Status communication in agile software teams: A case study

Developers ought to maintain awareness of the status of a software project. However, there are very few recorded best practices for defining what constitutes relevant status information and the appropriate modalities for communicating this information. In this industry case study, we conducted in-depth interviews with members of an agile development team. We found that their daily work practices, while well-defined and regular, were heavily influenced by the status information they integrated from a number of sources. In particular, continuous integration builds had a substantial effect on the team's workflow. Based on our findings, we provide a set of guidelines for build monitoring systems which encourage collective and individual responsibility while working within the established team environment.