Research on digitalization 2023 week 25
Scaled agile at Spotify; trends and topics in software engineering; Norwegian innovation index + taxation, wicked trinity, simulation-based decision support.
Scalable agile Spotify
WHAT? SINTEF-researchers and others have analyzed development practices at Spotify with a particular attention to decentralized decision-making and autonomy at scale.
It’s INTERESTING that:
Decentralized decision-making reduces the need for middle management, shown by the fact that the organization has grown faster than the number of middle managers.
On the leadership level, decisions about “organizational context” and overall direction, but the squads decide how to do the work (limited by external dependencies), and they also decide how to measure and monitor progress. The squads determine their own context and set their own direction.
This is the basic idea, but in practice there are limitations due to the skills and maturity of the teams, unrest within each team, all of which can disrupt what the authors call the autonomy chain. They also present an overview of obstacles for autonomy.
Also proposed are strategies for sharing source, ensuring organizational alignment, facilitating organizational networks and information sharing.
AND SO?
Spotify is often positioned as an example of agility at scale, but it’s still a work in progress. It appears that being agile is to avoid being dependent on structures and rather figure out how to make progress with what you got.
It also seems that velocity can accelerate or decelerate by skills or maturity of individuals. More leadership behavior is needed when there are fewer titular leaders.
Topics and trends in software engineering
WHAT? Using advanced analytical tools, researchers in Turkey and Gjøvik (Norway) have gone through a large number of articles published in the field of software engineering since 1980.
It’s INTERESTING that:
The volume of publications has grown rapidly, from about 1500 articles published during 1980-1984 to almost 16 000 during 2015-2019. There are now about 44 periodicals and conferences that publish papers.
The analysis uncovered 24 standalone topics, with “empirical software engineering” most often published and “security” least.
However, the landscape has changed through the years - there’s been acceleration in publications on source code, projects, mobile, process modelling, etc., but negatively for programming languages. What’s more the authors identify three eras: programming (1980-1995), software development (1995-2010), and software optimization (2010-about now)
Most prominent topics these days is testing, source code, data, empirical software engineering, and project.
AND SO?
These topics are probably related - for example, “project” may yield in favor of “product,” or something like that.
The topics are also interesting, because it varies between methods, tools, and technologies, which is how practitioners view the world.
Norwegian innovation index
WHAT? Researchers and the Norwegian School of Economics report on the use of the “Norwegian Innovation Index” to make sense of innovation based on end user value.
It’s INTERESTING that:
Innovations happen in four dimensions, i.e., the what (value proposition), how (value realization), who (relationship experience), and where (interaction space).
Add to this the perception of innovation, how attractive it is compared to alternatives, and the customer’s loyalty.
Perceived innovation is mapped to customer satisfaction, and this shows some surprising results, such as banks being more innovative than internet services, or that car dealers have the highest customer satisfaction.
AND SO?
This framework can be applied to enterprises, products, and brands. This is useful for people who manage these, but also to validate the framework.
The impetus for developing method was the observation that Norwegian products compared poorly with other Scandinavian countries, and that this - at least in part - is due to Norwegians needing to be sufficiently customer-oriented.
Bonus
Study of the effect digitalization has on the structure of taxation in OECD country, including efforts to harmonize taxation systems.
Based on a case about the supply chain of photovoltaic technology, study on the “wicked trinity” of stagnation, surplus population and environmental decay.
Article advocating decision support based on simulations that help us deal with complexity that exceeds the cognitive capabilities of individuals and groups.
Next week: Building organizational resilience; cargo cult agile; even more benefits from agile + skills leaders need, agile literature, solving problems with systems, cybernetics, and operations management