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SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2,,,, Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1 March 2014March 2014March 2014March 2014
www.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.in
126
SOFT COMPETENCY BASED RECRUITMENTS IN AGILE SCRUM
PROJECTS
S. Chandramouli, Research Scholar, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore
Dr. G. Rajesh Kumar, Assistant Professor,
Department of Business Admin, Government Arts College (Autonomous), Nandhanam, Chennai
Abstract
Agile projects follows agile manifesto which defines a set of principles and guidelines that can
be followed in the projects. Principles of agile manifesto which are directly related to people
competencies are: Satisfying the customer, Business people and developers working together,
Build projects around motivated individuals, Continuous attention to technical excellence, Team
reflecting on how to become more effective and then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
The above principles clearly states that human resource planning in agile projects is very
important aspects and it not only concentrates on usual technical excellence but also looking
into other areas like customer management, team management, team collaboration ,
leadership , self management etc. This research highlights the competencies reflected in famous
agile books on the Scrum agile roles (Scrum Master, Product Owner and Team members) and
also addresses the competencies used by the Organization while recruiting the above agile roles
thru online advertisements. It concludes with few recommendations aimed at making
recruitment more effective in agile project environment. It is hoped that the output of this study
will also contribute to the existing literature of HR Management as well as other agile
methodologies similar to Scrum such as XP, Kanban etc.
Keywords: HR Planning, Agile projects, Scrum, Interview, Recruitment, Selection.
Introduction
Nowadays lot of customers wants their projects to be executed using agile methodologies and
fifth principles of agile manifesto 1 say “Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2,,,, Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1 March 2014March 2014March 2014March 2014
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the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done”. (DeMarco and
Lister 1987) 2. As per a recent Survey by Deloitte
3, one of the biggest challenges of HR Chief is
the Talent Acquisition.
Figure 1.0 Deloitte Compensation Survey 2011
Talent acquisition needs to bring in long term benefits to the individuals and the organization.
Scrum Methodology Roles (as defined by Scrum alliance4):
The product owner has responsibility for deciding what work will be done. The development
team is made up of the professionals who do the work of delivering the product increment. The
Scrum Master helps the rest of the Scrum team follows the process.
This study addresses the following Questions:
1. What are all the most frequently referred competencies of agile roles as per various
famous agile literatures
2. What are all the most frequently referred competencies of the above agile roles used
by the organizations in online recruitment advertisements
3. What are all the difference between the theory (literatures) and practice
(advertisements) in terms of competency expectations
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2,,,, Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1 March 2014March 2014March 2014March 2014
www.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.in
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The contributions of this research to the industry are fivefold:
1. Find the general HR Planning principles that are applicable to agile projects
2. Provide framework for understanding the competencies of important agile roles
3. Understand competencies that are currently being used in online job advertisements
4. It helps to identify the gaps in competencies used in online job advertisements
5. It can also be used to do regional comparison of competencies based on regions and
industry types.
Methodology
Content analysis is a methodology for studying the content of books considering the context in
which it was written. Content analysis is an approach to the analysis of documents and texts
(Alan Bryman and Emma Bell ,2003) 5. Content analysis was done manually. Job advertisements
were collected between 1st
December 2013 and 31st
December 2013 because of time
constraints, these periods were being used by most of the recruiters. We considered only two
sources of websites namely Linedin.com 6 and www.indeed.com
7 as most of the agile job
recruitments are posted over there. The entire job posting in those two job portals were
scanned thoroughly for the competencies with a serial number, Company name, Designation,
Role, Industry type, Location, Reference-email, URL. After identifying the specified
Competencies in each and every advertisement we tabulated in excel. We used binary code
for the competency identification. If a particular competency say “Servant Leadership” is in the
advertisement then posted the value= 1 against it; otherwise posted the value = 0 against it.
Content Analysis Steps: Our study utilized both qualitative and quantitative technique in an
integrated manner. Following are the steps followed
1. Identify famous books used by agile professionals to identify competencies expected
out of agile roles.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2,,,, Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1 March 2014March 2014March 2014March 2014
www.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.inwww.eecmbajournal.in
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2. Identify various competencies of agile roles from the literature
3. Identify most frequently referred competencies of agile roles from the literature in the
above books of sources using content analysis
4. Identify sample websites of advertisements used to recruit above agile roles/
5. Identify most frequently referred competencies of the above agile roles used by the
organizations in those online recruitment advertisements
PMI ® - Project Management Institute recommended 11 books for its certification called as
“PMI ACP® - Agile Certified Practitioner” 8. Researcher chooses 6 books out of it for this
research.
Source Code Book Name
S1 Slyssa adkins (2010), Coaching Agile Team, Addisson Wisley
S2
Esther Derby & Diana Larsen (2006), Making Good Team to great, Pragmatic
Book shelf
S3
Jim Highsmith(2009), Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative
Products, Second Edition
S4 James Shore & Shane Warden (2007),Art of Agile Development, OREILLY
S5 Mike Cohn (2004), User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development
S6 Ken Schwaber (2004), Agile Project Management with Scrum
Table 1: Source data – PMI® recommended books for PMI ACP® Exam
Following table lists down Top 17 identified competencies from the above listed sources.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Table 2: List of Competencies from the Sources along with applicable roles
When searching key words in the above Sources namely S1 to S6, based on the context and the
competencies counts were determined. It may not be equal to “Search count” in that source as
it depends on the context. Competency mentioned in the headlines, summary, index of the
books were ignored
Results and Analysis
Source Data Validity: Before starting the data collection from sources and Advertisements, to
ensure the right competency, compared 10 different advertisements in the first phase. We
have identified few new variables which were not there in our competency lists but found in
advertisements. This process ensured more robust competencies set for the roles and when
actual data from advertisements are collated it falls into our category. During the data
collection period we originally collected 64 job advertisements and removed 8 job
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2,,,, Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1 March 2014March 2014March 2014March 2014
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advertisements as they were not informative enough. We used 58 job advertisements for our
analysis.
Data Validity of advertisements: For data consistency purpose, the researcher coded himself
all the job advertisements and gave it to three other experts to check the data consistency
randomly. This ensured data validity. We found the data was error free in 54 cases and there
were some minor discrepancies in 4 cases which were later corrected by the researcher.
Jobs are from the following industry:
Table 3: List of Industries as cited in job advertisements
In the following section, we focus on analyzing the online job postings of three key roles (Team
member, Scrum master and product owner).
Analysis of Source data
Team member Competency Analysis:
Table 4 lists down the list of competencies as cited in Sources S1 to S6 for the role “Team” -
team members along with its count (number of citations), its rank and percentage of citations
in that source.
Collaborative Skills is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Team members) as per Source 1
content analysis results with 22% of the overall count. Focused ability (for Team members) is
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2Vol 2,,,, Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1Issue 1 March 2014March 2014March 2014March 2014
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second ranked competency with 18% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment competency
(for Team members) is third ranked with 11% of the overall count.
Problem Solving Skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Team members) as per Source 2
content analysis results with 21% of the overall count. Focused ability (for Team members) is
second ranked competency with 18% of the overall count. Planning skills (for Team members) is
third ranked with 12% of the overall count.
Adaptability is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Team members) as per Source 3 content
analysis results with 20% of the overall count. Planning skills (for Team members) is second
ranked competency with 14% of the overall count. Collaborative skill (for Team members) is
third ranked with 14% of the overall count.
Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Team members) as per Source 4
content analysis results with 20% of the overall count. Focused skill (for Team members) is
second ranked competency with 15% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (for Team
members) is third ranked with 12% of the overall count.
Planning skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Team members) as per Source 5 content
analysis results with 28% of the overall count. Problem solving skill (for Team members) is
second ranked competency with 16% of the overall count. Effective Communication (for Team
members) is third ranked with 15% of the overall count.
Planning skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Team members) as per Source 6 content
analysis results with 20% of the overall count. Problem solving skill (for Team members) is
second ranked competency with 15% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (for Team
members) is third ranked with 14% of the overall count.
Problem solving skills and Planning skills are there in top 3 ranks of four sources (S2, S4 , S5,
S6) and (S2, S3, S5, S6) respectively. Focused ability and keeping commitment are there in top
3 ranks of three sources (S1, S2, S4) and (S1, S4, S6) respectively.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Table 4: Correlation matrix between team member rankings
Above table clearly indicates a positive correlation (>0.5) between the rankings of Sources S3,
S4, S5 and S6 for team members. There is a slight positive correlation (0.43) between S5 and S2.
There is a slight positive correlation (0.35) between S1 and S3. This also indicates that most of
the sources refer same competencies for team members.
Scrum Master Competency Analysis
Following tables lists down the list of competencies as cited in Sources S1 to S6 for the role
“Scrum Master” along with its count (number of citations), its rank and percentage of citations
in that source.
Collaborative Skills is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Scrum Master) as per Source 1
content analysis results with 21% of the overall count. Facilitation skills competency (for Scrum
Master) is second ranked with 19% of the overall count. Focused ability (Scrum Master) is third
ranked competency with 17% of the overall count.
Servant Leadership is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Scrum Master) as per Source 2
content analysis results with 22% of the overall count. Problem Solving skills competency (for
Scrum Master) is second ranked with 20% of the overall count. Focused ability (Scrum Master)
is third ranked competency with 18% of the overall count.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Team Building is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Scrum Master) as per Source 3 content
analysis results with 18% of the overall count. Servant Leadership (for Scrum Master) is second
ranked with 13% of the overall count. Collaborative skill (Scrum Master) is third ranked
competency with 13% of the overall count.
Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Scrum Master) as per Source 4
content analysis results with 26% of the overall count. Focused ability (for Scrum Master) is
second ranked with 19% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (Scrum Master) is third
ranked competency with 16% of the overall count.
Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Scrum Master) as per Source 5
content analysis results with 18% of the overall count. Effective Communication (for Scrum
Master) is second ranked with 17% of the overall count. Servant Leadership (Scrum Master) is
third ranked competency with 16% of the overall count.
Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Scrum Master) as per Source 6
content analysis results with 17% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (for Scrum
Master) is second ranked with 16% of the overall count. Collaborative skill (Scrum Master) is
third ranked competency with 11% of the overall count.
Problem solving skills is there in top 3 ranks of four sources (S2, S4, S5, and S6). Collaborative
Skills is there in top 3 ranks of three Sources S1, S3, and S6. Focused ability is there in top 3
ranks of three Sources S1, S2, and S4. Servant Leadership is there in top 3 ranks of three
Sources S1, S2, and S5.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Table 5: Correlation matrix between Scrum Master Rankings
Above table clearly indicates a positive correlation (>0.5) between the rankings of Sources S4,
S5 and S6 for scrum master competencies. There is a slight positive correlation (0.42) between
S3 and S6. There is a slight positive correlation (0.38) between S3 and S5. This also indicates
that most of the sources refer same competencies for team members.
Product Owner Competency Analysis
Following tables lists down the list of competencies as cited in Sources S1 to S6 for the role
“Product Owner” along with its count (number of citations), its rank and percentage of
citations in that source. Collaborative Skills is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Product
Owner) as per Source 1 content analysis results with 22% of the overall count. Business
Knowledge competency (for Product Owner) is second ranked with 21% of the overall count.
Focused ability (for Product Owner) is third ranked competency with 18% of the overall count.
Problem Solving Skills is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Product Owner) as per Source 2
content analysis results with 26% of the overall count. Focused ability (for Product Owner) is
second ranked with 23% of the overall count. Adaptability (for Product Owner) is third ranked
competency with 12% of the overall count.
Adaptability is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Product Owner) as per Source 3 content
analysis results with 19% of the overall count. Business Knowledge (for Product Owner) is
second ranked with 17% of the overall count. Collaborative (for Product Owner) is third ranked
competency with 13% of the overall count.
Problem Solving is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Product Owner) as per Source 4
content analysis results with 22% of the overall count. Focused (for Product Owner) is second
ranked with 16% of the overall count. Business Knowledge (for Product Owner) is third ranked
competency with 14% of the overall count.
Problem Solving is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Product Owner) as per Source 5
content analysis results with 22% of the overall count. Effective Communication (for Product
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Owner) is second ranked with 21% of the overall count. Focused ability (for Product Owner) is
third ranked competency with 15% of the overall count.
Problem Solving is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for Product Owner) as per Source 6
content analysis results with 17% of the overall count. Business Knowledge (for Product
Owner) is second ranked with 16% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (for Product
Owner) is third ranked competency with 15% of the overall count.
Problem solving skills and Business Knowledge are there in top 3 ranks of four sources (S2, S4 ,
S5, S6) and (S1, S3, S4, S6) respectively. Focused ability, Collaborative skills and Adaptability
are there in top 3 ranks of two sources (S4, S5) , (S1, S3) and (S2,S3) respectively.
Table 6: Correlation matrix between Product Owner Rankings
Above table clearly indicates a positive correlation (>0.5) between the rankings of Sources S4,
S5 and S6 for Product Owner competencies. There is a slight positive correlation (0.35) between
S3 and S6. There is a slight positive correlation (0.41) between S2 and S5. This also indicates
that most of the sources refer same competencies for team members.
Competency Analysis of all three Roles (Applicable for all three)
Collaborative skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for All Three) as per Source 1 content
analysis results with 32% of the overall count. Focused ability (for All Three) is second ranked
with 26% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (for All Three) is third ranked competency
with 16% of the overall count.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for All Three) as per Source 2 content
analysis results with 35% of the overall count. Focused ability (for All Three) is second ranked
with 31% of the overall count. Openness (for All Three) is third ranked competency with 10%
of the overall count.
Collaborative skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for All Three) as per Source 3 content
analysis results with 23% of the overall count. Effective Communication (for All Three) is
second ranked with 22% of the overall count. Focused ability (for All Three) is third ranked
competency with 22% of the overall count.
Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for All Three) as per Source 4 content
analysis results with 30% of the overall count. Focused ability (for All Three) is second ranked
with 22% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (for All Three) is third ranked competency
with 18% of the overall count.
Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for All Three) as per Source 5 content
analysis results with 26% of the overall count. Effective communication (for All Three) is second
ranked with 25% of the overall count. Focused ability (for All Three) is third ranked
competency with 18% of the overall count.
Problem solving skill is ranked as Number 1 Competency (for All Three) as per Source 6 content
analysis results with 26% of the overall count. Keeping Commitment (for All Three) is second
ranked with 23% of the overall count. Collaborative skill (for All Three) is third ranked
competency with 17% of the overall count.
Focused ability is there in top 3 ranks of five sources (S1, S2, S3, S4, and S5). Problem solving
skills is there in top 3 ranks of four sources (S2, S4, S5, and S6). Collaborative Skills and
keeping commitment are there in top 3 ranks of three sources (S1, S3 and S6), (S1, S4 and S6)
respectively.
Generic Competency Analysis - irrespective of roles:
Researcher does competency analysis of variables irrespective of role applicability.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Table 7: Generic competency analysis irrespective of roles
Analysis of the above table infers interesting findings -.Planning skills is the top ranked (Rank 1)
competency out of all the competencies under study with 251 incidents (count) across all the
sources. Business Knowledge is the top ranked (Rank 2) competency out of all the
competencies under study with 240 incidents (count) across all the sources. Focused ability is
the top ranked (Rank 3) competency out of all the competencies under study with 240 incidents
(count) across all the sources and is applicable for any agile roles.
Analysis of Job Advertisements
Researcher had analyzed the online job advertisements for the above three agile roles namely
Scrum Master, Product Owner and Agile team members. Researcher used the online job
advertisements from www.linedin.com and www.indeed.com only for this research purpose as
the number of agile jobs are more in those websites in comparison to other famous websites.
We don’t consider any other job posting websites as the recruiter post the same
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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advertisements in all the websites and wanted to avoid duplicates. We also considered the jobs
postings posted only between 1st
Dec 2013 and 31st Dec 2013 due to time constrains.
Team members Competency Analysis as per the Advertisements
Technical skill (25% advertisements has this competency display) is the first ranked skill (first
sought skill) for team members, followed by Collaborative Skills (17 % advertisements has this
competency display) and Effective Communication.
Problem solving skills and Planning skills are there in top 3 ranks of four sources (S2, S4 , S5,
S6) and (S2, S3, S5, S6) respectively. Focused ability and keeping commitment are there in top
3 ranks of three sources (S1, S2, S4) and (S1, S4, S6) respectively.
The lists are contradicting with each other. Competency lists as per the literature review of
team members are different from what is being sought in advertisement for team members.
Table 8: Competencies of team members as depicted in Linkedin.com and Indeed.com websites
Above table and correlation (0.911) clearly indicates there is no significant differences in
competencies (Team member) between LinkedIn and indeed.
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Scrum Masters Competency Analysis as per the Advertisements
Effective Communication (33% advertisements has this competency display) is the first ranked
skill (first sought skill) for Scrum Masters, followed by Facilitation Skills (32.3% advertisements
has this competency display) and Servant Leadership (31% advertisements has this
competency display). Collaborative skill is 4th
Ranked (29.3% advertisements has this
competency display).
Problem solving skills is there in top 3 ranks of four sources (S2, S4, S5, and S6). Collaborative
Skills is there in top 3 ranks of three Sources S1, S3, and S6. Focused ability is there in top 3
ranks of three Sources S1, S2, and S4. Servant Leadership is there in top 3 ranks of three
Sources S1, S2, and S5.The lists are contradicting with each other. Problem solving skill is the
most sought skill of scrum master followed by Collaborative skill, Focused ability and Servant
Leadership as per the literature review where as the advertisements display and seek the skills
of Effective Communication, Facilitation skills, Servant Leadership and Collaborative skills.
Servant Leadership and Collaborative skills are top ranked in both the sources and the
advertisements but other competencies differ.
Table 9: Competencies of Scrum Masters as depicted in Linkedin.com and Indeed.com websites
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Above table and correlation (0.77) clearly indicates there is no significant differences in
competencies (Scrum master) between LinkedIn and indeed.
Product Owner Competency Analysis as per the Advertisements
Business Knowledge (29.3% advertisements has this competency display) is the first ranked
skill (first sought skill) for Product Owners, followed by Effective Communication (27.6%
advertisements has this competency display) and Collaborative skills (19% advertisements
has this competency display). Problem solving skill is 4th
Ranked (17.2% advertisements has
this competency display).
Problem solving skills and Business Knowledge are there in top 3 ranks of four sources (S2, S4 ,
S5, S6) and (S1, S3, S4, S6) respectively. Focused ability, Collaborative skills and Adaptability
are there in top 3 ranks of two sources (S4, S5) , (S1, S3) and (S2,S3) respectively.
Business knowledge, collaborative skills, problem solving skills are there in both the sources and
the advertisements but other competencies differ.
Table 10: Competencies of Product Owners as depicted in Linkedin.com and Indeed.com
websites
SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA SAMZODHANA –––– “Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”“Journal of Management Research”
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Above table and correlation (0.52) clearly indicates there is no significant differences in
competencies (Product Owner) between LinkedIn and indeed.
Generic Competency Analysis - irrespective of roles as per the Advertisements:
Table 11: Competencies irrespective of roles (generic) as per the advertisements
Effective Communication (75% advertisements has this competency display) is the first
ranked skill (first sought skill) in general irrespective of roles, followed by Collaborative skills
(65.5 % advertisements has this competency display) and Technical skills (60.3 %
advertisements has this competency display). Business knowledge (48.3% advertisements has
this competency display) is 4th
Ranked.
Planning skills is the top ranked (Rank 1) competency out of all the competencies under study
with 251 incidents (count) across all the sources (S1 to S6). Business Knowledge is the top
ranked (Rank 2) competency out of all the competencies under study with 240 incidents (count)
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across all the sources. Focused ability is the top ranked (Rank 3) competency out of all the
competencies under study with 240 incidents (count) across all the sources.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The aim of recruitment is to get the best suitable person to the job based on objective criteria
for a particular job (Pilbeam and Corbridge, 2006) 9.
Sixteen Golden rules for recruitment & selection 10
in Agile Environment:
1. Soft competency needs to be given importance while recruiting resources for agile
projects.
2. Mandatory competencies and desired competencies to be specified clearly in the
advertisements.
3. Align recruitment strategy with the business plan for better execution and support from
top management
4. Continuously train hiring managers and agile coach in the agile environment
5. Recruiting process in agile needs to be closely integrated with other HR Process.
6. Personalize recruitment process for each projects and customers which will provide
more values to the customer
7. HR planners need to do the retrospection at the end of every project about Recruitment
strategies effectiveness enabling continuous improvement.
8. Data based system is the need of the hour in agile recruitment.
9. Dare to be different from other agile organization and at the same time do
benchmarking with other similar organization to excel better.
10. Look for global talent . Agile requires people from diversified back ground.
11. Don’t look and search for talent only when there is a demand. Continuously looking for
talent will help to grab the best talented people
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12. Agile Team should have basic common characteristics in common includes good
communication skills and basic Soft skills as per this research.
13. It is important for every member to be open with all others and not hiding anything.
14. Ability and performance to compete with others in providing more value and service to
the customer in ethical and legal way is the need of the hour.
15. Openness, better communication, and taking accountability to the action are the
important characteristics in agile team.
16. Referral scheme works well for recruiting agile team members and will avoid cultural
conflicts.
Problems and Issues in following Soft Competency based recruitments
Career Planning Options : Responsibilities and authority level of these agile roles differ from
tradition projects and also it varies from one agile project to another and so having Common
Career planning is very difficult in Agile Project Environment.
Changing Customer Expectation : Customer Expectations on team members changes from one
agile project to another depending on various agile methodologies chosen. For example : the
customer expectation varies from Scrum methodology to Extrem proramming (XP).
Moving across Team : Moving team members across the team is very difficult in agile projects
as the cultural environment differs from one project to another.
Environment changes : In agile projects, the team environment keeps on changing and HR
planning becomes difficult in those cases.
The Way Ahead
The recommendations suggested in this paper can be used as an integrated part of the agile
recruitment process, training and development involving lot of agile portfolios. Further
research can be carried out by collecting advertisement data from different sources at different
periods of time. Further analysis is possible with more number of data to compare the
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competency requirements across various industry types such as IT industry, banking industry
etc.
Reference
1
Visit www.Agilemanifesto.org to know more details about agile manifesto and other
characteristics of agile projects.
2 DeMarco and Lister are famous advisors on software engineering projects, they did
research on why projects succeed and fail. DeMarco, T., and Lister, T., (1987). Peopleware:
Productive Projects and Teams, Dorset House Publishing Co., NY.
3 Visit the website http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_IN/in/insights-
ideas/surveyreports/index.htm to know the latest survey results from Deloitte.
4 Visit the website: http://www.scrumalliance.org/ to know more details about Scrum
Alliance. Scrum Alliance http://www.scrumalliance.org/why-scrum/core-scrum-values-roles
accessed on 6th January 2014
5 "Business Research Methods" is a book which provides introduction to the area of business
research methods including content analysis. Alan Bryman and Emma Bell (2003) Business
Research Methods Oxford University Press © 2003
6 250+ million members are currently using www.linkedin.com website and is very famous for
social and professional website. It is also being used for job advertisements.
7 Indeed.com website collates job advertisements across websites and enables job seeker to
apply it directly from indeed.com website. Very effective and innovative job search website
8 Visit the website: http://www.pmi.org/Certification/~/media/Files/PDF/Agile/PMI000-
GainInsightsAIGLE418.ashx to know more details and the full list of recommended books for t
PMI ® ACP® Certification exam from PMI®. Following are the six books taken from the above
list of recommended books
1. Slyssa Adkins (2010), Coaching Agile Team, Addison Wisely
2. Esther Derby & Diana Larsen (2006), Making Good Team to great, Pragmatic Book shelf
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3. Jim Highsmith(2009), Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second
Edition
4. James Shore & Shane Warden (2007),Art of Agile Development, OREILLY
5. Mike Cohn (2004), User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development
6. Ken Schwaber (2004), Agile Project Management with Scrum
9 Pilbeam, S. and M. Corbridge (2006) People Resourcing. Contemporary HRM in Practice,
London: Prentice Hall.
10 More details on recruitment and selection and other HR Management process and Agile
project details can be obtained from the following sources:
1. Armstrong (2009) Hand book of Human Resource Management practice: 11 the edition:
London and Philadelphia .
2. Gupta, C.B. (1997). Human Resource Management, Sultan Chand & Co., New Delhi.
3. John Bratton and Jeffrey Gold 2003, Human Resource Management: Theory and
Practice, Third Edition , published by Palgrave Macmillan
4. Bunting, M. (2007) in Grugulis, I. Skills, Training and Human Resource Development: A
Critical Text, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
5. Gary Chin (2004), Agile Project Management published by American Management
Association
6. Kamrul Ahsan, Marcus Ho, Sabik Khan (2013) Recruiting Project Managers: A
Comparative analysis of competencies and recruitment signal from job advertisements.
Project Management Journal 44(5), 36-54
7. Mike Holcombe(2008) , Running an Agile Software Development Project, by John Wiley
& Sons
8. Quinn Mills, D (1983) Planning with people in mind, Harvard Business Review,
November–December, pp 97–105