In recent years, agile software development methods have become increasingly popular throughout the world. Today there are a number of different agile methods and they all rest on the Agile Manifesto that was formulated in 2001 as a reaction to the traditional software processes.The aim of this thesis is to make a survey of some of the agile methods used today and to see how they are being used in practice. It consists of two parts: a literature study and an interview study with people working in the software business. First, a definition of agile methods is proposed and a number of different agile methods are described. Second, the interviews are being analysed with special focus on communication, collaboration, expectations and results.

I detta arbete undersöker vi likheter och skillnader av hur litteraturen respektive utvecklare beskriver begreppet agile. För att komma fram till ett svar på frågeställningen gör vi en litteraturstudie där vi genom att jämföra dem olika agila utvecklingsprocesserna tar fram kriterier för hur begreppet agile beskrivs. Därefter gör vi intervjuer med representanter för 12 olika företag. Resultatet från dessa intervjuer ger oss ett svar på hur utvecklare beskriver agile..

Agile as an idea was created in 2001 through the Agile Manifesto with focus on social relationships, communication and flexibility. This was a reaction to the traditional, hierarchical organization with the goal of restoring balance within organizations in the IT business. Today we can see a transit of Agile from the IT-industry to other industries and areas, such as HRM.There is a challenge in attempting to traditionally control a social idea such as Agile, and there is a lack of empirical studies of the organizational context and its effect on the interpretation of Agile in practice. This study is an attempt to connect Agile to the science of business administration.The purpose with this study is therefore to research the organizational contexts effects on the interpretation of Agile in practice, within IT and HRM. Where Agile is established or well known.To fulfill our purpose we chose social constructivism as our scientifically approach, and conducted 12 in-depth interviews.

Agile systems development has in recent years become very popular, and many companies today claims to be working agile. At the same time there are studies about agile system development that indicate that there are difficulties in fully adopting the agile way. The purpose of this qualitative study has been to examine how true Swedish IT-companies conduct their agile system development compared to agile theory, and we have specifically for the purpose of the study designed a framework that has been used as an analytical tool. The framework helped us to maintain a structured and objective approach when we examined the participating companies and their practices. The study showed that there were differences regarding how true to agile theory the different companies conducts their agile projects, and that the differences in part depends on how long the companies have been working agile.

This paper is a degree project on the C-level, 15 points at University West, Department of Business and IT dept. Informatics. This study is about agile methodology and its impact on IT projects. Requirements management is a process within an IT project, where customer has certain requirements that must be met by an IT system. The difference between the traditional and agile development is in the requirements management process and it can cause problems in a project.

Lean och Agile är två arbetsmetodsfilsofier utvecklade från produktion respektive IT. Denna rapport ämnar besvara hur dessa är relaterade och om filosofierna med fördel kananvändas inom motstående område. En teoretisk litteraturstudie har genomförts med sökningar i databaser efter relateradforskning. Detta gav en god inblick om de både områdena var för sig och även omanvändandet av Lean inom IT. Däremot saknades information om Agile inom produktion.

In recent time, agile methods have been devoted much attention, and the concept is widely used in the IT industry in particular. An increasing number of companies are interested in this way of working. The following report is the result of a study on the ability to create value for customers in business development through the use of agile methods. We ask what the advantages and limitations of agile methods are in the creation of customer value. Grounded Theory and an initial literature review was used to answer this question.

In recent time, agile methods have been devoted much attention, and the concept is widely used in the IT industry in particular. An increasing number of companies are interested in this way of working. The following report is the result of a study on the ability to create value for customers in business development through the use of agile methods. We ask what the advantages and limitations of agile methods are in the creation of customer value. Grounded Theory and an initial literature review was used to answer this question.

This paper is a degree project on the C-level, 15 points at University West, Department of Business and IT dept. Informatics. This study is about agile methodology and its impact on IT projects. Requirements management is a process within an IT project, where customer has certain requirements that must be met by an IT system. The difference between the traditional and agile development is in the requirements management process and it can cause problems in a project.

Detta arbete är ett examensarbete på C-nivå, 10 poäng vid Luleå Tekniska Universitet, avd. Data och Systemvetenskap. Arbetet behandlar traditionell systemutveckling jämfört med Agile tänkandet. Detta sker genom en jämförelse av vilka olika faktorer som påverkar utvecklingsprocessen tidsmässigt i vattenfallsmodellen jämfört med Extrem Programmering. Vi har identifierat tiden som en av faktorerna vilka bidrar till att många projekt misslyckas under traditionella systemutvecklingsprocesser.

The Volvo Trucks plant in Umeå is a highy complex manufacturing facility where the same production line handles a variety of different models. This require flexible and agile processes with high quality standards. This thesis studies the flow of material through a production line and how Volvo can use their existing manufacturing monitoring system to optimize the flow of materials.The goal with the thesis is to identify eventual problems with the flow of materials and to deliver a few proposals on how the production line can improve its productivity. The theory of LEAN, Just-In-Time and Supply Chain Management serves as the scientific reference to this project. By analyzing the flow of material, performing interviews and observing the processes a few problems are identified.

Due to fast growing and rapid changes in markets today, most of the organizationsthat are trying keep up with these changes have a high demand for software that areof high quality and comes with a low price. To meet these goals software companieshave to implement new methods to develop software that are suited for rapidchanges. The concept of agile methods can fulfill this need. Our purpose with thisthesis was to investigate how well agile methods could be applied in organizationsthat could be identified as adhocracies. A case study was conducted in anorganization which we could identify as an adhocracy.

This paper aims to investigate whether a small organization with small development teams can find a value in leaving a functioning development process to follow a formal systems development methodology, if these organizations can find support in an agile systems development method and in such case the method needs to be adjusted according to the organizations unique conditions.A traditional plan-driven system development methodology includes a number of phases that are carried out sequentially and a completed phase can basically not be resumed. All requirements are specified at the beginning of a project and at the end of the project only one delivery of software take place. This can cause difficulties in for example dealing with changing requirements. Agile system development methods intend to deal with changing requirements and to enable continuous delivery of valuable, working software.In this paper, both the traditional plan-driven methods and agile methods will be explained. Research methodology and existing system development theories will be discussed and a company where the study has been conducted will be presented.

Under sent 1990-tal bo?rjade utvecklare att bli mer och mer missno?jda med ra?dande arbetsformer i projekt. Utvecklarna upplevde att modeller som vattenfallsmodellen inte la?ngre speglade verkligheten fo?r utvecklingen. Detta missno?je resulterade i att en ma?ngd nya arbetsmodeller uppstod och 2001 samlades de under Agile Manifesto.

St. Jude Medical Inc is one of the worlds leading companies in the medical technology area with cardiovascular devices as its specialty.Manufacturing implantable medical devices such as Pace Maker Electrodes requires complex design, safe processes and well trained operators. User friendly manufacturing operations are a necessity.Lately there?s been an increase of the manufacturing volume which also increased the number of operators. More operators need to be trained and cross-trained.