas Gren: Understanding Work Practices of Autonomous Agile Teams: A Social-Psychological Review 🔗 Michal Dolezel: Defining TestOps: Collaborative Behaviors and Technology-driven Workflows Seen as Enablers of Effective Software Testing in DevOps 🔗 Sven Theobald and Anna Schmitt: Dependencies of Agile Teams – An Analysis of the Scaled Agile Framework 🔗

• Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2020). A Decade of Research on Autonomous Agile Teams: A Summary of the Third International Workshop . Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. ISSN 1865-1348. p. 212–218. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Ever since the agile manifesto was created in 2001, the research community has devoted attention to autonomous teams. This article first examines publications on autonomous agile teams to illustrate how the research has progressed in the last ten years and next summarizes the result of the Third International Workshop on Autonomous Agile Teams. The workshop’s goal was to capture what practitioners and researchers in the field of agile software development believe are emergent research themes and update the research agenda. We found that the top-rated research questions are related to autonomy in large-scale agile software development. Further, the number of relevant scientific publications is increasing, and there is widespread interest in the topic at various conferences.

• Løvold, Henrik Hillestad; Lindsjørn, Yngve & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Forming and Assessing Student Teams in Software Engineering Courses.
• Lindsjørn, Yngve; Stray, Viktoria & Vihovde, Eva Hadler (2019). Studentaktiv læring og teamarbeid i informatikkundervisning i høyere utdanning. MNT-konferansen 2019.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Effektive møter og en god møtekultur.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Hvordan tilrettelegge for bedre møtevirksomhet hos Discovery Networks Norway? .
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Dr. Smidigs møtemedisin.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Hvordan skape gode autonome og smidige team?
• Telle, Ingvild & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Hvorfor så mange møter? [Business/trade/industry journal]. Finansforbundet.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Tilgjengelighetstesting i en smidig utviklingsprosess.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). En mer produktiv arbeidsdag med bedre møter! Show summary

  Keynote: Viktoria Stray fra SINTEF, kjent i Norge som “Dr. Smidig”, gir oss innblikk i smidig forskning og tips for en bedre møtehverdag. Hva kan vi gjøre for å få det beste ut av møtene i prosjektene våre? Alle er i møter og har en mening om møter, men hva sier forskning om møter? Gjennom å studere bedrifter som gjennomfører digitaliseringsprosjekter, har Viktoria fått innsikt i møtene til alt fra finansfolk til byråkrater. Et godt møte bør være nyttig for bedriften, gjøre de ansatte bedre rustet til å jobbe sammen og oppleves som meningsfylt for møtedeltagerne der og da. Du får Viktorias beste tips, og inspirasjon til å holde produktive og gode møter. Dr. Smidig: https://www.dataforeningen.no/dr-smidigs-standup-diagnose-endret-norge/

• Stray, Viktoria & Helgesen, Linda (2019). Produktivitet på en smidig arbeidsplass. Show summary

  Vi tar steget videre fra foredraget om møter og trekker problemstillingen nærmere den praktiske virkeligheten til konferansedeltagerne. I denne workshopen ser vi nærmere på arbeidshverdagen til deltagerne og vurderer hvordan vi kan bruke enkle tilnærminger til å forbedre og effektivisere dagen.

• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Møter på en smidig arbeidsplass. Show summary

  Hva kan vi gjøre for å få det beste ut av møtene i prosjektene våre? Alle er i møter og alle har en mening om møter, men hva sier forskning om møter? Gjennom å studere bedrifter som gjennomfører digitaliseringsprosjekter, har Viktoria fått innsikt i møtene til alt fra finansfolk til byråkrater. Et godt møte bør være nyttig for bedriften, gjøre de ansatte bedre rustet til å jobbe sammen og oppleves som meningsfylt for møtedeltagerne der og da Du får Viktorias beste tips, og inspirasjon til å holde produktive og gode møter.

• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Use of Accessibility Testing Tools in Agile Software Projects.
• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2019). Use of Enterprise Social Networking Tools in Virtual Agile Teams.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). A Global View on the Hard Skills and Testing Tools in Software Testing.
• Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2019). The Second International Workshop on Autonomous Agile Teams, XP2019.
• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2019). Retrospective for the Insurance team.
• Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Software engineering processes and practices for team leads in agile projects.
• Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2019). Software engineering processes and practices for tech leads in agile projects.
• Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Digitalisering i Oslo kommune gjennom Autonome team: Krav til kompetanse og opplæring .
• Leveraas, Paal & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Dr. Smidigs standup-diagnose endret Norge. [Internet]. Dataforeningen.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Agile Practices.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Digital transformasjon – angår det meg? .
• Film & TV, Applaus & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Algoritmer – Opplæringsvideo produsert for Nasjonal Digital Læringsarena (NDLA). [TV]. Nasjonal Digital Læringsarena.
• Grimstad, Bjørn & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Ikke gå i møtefellene: Her er ti tips til gode møter. [Business/trade/industry journal]. Fagbladet.
• Stray, Viktoria (2019). Dependency Management in Large-Scale Agile.
• Stray, Viktoria & Rolland, Knut-H. (2018). Presentasjon av Geminisenter for Systemutviklingsprosesser og Metoder for Innovasjon og Digitalisering.
• Stray, Viktoria (2018). Strategizing for Successful IT Projects.
• Stray, Viktoria (2018). Escalation of Commitment in Information System Projects.
• Holgeid, Knut Kjetil; Krogstie, John; Stray, Viktoria & Thompson, Mark (2018). Strategizing for Successful IT Projects in the Digital Era. Pre-ICIS Research Workshop on IT Project Management, International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Show summary

  The objective of this paper is to increase our understanding of how organizations strategize with a view to making their digital investments successful and the impact such digital strategies actually have on business outcomes. We examined 2940 papers related to digital business strategies, of which 31 were included in relevant empirical research. These papers were reviewed and subjected to thematic synthesis. Many organizations appear to initiate scattered digital initiatives without a clear idea of where they are going. Companies can benefit from a deliberate digital strategy that enhances the ability of businesses to quickly adjust to new trends, possibilities, and threats, as well as a constant balancing of new possibilities with the exploitation of current assets.

• Holgeid, Knut Kjetil & Stray, Viktoria (2018). A Review of Factors Promoting IS Project Escalation. Pre-ICIS Research Workshop on IT Project Management, International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Show summary

  The objective of this paper is to investigate the tendency to continue a project even when it is obvious that it will not provide the planned benefits, often referred to as “project escalation” or “escalation of commitment.” The investigation aims to identify factors that empirically have been found to promote IS project escalation. We examined 1163 papers related to the phenomenon of IS project and commitment escalation and found 42 of them to include relevant empirical research. We provide a comprehensive overview of 43 factors that can have important implications for practice, especially for organizations trying to avoid escalation in the first place or uncover already escalated projects.

• Yndestad, Zahra Ghassem & Stray, Viktoria (2023). The Way Towards an Agile and Lean Construction Industry. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Løkensgard, Thorstein; Kristoffersen, Ingrid C.; Moe, Nils Brede & Stray, Viktoria (2022). Hvordan skape organisasjonsengasjement når alle sitter hver for seg? Universitetet i Oslo.
• Olsen, John Olav & Stray, Viktoria (2022). Business Development And Cross-Functional Agile Teams. A case study on business development in a large-scale agile software environment. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Liu, Zixuan; Stray, Viktoria & Sporsem, Tor Thorsrud (2022). Coordination in Hybrid Software Teams - A Case Study in a Large-Scale Agile Organisation. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Kirkerud, Jeanette & Stray, Viktoria (2022). Coordination in agile development organizations: A mixed-method study of meetings. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Harr, Bjørn Henrik; Stray, Viktoria & Sporsem, Tor Thorsrud (2022). Organizational and Team Onboarding: A case study of in-house consultants and consultants working in client offices. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Semsøy, Susanne; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2022). Hybrid: best of both worlds or a necessary compromise? A case study on hybrid work in software development teams post COVID-19. Universitetet i Oslo. Show summary

  Background: The COVID-19 pandemic marked a critical turning point in how we organize work, with the software development industry being no exception. As restrictions are lifted in the wake of the pandemic, hybrid work has abruptly become the new standard of work in an increasing number of organizations. However, little is known about the benefits and challenges of hybrid work on software development teams and how to mitigate the potential challenges. Objective: This study aims to gain an understanding of how hybrid work affects software development teams and individuals. Method: The empirical research was a qualitative case study investigating two teams with different approaches to hybrid work. The teams were observed for a period of eight weeks, including meetings and communication on chatting software. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with these teams’ developers, testers, and team leads. Results: The study resulted in six themes representing the effects of hybrid work. The teams experienced impacts on team cohesion, co-location network effects for team members working co-located, and asymmetric participation in hybrid meetings. Individuals experienced changes in perceived individual productivity when working from home, wellbeing fostered by a better work-life balance, and team leads found it more challenging to support their teams. Conclusion: The thesis proposes a new definition of hybrid work and hybrid teams. It discusses the benefits and challenges of the findings in light of relevant literature. For practitioners, the study offers recommendations to organizations and teams that are managing hybrid work or considering introducing hybrid work.

• Armana, Sara Delgosar & Stray, Viktoria (2021). DevOps, test and quality assurance: A case study of how DevOps affects testing and product quality. Universitetet i Oslo.
• van der Hoeven, Hilde & Stray, Viktoria (2021). Knowledge sharing in software development: A case study of knowledge sharing practices and barriers in a large-scale agile environment. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Vedal, Henrik Aspenes & Stray, Viktoria (2021). Managing dependencies in large-scale agile - A case study of coordination in distributed teams. Universitetet i Oslo. Show summary

  Background: Coordination is very important in large-scale agile software development. When software projects grow in size or work distributed, additional difficulties are often introduced. Dependency management is therefore important for coordination in agile teams. By understanding how coordination practices manage different dependencies in distributed software development, organizations can introduce and adjust the practices which best fit their coordination needs. Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate how distributed teams in largescale agile manage dependencies to achieve effective coordination. This is done by identifying practices that act as coordination mechanisms and examining what dependencies they manage. Method: In this qualitative multiple-case study, two distributed teams and their contexts were examined. The two separate teams were referred to as team Alpha and team Bravo. A total of 21 meetings were observed, and ten semi-structured interviews were held with team Alpha. In team Bravo, a total of 7 semi-structured interviews were held. Chat logs and documents from both teams were also a part of the collected data material. Results: The findings of this study revealed 37 coordination mechanisms with 123 dependencies in team Alpha and 34 coordination mechanisms with 108 dependencies in team Bravo. These coordination mechanisms included agile and non-agile practices, and managed knowledge, process, and resource dependencies. The most important coordination mechanisms were product owner, OKR workshop, and ad hoc communication, which each managed a total of five dependencies. Working remotely further introduced difficulties, which complicated meetings, tools, and ad hoc communication. Conclusion: Using a dependency taxonomy proved very useful to identify coordination mechanisms and dependencies in distributed teams in large-scale agile. The coordination mechanisms are presented with their best-matched dependencies. Practices such as ad hoc communication, collaboration tools, daily standup, written slackup, retrospective actions, sprint, and OKR workshop are presented and discussed. Coordinator roles such as product owner, team lead, and data scientist are also discussed. All these mechanisms are central for team Alpha and Bravo to coordinate effectively while working distributed. Further, complications introduced with OKR, and the distributed situation, are discussed with regards to dependency management. The findings of this study support previously known challenges with distributed teams and contribute to a better understanding of how to coordinate in distributed teams in large-scale agile more efficiently

• Tkalich, Anastasiia; Laumann, Karin; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2020). Agile coaching in Norway and the USA: The role of the agile coach in teamwork, organisational culture and leadership. NTNU. Show summary

  Agile coaching is a recently-emerged activity that is meant to promote successful implementation and use of agile methods of software development. However, agile coaches address issues that also lie within the field of organisational psychology, such as interaction in teams, organisational environment and leadership. The purpose of this study is to describe how agile coaching is practiced in Norway and the USA. Fifteen qualitative interviews with current agile coaches were analysed through an inductive thematic analysis and three overarching themes were identified: teamwork, enterprise agility and better products. The resulting thematic structure is compared across the informants from Norway and the USA. The thesis applies organisational psychology literature to discuss what role agile coaches play in teamwork, organisational culture and leadership in their organisations. It is suggested that agile coaching has the potential to improve teamwork by facilitating coordination mechanisms within teams. Moreover, it appears to transform organisational culture in line with agile principles. In addition, agile coaching seems to promote transformational leadership that is argued to be compatible with agile software development methods. The comparative analysis indicated that Norwegian agile coaches pay more attention to the quality of organisational environment than their American colleagues, while at the same time being less focused on coaching managers and customers. Companies who wish to successfully apply and use agile methods are recommended to give their agile coaches sufficient authority to influence context of the teams. Norwegian agile coaches are recommended to increase the amount of attention they pay to managers and business partners.

• Mæhlum, Emilie & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Managing dependencies in agile DevOps. Universitetet i Oslo. Show summary

  Background: Coordination is a crucial aspect of agile software development. Managing dependencies is important for efficient coordination. Understanding what activities and artifacts manage different dependencies can help companies coordinate better and choose the mechanisms best suited for their coordination needs. Aim: This thesis aims to investigate how an agile DevOps is managing dependencies to achieve effective coordination. This is examined by identifying dependencies and coordination mechanisms for managing these dependencies. Additionally, the aim is also to investigate which barriers for managing dependencies can be found in an agile DevOps context. Method: A qualitative case study was conducted. Data were collected by conducting 9 interviews, observing 32 workdays, and observing 49 meetings. Additionally, various documents and chat logs were collected. Results: The results revealed 38 coordination mechanisms and 95 pairs of dependencies present in the development team. These coordination mechanisms manage knowledge dependencies, process dependencies, and resource dependencies. Also, working remotely, role clarity, planning, and estimation, and implementing changes in the software development process was identified as barriers to managing dependencies. Conclusion: It is possible to use a dependency taxonomy to identify coordination mechanisms and dependencies in an agile DevOps company. The most crucial coordination mechanisms found in the company included the Zendesk planning meeting, the daily stand-up, ad hoc conversations, the sprint planning meeting, and communication tools because they managed four or more dependencies.

• Tegelaár, Linnéa Egwene; Lindsjørn, Yngve & Stray, Viktoria (2020). Teamwork Quality in Software Engineering Education; A case study of the course IN2000 at the University of Oslo. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Paruch, Lucas & Stray, Viktoria (2020). The Human Factors and the Hard Skills Shaping the Role of the Software Tester in Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory Study. Universitetet i Oslo.
• Goplen, Marcus R.; Stray, Viktoria & Moe, Nils Brede (2019). Onboarding av distribuerte team. Universitetet i Oslo. Show summary

  I denne oppgaven studerte jeg en bedrift som hadde gjennomført et innføringsprogram (onboarding) der portugisiske utviklere skulle innlemmes i to eksisterende norske team. Det blir bare vanligere og vanligere innenfor IT-bransjen ˚a delegere arbeid til utlandet (outsourcing) og det er derfor viktig ˚a finne gode modeller for onboarding av denne typen ansatte. M˚alet for oppgaven var derfor ˚a se om Bauers generelle onboardingsmodell er en god praksis for onboarding av distribuerte team og prøve ˚a avdekke eventuelle utfordringer for denne typen case. For dette case-studiet ble det brukt en kombinasjon av kvantitative og kvalitative metoder. Det ble i all hovedsak brukt kvantitativ metode i oppgaven da forskningen handlet om ˚a forst˚a og beskrive mennesker, men fordi jeg valgte ˚a bruke grafer for og underbygge p˚astander s˚a jeg det hensiktsmessig ˚a inkludere kvalitativ metode. Studiet fant sted hos IT-avdelingen til en norsk bank hvor ledere for avdelingen og to utviklerteam ble intervjuet. Forskningen viste at Bauers onboardingsmodell ogs˚a fungerer for onboarding av distribuerte team, men at det er flere utfordringer ved outsourcing. Oppgaven tok utgangspunkt i, og fant det hensiktsmessig ˚a bruke, en modell laget for ˚a planlegge og gjennomføre onboarding. Jeg vil ogs˚a presentere et forslag til ny modell som potensielt ville fungert bedre for en onboarding tilsvarende mitt case. Den største utfordringen for min casebedrift var˚a komme raskt i gang grunnet vanskelighetsgraden til domenet i banken.

• Standal, Andreas Hauge & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Characteristics for Efficient Autonomous Cross-Functional Teams. Universitetet i Oslo. Show summary

  In this master thesis I aim to arrive at a theory which can answer the question of how software engineering teams can become more efficient, and how they can use crossfunctionality and team autonomy to arrive at this goal. There has not been done enough research on this subject, as most research on software engineering teams tend to focus on a single part of software engineering such as frameworks like Scrum or mindsets like Lean. Therefore the scope of this thesis is quite broad, and envelops software engineering teams in practice as a whole. The research method applied was Grounded Theory, which was useful due to the broad scope of the thesis. Grounded Theory was used to its full extent, using iterations of data collection and data analysis to arrive at an emerging theory. The research was conducted at a large Norwegian bank, in the spring of 2019. Two development teams were followed, observed, and interviewed - extensively. The emerged theory has the main category Team Efficiency, together with six related central categories: Flexibility, Autonomy, Cross-Functionality, Mindset, Morale, and Coaching. These central categories’ underlying topics, and relationships, are presented and detailed in depth, and aims to answer how to implement cross-functionality and flexibility to achieve team autonomy.

• Kristensen, Sondre & Stray, Viktoria (2019). Teamwork Behaviours in Autonomous Cross-functional Teams. Universitetet i Oslo. Show summary

  Background: Software development is a collaborative process where people from multiple different practices are involved. It has become more and more common to structure people as teams focusing on producing a specific parts of a system as one fully functional whole. Having those teams work as effectively and sustainable as possible should be a goal for any business owner, and as such new information regarding how to facilitate better teamwork is needed. Aim: The aim of this thesis is to investigate how teamwork behaviours appear in an autonomous cross-functional team, and how these behaviours can be considered important to such teams. Specifically the different ways teamwork behaviours is shown by team-members, and if there is a difference between behaviours shown in meetings compared to the workspace will be investigated. Potential benefits of teamwork behaviours will also be investigated. Method: A qualitative case study was conducted in a single product development team. Data was collected by observing 15 workdays and 14 meetings, as well as conducting 6 interviews and observing the teams online chat. Results: The results showed that 11 teamwork behaviours could be identified in the team. Differences in how behaviours were displayed in meetings compared to the workspace was found in eight of the teamwork behaviours. Five of the teamwork behaviours were found to be important for autonomous teams, each facilitating different aspects of teamwork. Conclusion: Teamwork behaviours seem to provide a great indication of teamwork in a team, and as such seem to be worthy of attention in the field of evaluating and improving the level of teamwork.

• Afzal, Zunaira; Lindsjørn, Yngve & Stray, Viktoria (2018). A Case Study on Technical Debt. Universitetet i Oslo.

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