Enhancing agile team collaboration through the use of large digital multi-touch cardwalls

Abstract

Agile software development has become mainstream, and with it many tools have been developed to support Agile software development. Nonetheless, studies show, that most Agile software teams still also use physical cardboards for their daily work. This is error prone and causes a lot of extra effort to keep both in sync. In our research project we conducted an interview study about the reasons for this media break. Based on the findings we developed visualization and interaction concepts for an Agile cardwall using an extra-large multi-touch wall display which provides Agile teams the lightweight collaboration workspace for their Agile meetings. We implemented the concepts in the software prototype aWall, and evaluated the usability of aWall in a user study. The evaluation indicates that aWall enables and encourages team work due to the large size of the wall, the easy accessibility and visibility of the needed information, and the integration with existing issue tracking tools. This suggests that augmenting digital cardwalls with large interactive touch technology and integration with task tracking systems is a useful way to support effective collaborative Agile software development processes.