Emergence of Agile Methods: Perceptions from Software Practitioners in Malaysia

Presenter: Jeeson Daniel J
Authors: Ani Liza Asnawi, Andrew M Gravell, Gary B Wills
School of Electronics & Computer Science,
University of Southampton UK.

International Conference on Agile and Lean Software Development
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AgileIndia2012, Bengaluru

 Agile provides way to develop software and
how to define requirements which can satisfy
customers
 Despite the benefits, little work and studies
about the methods can be found from the
Southeast Asia region particularly Malaysia.
 So, if the methods are to be used, we need to
know and understand how Agile methods are
perceived and how the methods can be
practiced within this region.

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 What do practitioners say about awareness of
Agile in the country?
 What are the first reason(s) making they
started to use Agile methods?
 What are the challenges they faced when
using Agile?
 Despite the challenges, what are Agile
practices perceived to deliver the greatest
benefits to them?

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 Agile is not for everyone – “What works in one
culture, will not necessarily work in other
culture”
 Another study also asked “ What has culture got
to do with software development?” so we
believe cultural differences will influence the
adoption or use of Agile methods in the country
 Malaysia is a country having a mixed
population with three different ethnicities;
Malay, Chinese and Indians. The national
language is Malay language and the second
language is English.

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 Studies [1] described Malaysia as having problems
in defining requirements for software process and
discovered companies in Malaysia do not have a
clear methodology that illustrates how the
requirements can be obtained [2].
 Therefore understanding good software process
that can help to define requirements easily is
needed in Malaysia.
 In addition, Malaysia has put focus on the field of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
involving software development – in the 10th
Malaysia plan (2011-2015).
 Thus, the need for a good software process that can
help the IT industry is important for the success of
the 10th Malaysia plan.

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 This paper provides perception of practitioners in
the country, in terms of awareness, Agile
introduction, challenges facing, and benefits
adopters obtained when using the
methodologies.
 Provide guidelines for early adopters in Malaysia
as few studies about the methods are lacking in
the country and nearby region.
 Reduce difficulties to early adopters in applying
Agile.
 The study also will help to add to empirical
evidence for software engineering field
particularly in terms of Agile methods from
different region.

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Methods
 Qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted
 Software development deals with human factors
therefore a qualitative study helps in
understanding the respondents‟ behaviour.

Participants
 Purposely chosen
 14 interview subjects in total with four of the
participants from the baseline study.
 Software practitioners: developers, testers,
system analyst, business analyst-having Agile
experience.

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 We use a „Thematic Analysis‟ to analyse our
data.
 It is a way to see things and patterns within
the information collected
 In order to develop themes and codes, the
raw information (the data) needs to be
reduced. The data were imported to NVivo 8.
 From Nvivo, codes are produced from themes
which are developed through several stages.

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Compa Types Status Duration Company‟s Main Activity
ny Using Agile
A Local Company Fully Scrum 4 years Rapid Web Application
(small and
startup)
B Local Only parts 2 years E-commerce
of Agile (started in
2009)
C (I) Multinational Fully Scrum Since June Technology and Services.
2010
C (II) Multinational Fully Scrum 4-5 years Technology and Services.

D Local company Fully Scrum 2 years Airport product, critical
system, r&d, middleware
E Multinational Fully Scrum 1 year Technology and Services

F Multinational Fully Scrum 1 year Technology and services
company
G Local company Fully Scrum Since end of R and D
2010

Table: Companies‟ Overview
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Company Number of Roles(s)
Participants
A 1 Founder + PM + Scrum Master
B 1 System Analyst
C 3 Developer (2), Business Analyst
C (I) 5 Scrum Master (2), Developer, PM,
Business Analyst
D 1 PM
E 1 Developer
F 1 PM
G 1 Tester

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 Awareness of Agile Methods in Malaysia
i. Beginning stage & lack of exposure
- Lack awareness mentioned by the companies, including from
the customers‟ side.
- Company F: “I think however, people are taking baby steps, I
think most of the companies using Agile are from multinational
companies”
ii. Lacking from Government Side
- Interviews showed that government employees are less aware of
Agile methods than the private sector is
- Company G: “ If we can go to that agency, and map back
whatever they have in Waterfall with Agile, from there, they might
see about Agile methods. Basically it is just the awareness.”

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 Agile Introduction
i. Agile proponents and experienced from previous methods
- Agile introduction found easy for proponent and believers.
- Company A: “Waterfall might work for others, but we don‟t want to use
it, because we believe Agile work for us, we really believe Agile as a way
to go.”

ii. Adopting from parent companies
- All multinational companies in the study mentioned that they started to
use Agile from their sub-companies – “We are a multinational company,
perhaps, because the organisation itself is supporting Agile methods.”

iii. Adopting the benefits
- The highest cited reason for using Agile and the drawbacks from the
previous methods.
- C (I): “ I believe in Agile because Agile will be much easier....It does not
have to be like the Waterfall practices, where at the end, one can only see
the progress and everything.

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 Challenges When using the Methodologies
Lack of documentation
- The nature of Agile in this aspect is perceived a challenge to the
companies in Malaysia especially those that are still at the beginning.
More challenging for those deal with government projects.

ii. People
- it was found that the mind set of people adopting Agile must be ready
to adapt to how Agile methods work.
- Company D: “When involved with international practitioners, they know
about Agile, however when dealing with a project involving local people, it
is a bit more difficult to use Agile.”

iii. Organisational
- include co-location, availability of knowledge and management support.
- Company G: “ The top management does not support too much because
currently we have certain blockages from management...their mind set
can‟t be changed...We managed to do Agile, but without support from
management, we faced a lot of pain.

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iv. Involvement
- As said by company B: they need to undertake extra tasks
like preparing materials to the customers.
- Developers in company D felt that they are burdened with
more task.
v. Knowledge
- lack of knowledge about Agile brings challenges especially
when adopters are dealing with the customers and also when
company dealing with government projects.
- Company G: “...here we have deadlines, where the top
management just gives us the deadlines...the management do not
understand if we say we cant meet the dateline requested.”

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vi. Cultural
- C (I) : “ I actually believe about the Malaysian thing. There is
something you don't see, the culture, it‟s not the method.
- Half of the respondents agreed about language aspect when
trying to understand the methods.

 vii. Resources
-lack of this aspect lead them to have
multiple roles when using Agile.
- Company D : “I think sometimes we are
resource-hungry, for the resource of
people. ...So, at some point we actually hired a
lot people to come in for the project itself.
That‟s why I think the resource part is quite
expensive.”

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 The greatest benefits of Agile practices
i. Involvement from all
ii. Daily standup meeting

- These two practices contribute each other. The
involvement in Agile methods has also
delivered advantages to software development
as practitioners can have frequent feedback
from their customers.
- The meeting provides medium through which
to communicate openly, which results in
transparency. From here, team members can
understand their roles and responsibilities.

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Table: Perceptions‟ Summary
Perception Findings Companies No of
Companies
A) Awareness i) Beginning stage and Lack of Knowledge A, B, C (I), C (II), D, F 6/8
ii) Lacking from government side A, C (I), C (II), D, G 6/8
B) Introduction i) Agile proponent and Experienced from A, B, C (I), C (II), D, G 6/8
previous methods
ii) Adopting from Parents Companies C (I), C (II), E, F 4/8
iii) Adopting the benefits A, B, C (I), C (II), D, E, F, G 8/8
C) Challenges i) Lack of documentation A, D 2/8
ii) People A, B, C (II), D 4/8
iii) Organisational F, G 2/8
iv) Involvement B,D 2/8
v) Knowledge A, F, D, G 4/8
vi) Cultural C (I), D 2/8
vii) Resources B, C (I), D 3/8
D) Practices Benefits i) Daily Stand up meeting A, C (I), C (II), D, E, G 6/8
ii) Burn down chart A, C (I), F 3/8
iii) Involvement from all A, B, C (I), C (II), D, F, G 7/8
iv) Iterative and Incremental C (I), D, E, F 4/8
v) Retrospective F 1/8

vi) Sprint C (I), C (II), E 3/8
vii)Continuous Integration C (I), G 2/8
viii) User stories C (II), G 2/8

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 Validity: The participants were ensured to
have knowledge about the methods and have
had experience of using Agile methods.
 A qualitative study „lies in a particular theme
developed in context of a specific sites‟ hence
particularity rather than generalisability is the
hallmark of qualitative research‟ [3].
 Reliability: In this study, the interpretations
of the findings have been checked with othe
researcher, making the interpretation
consistent and can be trusted.

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 We found that a company only adopting part of Agile is not receiving the
full benefits from the methods.
 The study indicates a low perception from Agile users towards the
methodologies and that there is difficulty of getting everyone in the
team to take responsibilities.
 The challenges were mostly found from the organisations having
hierarchical approach.
 The early adoption of Agile is seen from the multinational companies –
although this is not unique to Malaysia, as multinational companies are
receiving examples from their other branches, making it easy for the
acceptance.
 In addition, importance of language aspects (Eglish) when trying to
understand Agile should be considered.
 English language- common language practiced in multinational
companies- might be reason multinational companies to easy accepting
the methods.
 The findings also show that people need to be confident when trying to
use Agile methods. This is so as they need to see something working
and proven success stories from the Agile users.

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[1] F. Baharom, A. Deraman, and A. Hamdan, "A Survey on the Current
Practices of Software Development Process in Malaysia," Journal of
ICT, vol. 4, pp. 57-76, 2006.
[2] A. Zainol and S. Mansoor, "Investigation into requirements
management practices in the Malaysian software industry," in 2008
International Conference on Computer Science and Software
Engineering (CSSE 2008), Wuhan, China, 2008, pp. 292-295.
[3] J. Creswell, Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed
methods approaches: Sage Pubns, 2008.

Thank you!
Any questions please email to
ala08r@ecs.soton.ac.uk

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Emergence of Agile Methods: Perceptions from Software Practitioners in Malaysia

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