x

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149057M, 149058R, 149068X, 149061U

MBA in IT – University of Moratuwa

MN 5201 Organizational Behaviour& Management

CASE STUDY OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT

IN SIMCENTRIC TECHNOLOGIES

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Contents

Chapter 1: Executive Summery ..................................................................................................................... 3

Chapter 2: Introduction and Objectives........................................................................................................ 5

Chapter 3: Methodology Statement ............................................................................................................. 8

3.1 Data Gathering Methodologies: .......................................................................................................... 8

3.2 Data analysis Methodologies: ............................................................................................................. 9

Chapter 4: Literature Review ...................................................................................................................... 10

4.1 Reasons for software development project failures .......................................................................... 10

4.2 Why Agile Methodology .................................................................................................................. 10

4.3 Agile Principals ................................................................................................................................. 11

4.4 Agile Development Methods ............................................................................................................ 12

Roles ................................................................................................................................................... 12

Scrum initialization ............................................................................................................................. 12

4.5 Agile Meetings .................................................................................................................................. 13

4.6 John Kotter’s eight step plan ............................................................................................................. 14

Chapter 5: Organizational Context ............................................................................................................. 15

5.1 Main consumers of the company ...................................................................................................... 17

5.2 Organizational Culture and Structure ............................................................................................... 17

5.3 The organizational change of introducing Agile methodology ......................................................... 20

Chapter 6: Issues to be addressed .............................................................................................................. 21

Chapter 7: Report Key Findings................................................................................................................... 24

Chapter 8: Discussion and Analysis ............................................................................................................. 31

Chapter 9: Conclusion and Recommendation ............................................................................................ 34

Chapter 10: Personal Reflective evaluation ................................................................................................ 36

References 41

Chapter 12:Appendix .................................................................................................................................. 42

12.1 Questionnaire .................................................................................................................................. 42

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Chapter 1: Executive Summery

Simcentric Technologies is a medium scale company which provides fire simulation software

applications for overseas markets. The main company is located in Australia and the branches

are established in Bohemia and Sri Lanka. The company is specialized in the development of

external programs which can connect and control elements inside the 3D simulation platform.

The organizational structure is based on functional structure.

The company has developed number of battle simulation applications for American Army,

British Army, Bohemian Army and French Army successfully and those software systems are

running well without major issues. But the management decided to introduce agile software

development methodology for their software development processes because they had a major

issue in handling rapid requirement changes. The main objectives of the change were enhancing

the productivity and quality of the software, deliver on time and handle changing requirements.

Agile software methods have grabbed the attention of software engineers and software architects

worldwide. Approximately 70% of software projects fail because of not meeting the timeline,

cost overrun and customers ‘requirements are not satisfied. Agile methodology addresses the

above problems in a satisfactory way.

The main objectives of this report are to analyze the change which has been introduced to the

organization, the background for the change, reaction of the employees, challenges in the process

and advantages and disadvantages of the new method.

To achieve above mentioned goals; interviews, questionnaires have been used to collect

information. Data has been analyzed using standard tools. Number of articles, journals and web

sites were referred to become familiar about the agile methodology.

The organization has used John Kotter’s eight step plan to introduce the change. As the first step

the management has scheduled a meeting with the CEO of the company and got his approval for

the change. The project management had discussion sessions with Engineers and grabbed their

ideas. The ideas from each and every level have been taken in to the consideration. E.g. Senior

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Engineers, Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineers. Etc. They have communicated the change

across the organization. Provided training sessions on agile methodology and inspired the

employees to own the change. At the very beginning the change was introduced to one of their

internal project and reviewed the results. Through the reviews they have realized that the

application of agile methodology was successful. Then the change has been introduced to other

projects as well.

The main finding was: introduction of agile methodology to Simcentric Technologies was a

positive change and it can increase the productivity and quality of the products and improves the

ability for delivering the product on time. Employees adhered to the change within a short period

and the resistances were very less. Project teams are able to handle changing requirements

successfully.

Agile methodology is a good approach to produce high quality software and deliver on time. But

the employees should be trained properly on that methodology. Through the results of our

analysis we have realized that John Kotter’s eight step plan for change management is a

successful approach for driving a change. Simcentric Technologies has adopted that theory in a

very effective manner.

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Chapter 2: Introduction and Objectives

Simcentric Technology is a medium level software development company. Mainly it caters fire

simulation software applications for their clients. The organization has a vision of “Bring out the

real battlefield experience with fully controllable objects into our client’s door step”. To achieve

the vision the organization follows different various strategies. Recently they have made huge

change in their software development life cycle. From the beginning of the organization they had

followed the software development methodology called “waterfall model”. Day by day the

organization’s product get complex with the new technologies and customer requirements. 5 -6

months back the software architectures in the Simcentric have figured out the “waterfall model”

is not suitable for their developments any more.

Simcentric wanted to choose a better software development methodology which can fulfill the

above major issues. At that time Agile software development methodology came into the title

and Simcentric moved to follow Agile. Agile development methodology is becoming the most

popular development model in the software development field. By introducing Agile

methodology in Simcentric, they are aiming to increase the productivity while catering high

performance and zero or less bugs software applications to their clients. This methodology is

very suitable for the products which have rapidly changing customer requirements.

In the Agile methodology the scrum can consider as the key point. Scrum is something like a

meeting and it consists with,

The Scrum Master

The person who maintain the process

The Product Owner

The person who is responsible for the product. He has the authority

to take decisions regarding his product.

The Team

The People who are involve to design, develop, test & deploys the product.

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The scrum master role is to,

Be a facilitator

Remove obstacles faced by the team

Assist the team in achieving the iteration goals

Coach the team on scrum principles

The scrum is time-boxed to 15 minutes and everybody answers the following three questions:

What have you done since yesterday?

What are you planning to do today?

Do you have any blockers to accomplishing the goal?

The Agile process begins with the creation of the product backlog. It is containing all the

features of the software (New features to the software or new requirement from the customer).

The scrum team involves in this process and then it is reviewed and prioritizes the order. The

software development is managed small iterations from one to four week. These iterations also

call as sprints. The size of the sprint may vary upon the product backlog. End of each sprint it

release new software version. This version may be consists with new features or fixed identified

bugs from previous sprint. This new software release review by the product owner.

The organization has faced some difficulties while they implement the change. As we know the

nature of employers resistant to change. So the organization had to come up with different

strategies to overcome these issues. Also they did not apply Agile methodology to entire

organization. Initially they tested with one development team and analyzed the outcome. Then

they applied the entire organization to Agile with some minor modifications.

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The employees were trained on agile methodology. Initially there were only few employees who

were willing adopt the change. Selected scrum masters among them. Scrum masters were

provided special training on Agile. Scrum masters were asked to train others on agile

methodology more.

Also re arranged the physical structure of the working place. Earlier the software engineers and

the quality assurance engineers were in two different premises. So they could not communicate

properly. Communication was done through the emails or skype chat. With the new arrangement

helps them to work same premise. Then they could found a more effective communication link.

Since this change affected to entire organization life cycle, this can be considered as a huge

challenge to the organization. So Simcentric technology has used various strategies and

approaches to adapt to the change. Those strategies and approaches that Simcentric followed are

discuss in the later part of this report.

This organizational change has taken into consideration in this report because it included,

a clear change which affected to entire organization

how organization adopt this change

how they introduce the change in to the employers

what are the issues that arise with the change

how they overcome that issues

what sort of a success gain by implementing this change

The main objectives of this report are,

to analyze the organization context before and after the change

evaluate the change process

discover the strengths and weaknesses

evaluate the customer reaction towards the Agile methodology

analyze the overall success and failure with the change

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Chapter 3: Methodology Statement

This section describes the methods used to collect, collate and analyze organizational data. This

mainly contains two sections. Those are data gathering and data analysis. Analysis of this project

is a combination of qualitative and qualitative analysis.

3.1 Data Gathering Methodologies:

We have used following methodologies to analysis the impact of the change process. Those are

Verbal Interviews

We have conduct verbal interviews on employees of the company covering all departments of

the work force such as software engineering, quality assurance and client service which focused

on how the change has impact on their work behavior, what are the advantages and

disadvantages they have faced due to the change and what is their overall view they have about

this change,

Also we have interviewed some of the Top level management, Department level management

and project managers to extract how this change helps them to meet their targets with parallel to

meet company objectives as well.

Questionnaires

A questioner created based on agile methodologies and practices which is expected answer by

operational level managers and Product masters and scrum masters of the team, based on their

level in a scrum team. We select teams 4 teams to answer these questions and questions are

forward to them after marking the correspondent section of the questioner. You can find the

relevant questioner is attached under appendixes.

Time analysis

We have analyzed the delivery timing of a software version with pre change implementation

time and post change implementation time .The corresponding timing took before the

implementation of the change are logged on JIRA (an issue tracking system) tickets by each and

every department .so we can do a comprehensive analysis using before and after timing in order

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to complete a full delivery cycle of a software requirement. Here we assume the comparable

timings are for relatively similar tasks and task selection is done on based on its heaviness

3.2 Data analysis Methodologies:

After gathering data we used Microsoft Excel tool for the analysis. This analysis used graphs and

tables to reach the conclusion.

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Chapter 4: Literature Review

An average of 70% software development projects fail because of:

Not meeting the timelines

Costs overrun

Customers have NOT got what they asked for

4.1 Reasons for software development project failures

Crucial aspect of the challenge is simply that what the software is required to do, i.e., its

functionality, is a moving target (Lee and Xia 2005,Nidumolu 1995). Such user requirements

changes are largely fueled by continuously evolving business needs (Cusumano and Yoffie 1999,

Hoorn et al. 2007,Iansiti and MacCormack 1997) and, in addition to being unpredictable, they

are occurring with increasing frequency and speed in an ever more competitive market

environment (Iansiti and MacCormack 1997).An inability to respond to changing user require-

ments has been implicated as one cause for major project failures, including outcomes such as

budget cost overruns, poor product quality, and project schedule overruns (Standish Group

2003). It is no wonder that requirements change is often viewed asa significant threat to software

development project success. (Maruping&Venkatesh et al., 2009)

4.2 Why Agile Methodology

The use of agile methodologies enables software developers to produce higher quality software

in a shorter period of time. Agile methodologies were developed to improve the development

process by removing barriers to accepting business requirement changes during the development

process. It is not necessary to freeze or lock in business requirements and design details while

developing software with an agile methodology. Agile SDMs all share several qualities

including prototyping, iterative development, and minimal documentation.(Livermore, 2008)

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Agile methodologies welcome change and unpredictability in software projects. Among the agile

methodologies, Extreme Programming (XP) is the one that has received the most attention.

Adherent of agile methodologies claim that they are more adaptive than predictive and more

people-oriented than process-oriented. Adaptive approaches said to be better when the

requirements are uncertain or volatile. If the requirement is not stable perhaps because of

business dynamics and rapidly evolving market pressure, it is difficult to develop stable design

and followed a planned process as being practiced in traditional methodologies. As a reaction to

these problems, a new group of methodologies known as agile methodologies evolved.

(Syed-Abdullah & Holcombe et al., 2006)

4.3 Agile Principals

Twelve values:

1. Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software

2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development

3. Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)

4. Working software is the principal measure of progress

5. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace

6. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers

7. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)

8. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted

9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design

10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential

11. Self-organizing teams

12. Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

(Agile software development, 2014)

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Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

(Creux, 2009)

4.4 Agile Development Methods

Scrum is an Agile development methods. It has been designed for management of software

development projects but can be usedas a general project management approach.

Roles

Scrum defines three main roles in a Scrum team:

the Scrum Master, it maintains the process

the Product Owner, usually the customer - it sets the directions of the software

theTeam, it designs, develops, tests & deploys the software. The team is self-managed.

Scrum initialization

The scrum process is initialized with the creation of the product backlog. The product backlog

can be seen as a wish list containing all the features the software should have. The Scrum team

(including the Scrum master & the Product owner) is involved in the creation of the product

backlog. The Product backlog is then reviewed and the features it contains are prioritized.

Once the product backlog is ready, the project is launched. The software development will be

managed via small iterations from one to four weeks. At the end of each iteration, a new release

of the software featuring new or updated features is deployed.

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Each iteration (also called “sprint”) starts with the creation of a sprint backlog. The sprint

backlog contains features coming from the product backlog which will be developed during the

iteration. Every day, a project status meeting called the Scrum occurs. The meeting is time-boxed

to 15 minutes and everybody answers the three questions:

What have you done since yesterday?

What are you planning to do today?

Do you have any problem preventing you from accomplishing your goal?

At the end of each iteration, a new release of the software is deployed. The Product owner

reviews this new release in order to validate it and to decide what the team has to developed or to

refactor next.

The Scrum method does not describe the way developers code & test the application within a

sprint allowing you to choose a method that suits your needs. (Creux, 2009)

4.5 Agile Meetings

Sprint planning meeting - In Scrum, every iteration begins with the sprint planning

meeting.

The daily standup - The heart of the Scrum process is the daily standup meeting, also

known as the daily Scrum.

Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings - In Scrum, when the sprint ends, it’s time for

the team to present its work to the Product Owner.

(MSDN, 2014)

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4.6 John Kotter’s eight step plan

Establishing a Sense of Urgency

Examining market and competitive realities

Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition

Assembling a group with enough power to lead the change effort

Encouraging the group to work together as a team

Creating a Vision

Creating a vision to help direct the change effort

Developing strategies for achieving that vision

Communicating the Vision

Using every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies

Teaching new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition

Empowering Others to Act on the Vision

Getting rid of obstacles to change

Changing systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision

Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions

Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins

Planning for visible performance improvements

Creating those improvements

Recognizing and rewarding employees involved in the improvements

Consolidating Improvements and Producing Still More Change

Using increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision

Hiring, promoting, and developing employees who can implement the vision

Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents

Institutionalizing New Approaches

Articulating the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success

Developing the means to ensure leadership development and succession

Kotter, J. P. (1995).

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Chapter 5: Organizational Context

Simcentric Technology is found in 2002 from Australia. The company became a multinational

organization with the company expansion to Bohemia and Sri Lanka in 2003.At the moment

around 150 employers are working including software project managers, software engineers and

software quality assurance engineers.

Simcentric provides software services to the simulation industry. The company is specialized in

the development of external programs which can connect and control elements inside the 3D

simulation platform. Basically they have applications which can create virtual battlefields and

create army soldiers, various types of guns, vehicles, civilians and terrorists. And allow users to

control the battle field and its objects.

Simcentric Technology produces various applications to their clients. These applications are

consumed by military officers, Air Force officers and Navy officers.

1. VBS2 Fires

VBS2 Fires is a comprehensive call-for-fire application which simulates fire support

from a wide range of platforms. This application simulates exterior and terminal

ballistics to high level details, enabling gun-to-target of artillery orders. It allows

instructions basic skills, to decision-making from individual to battalion.

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2. VBS2 Strike

VBS2 Strike is an air support training simulation application which designed to facilitate

the training of a forward air controller and uses its internal AI engine to determine

aircraft flight patterns and attack profile based on the user input.

3. VBS2 Fusion

VBS2 Fusion is a C++ application with a collection of libraries which helps to access and

modify the 3D simulation platform.

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4. VBS2 Crowd Ambiance

VBS2 Crowd Ambiance is an application which can add breathes life (civilians) into the

3D simulation platform. So that civilians will interact and respond to gun fire scenarios.

Best part of this application is, it can control each and every civilian’s behavior according

to the user inputs.

5.1 Main consumers of the company

Simcentric Technology has few no of consumers. Mainly they are powerful militaries from

various countries including,

American Army

British Army

Bohemian Army

French Army

5.2 Organizational Culture and Structure

Simcentric top management consists with highly qualified PhD holders. Each and every

employer in Simcentric is holding at least a BSc degeree. So the organization has fully qualified

and capable employers. That would be the secret of their highly complicated AI based

innovations. They have set a vision of “Bring out the real battlefield experience with fully

controllable objects into our client’s door step”. The Simcentric crew is very highly work

oriented and always tries to produce high quality products to their clients.

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Simcentric technology is divided into specialized units which based on the different functions.

These units directly report to the company top management. Each specialized unit handles one

aspect of the product. Basically the employers work in groups according to how senior they are

and the given tasks that match their own skills. As an example software engineers are the only

staff in the entire software development department. Basically Simcentric has a functional

structure. The basic functional structure of the Simcentric can be illustrates as follows.

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HR Assistants

VBS Fires Product Owner

Mr.Sudarshan

VBS Strike Product Owner

Mr.Nonis

CEO

DrRanaweera

HR Manager

Ms. Hunukumbura

Software Development Manager

Mr.Andradi

Operational Manager

Mr.Rajapakshe

Operational Staff

VBS Fusion Product Owner

Mr.Munasinghe

Crowd Ambiance

Mr.Perera

Project Managers

Software Engineers

Quality Assurance

Engineers

Release Engineers

Project Managers

Software Engineers

Quality Assurance

Engineers

Release Engineers

Project Managers

Software Engineers

Quality Assurance

Engineers

Release Engineers

Project Managers

Software Engineers

Quality Assurance

Engineers

Release Engineers

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5.3 The organizational change of introducing Agile methodology

As the mentioned earlier in 6 months time back the software architectures and the top

management has figured out the issues in their product development life cycle. At that time the

organization followed “waterfall model” as their development life cycle. These issues have

arisen mainly with the company enlargement. They have figure out the following main issues in

“waterfall model”.

Poor model for long and ongoing projects

High amount of risk and uncertainty

No working software is produce until the late part of the life cycle.

No suitable for the applications which have rapid customer requirement changes

The “waterfall model” is well suit for the projects such as,

Requirements are well known

Requirements are not change in the middle of the project

Short term projects

Enough resources and technology available for freely

They have identified that above mentioned requirements do not meet with their products. So the

organization started to feel the need of a suitable product life cycle. At that time Simcentric has

chosen to introduce Agile methodology as their software development cycle.

Simcentric chose Agile because,

Customer satisfaction by frequent and continues software application delivery

Continuous attention to more and more better designs and technology

Can conduct proper communication by doing face to face conversation

Even late changes and requirements can acceptable

Ability to test frequently

Highly collaborative approach

Can have more iterations

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Chapter 6: Issues to be addressed

As mentioned in the executive summary Simcentric Technology is software developing

company. The company runs multiple commercial projects. Such as VBS2 fires,VBS2

strike,VBS2 fusion, VBS2 crowd ambiance and etc. Each project is managed and run by one

project team. Each team contains about five to ten members. The company used water fall

methodology as the software development process. The waterfall model was first process model

to be introduced. In a waterfall model, each phase must be completed before the next phase can

begin and there is no overlapping in the phases. This is the earliest Software Development Life

Cycle approach that was used for software development.

Phases in Waterfall Process:

The company faced lots of problems due to this old model. Also the company didn’t have proper

cubical structure to perform day today activities productively.

System Feasibility

Requirement Gathering

System Design

Implementation

System Testing

Maintenance

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Following are the main issues faced by the employees before the change:

Software system requirements change rapidly. But in the waterfall model unable to make

any changes to middle or any phases after the process started. Therefore, it is very

difficult to incorporate requirement changes.

No working software until later phases of the model. Project progress not visible till the

end. Product owner can’t see the product early and can’t report issues early. The risk of

failure is high.

Testing only in the testing phase. Unable to do regular inspection as system develops.

Due to this systems contain more defects.

If any mistake happens should start from the beginning.

Low customer interaction and satisfaction

Communication barrier among the application developers and quality assurance

engineers.

o Both parties didn’t understand the requirements in the same level. This introduces

more defects to the system.

o Productivity levels of the employees were very low.

o Less team work.

Company directors studied the above problem and proposed to use agile based development

methodologies.

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Phases in Scrum process:

In scrum process client doesn’t have t wait till end of all the phases to get the product and can

actively participate to alter requirements during the product development. These are the main

advantages in scrum process. Also there are more testing phases available and client can see the

progress of the product development.

Also they restructured the cubical arrangement. Earlier quality assurance team and developers

are in two different floors. New change brought two teams in to the same floor. This solved

the communication barrier in between quality assurance members and developers.

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Chapter 7: Report Key Findings

As mentioned under methodology statement, we have gathered information to determine the

impact of the change via questionnaires, verbal interviews and delivery time analysis. We also

used scrum documentations to highlights the key changes of scrum process and traditional

waterfall model software development.

First of all let’s look at again the composition of the organization which related to the

formulation of scrum teams.

Group Name Number of Employees

Software Engineering 90

Quality Assurance 25

Project Managers 5

Product Owners 5

Number of scrum teams based on products

VBS Fires

VBS Strikes

Fusion

Crowed Ambiance

Crowed Traffic

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Change acceptance vs. Employees

According to above chart 58% of Software engineers are preferred to scrum development while

92% of quality assurance group members prefer to have it .the rest of two groups which consist

of 5 members each, 100 % convinced of the implementation of scrum.

As you can observe there is only 58 % of software engineers are preferring to it while 42% of the

group members are not convinced about the change yet .we were able to find out following

reasons with the help of statistical analysis and verbal interviews conduct why there are

considerable number of employees of Software engineering group did not like it.

1) Most of the software engineers have their own work pattern. They don’t like to interrupt

it by external factors .With this scrum process sometimes actually their work pattern may

have to change. For example they may have to brief on what they have done and what

they are doing at the moment on every day in daily scrum meetings.

2) Most of times due to introduction of these scrum process, managers may tend to evaluate

engineers on number of items or amount of work they have accomplished per day instead

of focusing on the quality of the software. That will eventually end up demotivating

creative and innovative engineers

Software engineering,

58%

Quality Assuarance,

92%

Project Managers,

100%Product owners,

100%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Group

Pe

rce

nta

ge

Groups vs Scrum Acceptance

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3) Also as per display in above chart we have found .people who have employed more than

1 year in the same organization are more reluctant to adopt this change than employees

who have less than 1 year of service in the same company. This can be explained by

understanding natural human behavior which resist for any change. But surprisingly

people who have more than 6 years of employment has 100 percent of commitment for

new change .it’s because those are the employees who initiate this change and convinced

on this change before it actually implemented to others ,we can identify them as change

champions.

0.00%

20.00%

40.00%

60.00%

80.00%

100.00%

120.00%

less than 1year

1-3 years 3-6 years Over 6years

Emp

loye

e P

erc

en

tage

of

Gro

pu

Years

Years of Employement Vs Change

Employees accept thechange

Employees does not acceptthe change

23%

35%

29%

13%

0%

Employee Productivity VS. Scrum

strongly agree

Agree

Neither agree no disagree

Disagree

strongly disagree

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In relation to the employee productivity 58% of total employees believed it will improve their

overall productivity while 29% of employees have no idea about It .13 % believed it will not

improve their productivity and all employees belongs to that category are in the software

engineering group.

The majority of “quality assurance” engineers are think this will be improve their productivity

since they have been delivered sprints with small ,independent items so they don’t want to do

tests like regression testing thoroughly with each and every release. Therefore they could focus

more on testing functional issues.

Also majority of employees who marked their option as “neither agree nor disagree “belongs to

software engineering group

Majority of employees have no idea whether management has accepted the feedbacks /

suggestion or indicated most of them have not given any feedback or suggestion to the

management as well. But those who provide feedback and suggestion are also not satisfied about

the response they got from management. We can clearly see management has neglected the

feedbacks from Software engineering group and Quality assurance Group which are representing

the largest two groups in the organization. But you can see management has accept the feedback

and suggestion from groups like Project managers and product owners because they are the

people who deal with this change in higher level and they are placed on above these SE and QA

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

stronglyagree

Agree No Idea Disagree stronglydisagree

Management consideration of employees' suggestions and feedback on change process.

Software Engineering

Quality assuarance

Project management

Product owners

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group according to functional structure of the organization.so management has thought to

implement this change it is vital to accept the inputs from higher level employees than the lower

level employees.

Also you might noticed there are only 4 and 3 employees from software engineering and quality

assurance groups are agreed to that management has consider their inputs to the change process.

Those employees are very senior employees in the organization and holding “Tech-Lead” or

“QA Lead” positions of their groups.

We can see a clear elimination of feedbacks or suggestion from lower level employees, while

accepting the feedbacks and suggestions from higher level employees.

Time analysis

Task vs. Total deliver time

The organization used an issue tracking system called JIRA to log issues and log timings of task.

We took few tasks which undertook by different scrum teams and we searched for similar tasks

which are accomplished before the scrum based development has started (Waterfall

model).compared those timing and plot a graph.

As you can see the total deliver time has slight variations of timing from waterfall model under

scrum development .this is due to because in waterfall model we don’t welcome change requests

in the middle of the process since it would be very costly. But in the scrum, change requests are

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4

Day

s

Total Deliver Time

Watrefall Model

Scrum

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welcome since there will be multiple iterations for complete a sprint. Therefore you don’t see

much of the delivery time differences between “waterfall development” and scrum, if too many

changes are welcome under scrum development even though the weight of the task is similar.

But you will find in the following chart the “idle times” of Software and QA engineers are

drastically down compared to waterfall model. The main reason was unlike waterfall model

Scrum is a continuous improvement and continuous review methodology .therefore you don’t

have time to sit and enjoy or relax as before. You have to take inputs from previous release and

improve your next sprint release as per required. This may be one reason that 42% of software

engineers didn’t accept the scrum, as per the “Groups vs. Scrum Acceptance” chart. Which may

associate with an established that software engineers doesn’t like frequent changes to deal with

Overall, majority of employees are accepted the scrum process is a good process for iterative

software development when requirements are dynamic and subjected to change frequently.

Majority of employees in software engineering group are in the same view even though 42% has

not still convinced about the change yet .but according to scrum specialist it took little bit of time

for engineers to actually switched into a common process of software development from their

personal practices or a from a process like waterfall model . Especially engineers who worked

more than 4 years are really difficult to convince for a change at the early stage while we can

easily adopt engineers who worked less than one year in the organization.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4

Man

ho

urs

Total Idle Time of Software Engineers

Watrefall Model

Scrum

30

Also we note that product owners and project managers are fully convinced about the change.

Some of them actually involved initiating the change and they act as change champions who

work to convince others on change for success the change process.

From organizations perspective they got few advantages across this change. They can now fully

occupy their employees all the time by minimizing employee’s idle time and it allows them to

being more flexible for their customers to change their initial requirement without billing

significant additional cost to them. Also now entire software development process is more

transparent than previous with activities such as daily scrum meetings and marking progress of

activities on visual (physical) task board

31

Chapter 8: Discussion and Analysis

As mentioned in introduction the company moved their process model from classical waterfall

development model to agile based scrum model. As a software developing company this is a

major process change. We primarily used questionnaires, interviews and delivery time analysis

to collect information related to this change.

During the information gathering we found most of the employees were aware of change before

starting the implementation. According to John Kotter’s theory this is a major indicator for the

success of the change. Initially they had meetings to discuss about the need for change, what is in

it for the employees and what will happen if no change. Most of the employees were aware of

the change, but in “Change acceptance vs. Employees” graph shows only 58% of engineers have

accepted the change. The same group also thought this process is not going to improve their

productivity. This is because most of the software engineers were stable with the waterfall

model. Therefore they thought scrum process has additional tasks such as meetings which would

disturb their product implementation. Another reason for this is lack of knowledge of the scrum

process. The management reduced this percentage by conducting trainings related to scrum.

Most of employees own the need for change. The majority are the employees who worked more

than 6 years and who decide the change. Employees with less experience also accepted the

change easily. The management also collected suggestions from employees during the planning

session of the change and included some of the suggestions by the employees to change process.

This also increased the motivation level of the employees. But “management consideration of

employees' suggestions and feedback on change process” graph shows most of the software

engineers and quality assurance engineers didn’t allow providing feedback. The management had

32

only valued the ideas of the top level. They have done a big mistake by ignoring the lower

working force. Therefore lower level didn’t provide 100 percent support for the change.

Another point is to make a successful change need the power. Early stage of the change the

management scheduled a meeting with CEO and provided details related to the change. The

CEO understood the situation and gave the full support during the change. This gave enough

power to lead the change. This shows the foundation of the change process that the company

followed was very successful.

First the management organized trainings session and a workshop related to scrum model. They

selected an internal project team for the initial stage. They started with VBS fires project. The

company successfully phased out the larger change into smaller projects. Then they monitor the

progress of the process around two months. The management compared the defect density,

customer problems and customer satisfaction with the previous process values. Then gradually

the team introduced the scrum model to other projects as well. The change management team

also took feedback and improvements mainly from the scrum masters during the implementation

of the change. They didn’t pay much attention to others. This is another mistake. According to

Kotter’s theory team should do consolidate improvements, reassess changes, and make necessary

adjustments in the new programmes.

The application developers and quality assurance engineers were in two floors. This cause lots of

communication problems. While introducing the new process the company changed the cubical

structure as well. This is the second part of the change. Similar to process change most of the

software engineers didn’t agree for this as well. People like to change if they can see what they

can get from the change. If they can’t get anything they will reluctant to change. Most of them

told now they can easily discuss about defects, requirement mismatches, estimations, release

33

issues etc easily. This improves the software quality. Now the productivity of the employees are

also high. The comparison of count of client problems and client satisfaction rates of past three

months shows the management has handled the change very successfully. In time analysis “total

ideal time of software engineers” graph shows how the scrum process has reduced the idling

time of the employees.

34

Chapter 9: Conclusion and Recommendation

We can identify some features of John Kotter’s eight step plan in the change management process of

Simcentric Technologies. At the beginning the senior management and the senior Engineers have

understood that the existing method should be changed. Then they have communicated that throughout

the organization. They have used discussion sessions and meetings for that. Most of the employees have

understood the necessity for the change. If the management introduced the change without

communicating about that the resistances will be higher than this level. Employees felt they also have a

key role to play within the organization. They have been empowered and motivated to own the change

before introducing. Simcentric is very successful at this point.

The senior management of the company had discussion sessions with the CEO of the company and got

his approval for the change. Because of that they had enough power to drive the change. Employees also

got to know that the CEO is also convinced about the change. When the key person is supporting for

some activity most of other employees gather around that. The employees ready to take risks because they

feel some stableness when the key person is with them.

The main problem that they had to address through the introduction of Agile methodology is handling the

rapid changes of the requirements and deliver a quality software on time. The organization has created a

proper plan for that and communicated it throughout the organization. All the employees knew about the

plan and they have worked to achieve the established goal. They have introduced the change to one of

their internal project and reviewed the results. Because the results were successful they have implemented

that to other projects as well

The organization provided necessary training sessions on Agile methodology. One major reason for the

resistances is techno fear. Simcentric addressed this problem by training employees on that before the

change. Up to this point we can see the features of John Kotter’s eight step plan. We can recommend the

above mentioned procedure in the change management process of any company.

As discussed in the “Report key findings” 100% of managers and senior employees accepted the change.

92% of Quality assurance engineers accepted the change. But 42% of software engineers didn’t

convinced about it. At the beginning of the change process the management got the ideas from

employees. But through the questionnaires we have figured out that the employees feel that their ideas

were neglected by the management. They think that the management is forcing them to follow the process

although they can see holes in it. On the other hand the software engineers have their own methods of

developing software. So some of them feel the new method is not comfortable for them. And the

35

reduction of idle time was a problem for some of the engineers. It was a stress for them. They felt that

they have to work as robots. So we recommend to consider about stress management methods such as

flexible work hours, take short relaxation break, discuss the problems with managers. Etc.

The organization didn’t motivate the employees in a satisfactory way. So the employees may begin to

think that they don’t need to put their maximum effort to achieve organizational goals. At the beginning

part of the change management process the management got employee feedback. But at the latter part

they have forgotten to do that. Some employees felt that they became idle in the change process. So the

employees didn’t empower to take the risks and come up with new ideas. So we recommend motivating

employees through celebrating short term wins get regular feedback and empower them by assigning

tasks and responsibilities according to their skill level.

The organization has reviewed the results during and after the change management process. They didn’t

focus on continuous improvements. The company needs to review the process time to time and do

necessary adjustments. Through the interviews we have realized that the management didn’t try to

convince the 42% of software engineers who were not comfortable with the change. 42% is not a

negligible amount. So the management should do necessary adjustments to reduce that number such as

providing more training sessions, have discussion sessions with them and figure out their problems

regarding the change process. Through the interviews, we have realized that the major problems are the

change of their normal software development pattern and the stress. As mentioned earlier the flexible

work hours and short relaxation breaks will address the problem.

As we have discussed in this report that the Simcentric technologies managed their change management

process successfully with less employee resistances. But the organizations should focus on the

recommendations that we have discussed in this chapter. It will make the change management process

much smoother than the existing level.

36

Chapter 10: Personal Reflective evaluation

Jayasekara K. R – 149057M

I m a person who are coming from a very technical background with holding a B.Sc specialized

in software engineering. At the moment I’m working as a Software Engineer at leading software

company in Sri Lanka. It is not a secret that the software development field consists with full of

deadlines. Most of the time software developers are in stress. Because of this reason personally I

do not want to continue my career as a software engineer in future. That is why I have chosen to

study MBA program and enhance my management knowledge and skills. The module

organizational behavior and management is the first management module I have ever learnt. The

learning materials of this module were really interest and help to improve my management

knowledge and skills.

At the same time this assignment has helped me to understand why employees resistant to

change and what the strategies employer would take to overcome. Since I m an employee at

selected organization and I also affected from the mentioned change. As an employee I could

remember how I behaved and reacted on this change. While working on this assignment I had to

research what sort of strategies that Simcentric management took place to establish the change.

On the other hand I realized what other strategies that management should have taken to

establish this change more effectively and efficiently. Since the incidents happened in my

organization I was responsible to provide organizational structure, organizational culture,

organizational brief profile, the main change which have taken place and the reasons for its

introduction to my other team mates. So I was involved to discuss about the organizational

context and introduction and objectives of the change process. If I was there in the change

management process I try to more close with the employers and collecting ideas about the

change. On the initial stage I plan to show some video documentaries that help them to realize

the importance of the change. And also ensure to show up how this change affect positively to

their career development. Likewise I try to show the advantages and benefits that they can gain

from the change.

37

Finally I’m looking forward to apply the management knowledge and skills which I have gain

from this module, assignment and the experience which I have captured from my team mates in a

future appropriate management role.

Mullegamgoda M.M.M.P – 149061U

I am from a technical background. Still, I have only one year and eight months experience in my

career life. Currently I am working as a software engineer. Being an engineer, I am leading a

small team of junior engineers at my workplace. If I mention about by strengths, I like to face

challenges, responsible, courageous, stable, committed and I am assertive in my office works

(May not in normal day to day activities). I like to help my team members at any time when they

are facing difficulties and I give regular feedbacks. While developing bug free software I always

focus on learning new technology aspects and I encourage my juniors to do that. I am very

rushed in doing things. If I mention about my weaknesses, I am introverted and I am not that

much of a good communicator. But I am sure I can overcome my weaknesses. I have selected

the MBA in IT at university of Moratuwa because I want to enhance my managerial skills.

In Organizational Behavior and management module we have got two assignments, learning

diary and this report. Learning diary helped me to apply the theories of the subject into my own

experiences and it leads me to live inside the subject. Assignment 02 helped me to understand

the change management, motivational theories and organizational structure. In this assignment

we have to analyze a change which has taken place in an organization. Through the analysis I

was able to understand how the theories can be applied to the real world scenarios. We can

memorize if the theories we have studied it well. But it is not effective if we don’t know how to

apply them. This assignment addresses that problem. I have improved my negotiation skills,

teamwork skills, conceptual skills and emotional intelligence skills through this assignment.

According to our analysis we have realized that the company has followed John Kotter’s eight

step plan in change management. Most of the activities that the company has followed are

similar to that theory. Introducing a change is not an easy task. But using correct theories and

standard processes, we can achieve that goal. If I was there to drive the change I will also follow

the eight step plan. I will inspire the employees more than that Simcentric have done. E.g.

celebrating short term ‘wins’. The company considered about the ideas of the employees before

introducing the change. But they didn’t get employee feedbacks after the change has been

38

applied. If they did that, they will be able to improve the procedures further more. If I was there

to drive the change I will focus on continuous improvements as well.

This module has helped me to improve the managerial qualities and at the same time it has

helped me to understand my weaknesses. As a personal development plan I will focus on

enhancing my communication skills, leadership skills and emotional intelligence skills. And I try

to apply the things which I have been studied through this module into practical activities. E.g.

Motivation theories, conflict management, stress management... Etc.

Kaluarachchi S. N. – 149058R

I am working as a senior software engineer at Virtusa Pvt. Ltd. I have very good technical skills.

But technical skills are not enough to move up the career path. Therefore I am following this

MBA to improve my managerial skills. I am hard working, courageous and committed. But I am

not very good in communication. I believe I can improve my communication skill from this

MBA. Organizational Behavior and Management is the first subject of this MBA which provides

very valuable knowledge to understand human and organization behavior. This understandability

helps to manage and motivate employees easily. Not only employee management this subject

also taught stress level management, conflict resolution styles, personality tests, power politics,

etc. My main aim is to practically apply these theories learned and improve my knowledge

further.

This assignment helped me to understand how change process works and how it affects

employees. In addition it showed how to apply change management theories in practice. During

the analysis we found that the Simcentric Technology used Kotter’s eight steps plan to manage

their change. They successfully changed their development process from waterfall process to

scrum process without affecting smooth run of the operations. The main reasons for their success

are communication, employee motivation, planning and training. The analysis also showed some

drawbacks in their change management process. During the change implementation the

management forgot to consider employees’ feedback from the lower level. This is one mistake.

Employee’s feedback help to fine tune the system. In addition incorporating employee’s

feedback will motivate the employees.

39

If I were in the change management process head I would definitely follow Kotter’s eight steps

plan. I would first build a team with good knowledge of the change (change champions). Then

inform it to everyone in the organization and provide necessary training required for change

through change champions. After that, introduce the change gradually. Take feedback from

employees. Then alter the change process according to the feedback and continue. While change

is in progress I would introduce short term reward system for team members who gain success

from change. Another suggestion is scrum process is not suitable for all the development

projects. Scrum process is suitable for very dynamic projects with unclear requirements.

Therefore, Company should consider nature of the project when introducing this change to future

projects. Another important point is always follow best practices in industry and continuously try

to improve the change process.

Wellage C.A– 149068X

I am working as a senior software engineer/database engineer in a software company which’s

core business is providing reports for stock broker clients in USA.I have nearly 6 years of

experience in IT industry as an engineer and worked in business domains like billing, financial

reporting.

I read my first degree in Management and Information Technology but since then I selected to go

with technical background, for last 6 years I had no opportunity of practicing the management

related disciplines and eventually it ended up without adding me much value for my career .But

then later I decided to shift my career into more of a part time business, started with one of my

friend and I had forced to execute management related tasks such as planning ,organizing

,costing ,billing and work with subordinates and clients. Then I realized the need of learning

management again. Therefor I decided to study for MBA and gain related experience.

Throughout this module I have learnt the relation of human behavior and the organizational

behavior which of course help me to identify the actual issues we are facing now in my current

work place, in a broader manner. I actually pointed out most of it in my learning diary

assignment and I actually try to convey those issues plus solutions from my perspective in near

future. For example the changed mentioned in this assignment (scrum) had started in our

40

organization too over a year ago, but eventually failed due to lack of support from management

and lack of awareness for need of the change by the majority of management team.

If I was given authority to implement the particular change I will first convinced the

management about the need of the change and I will build a team from members who extended

their support to do this change and I will give them power of delegation to influence rest of the

members of the organization for actual implementation of it, while I am monitoring their moves

extensively. Also I will propose a reward scheme for employees on monthly basis, for those who

have shown the most successful adoption to the change by each and every month.

Finally I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our team members for their commitment and

sharing their knowledge among each other for the success of this assignment.

41

References

Agile Software Development. (2014, April 29). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development

A. Livermore, J. (2008). Factors that Significantly Impact the Implementation of an Agile

Software Development Methodology.

Creux, P. (2009). Agile Development in a Nutshell.[Blog] eggsonbread.com. Available at:

http://eggsonbread.com/2009/07/10/agile-development-in-a-nutshell/ [Accessed 5 Apr.

2014].

Kotter, J. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard business review,

73(2), pp.59--67.

M. Maruping, L. and Venkatesh, V. (2009). A Control Theory Perspective on Agile Methodology

Use and Changing User Requirements, [online] 20. Available at:

http://vvenkatesh.com/Downloads/Papers/fulltext/pdf/Maruping_Venkatesh_Agarwal_ISR_

2009.pdf [Accessed 11 Mar. 2014].

Msdn.microsoft.com, (2014).Meetings (Agile). [online] Available at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd997582%28v=vs.100%29.aspx [Accessed 11

Apr. 2014].

Syed-abdullah, S., Holcombe, M. and Gheorge, M. (2006).The Impact of an Agile Methodology

on the Well Being of Development Teams. [online] Available at:

http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~wmlh/SharifahEMSE8.pdf [Accessed 11 Mar. 2014].

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Chapter 12:Appendix

12.1 Questionnaire

Questioner for all employees

1) Your group

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2) Your designation

☐Associate Software Engineer

☐Software engineer

☐Senior Software Engineer

☐Tech –lead

☐Associate QA engineer

☐QA engineer

☐Senior QA engineer

☐QA Lead

☐Project Manager

☐Product Owner

3) Have you Practiced Scrum before?

Yes ☐ No☐

4) If not did you receive a proper training about scrum process and features before you

start??

Yes ☐ No ☐

5) Are you comfortable with the Scrum process than the previous process??

Yes ☐ No ☐

6) If not can you briefly mentioned three reasons why you are not comfortable with it

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7) How long have you been with the organization?

☐Less than 1year

☐1-5 years

☐5-10

☐More than 10

8) As per your point of view what is the level of input from your team members to deliver a

sprint successfully.

43

☐ Poor

☐ Moderate

☐Good

☐Very good

9) Briefly explain below.

a. What is the change?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

b. Why is the change being made?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

c. How is the change going to affect me?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

10) To what extent are you affected by this change?

☐ High

☐ Average

☐ Low

11) Any weaknesses you saw in the change process?

12) New process will be a benefit for the company

☐ strongly agree

☐ Agree

☐Neither agree not disagree

☐ Disagree

☐ strongly disagree

13) I believe new process will improve my productivity and effectiveness in work

☐ strongly agree

☐ Agree

☐Neither agree not disagree

☐ Disagree

☐ strongly disagree

Management Support

14) The management is supportive and motivated employees towards the change?

44

☐Strongly agree

☐ Agree

☐Neither agree not disagree

☐ Disagree

☐Strongly disagree

15) Management always keeps me informed about matters that affect me.

☐Strongly agree

☐ Agree

☐Neither agree not disagree

☐ Disagree

☐Strongly disagree

16) The Management considered employees' suggestions and feedback during the change process.

☐Strongly agree

☐ Agree

☐Neither agree not disagree

☐ Disagree

☐Strongly disagree

17) Management is personally committed to the new process

☐Strongly agree

☐ Agree

☐Neither agree not disagree

☐ Disagree

☐Strongly disagree

The following Questioner is expected to fill by Product owners, Scrum Masters and Project

Managers only.

Increment

1.) Does the increment (the release produce at the end of each sprint) adhere to the defined

quality standards?

2.) Does the increment works when it is integrated with the existing features, i.e. it should

not break the existing functionality.

3.) After every sprint does the increment presented to the client? If not how often the

increment is presented to the client?

4.) Does client feedback used for improving future upcoming increments?

Events

45

1.) How often you have the sprint retrospective?

2.) Do all team members participate in the retrospective?

3.) How often do you cancel the current sprint due to critical changes?

4.) How often do you cancel the current sprint due to critical bugs?

5.) How often the team members are deviated from the current sprint?

6.) Does the scrum meeting time boxed to 15 minutes?

7.) Does the scrum meeting starts at the same time every day?

8.) Do you take remaining work to the next sprint?

9.) How often you take the remaining work to the next sprint?

Information Radiators

1.) Do the team members update the tasks daily?

2.) Do you use physical boards and are they updated parallel to the electronic boards?

3.) Do the success sliders help the top management to identify the priorities?

4.) Does scrum process has impact on other departments?

5.) If so does it forces change HR policies?

6.) Does scrum process has an impact to sales and marketing?

7.) If so does to forces the sales and marketing to plan the campaigns accordingly?

Roles

1.) Does scrum implementation forces the roles to be changed?

2.) Do you rotate the scrum master among team members?

3.) If so how often do you change the scrum master role?

4.) Do you have other roles such as QA Lead, QA Engineer, Tech Lead, Developer, etc.

within the scrum team?

5.) Or else do they work as a team towards the sprint goal as a team irrespective of the role

their playing.

6.) Who has the permission to enter Backlog items to Product Backlog? (Product

Owner/Scrum Master/ Scrum team / Client / Client Support / Anyone)

7.) How often the releases are planned by the product owner? (Monthly/ Quarterly / Every

Six Months / Yearly)

Adapting

1.) When adopting scrum initially was the entire company aware of the new process?

2.) If so does everyone agreed that current process was not working and they needed a new

process?

3.) Does every one agree the new process works as expected?

4.) Or do they agree for further improvements and training on the new process?

5.) Did you start with one scrum team and expand it to the other teams?

6.) Or else did you implement it for the whole company?

7.) Was there any resistance?