Enhancing research informatics core user satisfaction through agile practices

Objective: The Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) Research Informatics Shared
Resource (RISR), a software and database development core facility, sought
to address a lack of published operational best practices for research
informatics cores. It aimed to use those insights to enhance effectiveness
after an increase in team size from 20 to 31 full-time equivalents
coincided with a reduction in user satisfaction. Materials and Methods:
RISR migrated from a water-scrum-fall model of software development to
agile software development practices, which emphasize iteration and
collaboration. RISR’s agile implementation emphasizes the product owner
role, which is responsible for user engagement and may be particularly
valuable in software development that requires close engagement with users
like in science. Results: All RISR’s software development teams
implemented agile practices in early 2020. All project teams are led by a
product owner who serves as the voice of the user on the development team.
Annual user survey scores for service quality and turnaround time recorded
nine months after implementation increased by 17% and 11%, respectively.
Discussion: RISR is illustrative of the increasing size of research
informatics cores and the need to identify best practices for maintaining
high effectiveness. Agile practices may address concerns about the fit of
software engineering practices in science. The study had one time point
after implementing agile practices and one site, limiting its
generalizability. Conclusion: Agile software development may substantially
increase a research informatics core facility’s effectiveness and should
be studied further as a potential best practice for how such cores are
operated.