Fuzzy Artefacts: Formality of Communication in Agile Teams

Agile Software Development (ASD) is often thought of as to predominantly use face-to-face communication. Research over the last years already led to adjustment of this conception. ASD also uses formal communication where it blends both traditional and agile artefacts. A next step should then be to explore the entire spectrum from informal to formal communication. This raised our research question: Which artefacts do agile teams use in between formal communication with artefacts and informal face-to-face communication? In an exploratory multiple single-case study we found 38 agile teams in as many organizations willing to participate in answering our question. The findings from our case study confirm the existence of what we called fuzzy artefacts, concepts which are not formally documented but are of such a pervasive nature that an agile team is well aware of their existence. We found in total 73 individual fuzzy artefacts in 38 agile teams. Most of them are related to requirements. Populating a product or sprint backlog with user stories equipped with priorities and efforts is another area where they were found. In this way we extended the typology of formal communication (artefacts) and informal communication (face-to-face) in ASD with an intermediate concept: fuzzy artefacts.