Characterizing The Impact of Culture on Agile Methods: The MoCA Model

TL;DR

This paper introduces MoCA, a model that explains how cultural values influence agile practices, aiding adaptation of agile methods across diverse cultural contexts.

Contribution

The paper presents MoCA, the first comprehensive model characterizing the impact of cultural values on agile software development practices.

Findings

MoCA effectively maps cultural factors to agile elements.

The model helps tailor agile methods to different cultural environments.

Provides a foundation for further empirical validation.

Abstract

Agile methods are well-known approaches in software development and used in various settings, which may vary wrt. organizational size, culture, or industrial sector. One important facet for the successful use of agile methods is the strong focus on social aspects. We know, that cultural values influence the behaviour of humans. Thus, an in-depth understanding of the influence of cultural aspects on agile methods is necessary to be able to adapt agile methods to various cultural contexts. In this paper we focus on an enabler to this problem. We want to better understand the influence of cultural factors on agile practices. The core contribution of this paper is MoCA: A model describing the impact of cultural values on agile elements.