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Hubert Baumeister
Horst Lichter
Matthias Riebisch (Eds.)
Agile Processes
LNBIP 283
in Software Engineering
and Extreme Programming
18th International Conference, XP 2017
Cologne, Germany, May 22–26, 2017
Proceedings
Lecture Notes
in Business Information Processing 283
Series Editors
Wil M.P. van der Aalst
Eindhoven Technical University, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
John Mylopoulos
University of Trento, Trento, Italy
Michael Rosemann
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Michael J. Shaw
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA
Clemens Szyperski
Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7911
Hubert Baumeister Horst Lichter
•
Matthias Riebisch (Eds.)
Agile Processes
in Software Engineering
and Extreme Programming
18th International Conference, XP 2017
Cologne, Germany, May 22–26, 2017
Proceedings
Editors
Hubert Baumeister Matthias Riebisch
Technical University of Denmark University of Hamburg
Kongens Lyngby Hamburg
Denmark Germany
Horst Lichter
RWTH Aachen University
Aachen
Germany
ISSN 1865-1348 ISSN 1865-1356 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
ISBN 978-3-319-57632-9 ISBN 978-3-319-57633-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017937714
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Preface
The 18th XP conference was held 2017 in the wonderful city of Cologne, Germany.
In the spirit of past XP conferences, XP 2017 was a place where researchers and
practitioners met to exchange new ideas and present their work. These proceedings
contain the full research papers, short research papers, and doctoral symposium papers
presented at the conference.
In all, 46 research papers were submitted (39 full and seven short papers). All
submitted papers went through a thorough review process, with each paper receiving at
least three reviews. Finally, the Program Committee accepted 14 papers as full research
papers (an acceptance rate of 35%). Moreover, six papers — submitted as short or full
research papers — were accepted as short research papers. The selected papers cover a
wide range of agile techniques and approaches. Many of them present results of
empirical studies aiming to systematically evaluate successful agile practices, others are
technology studies that are relevant to both researchers and practitioners.
In the tradition of former XP conferences, the XP 2017 conference program offered
many different session topics. Besides the scientific program, i.e., the research track,
doctoral symposium, and scientific workshops, the conference featured an industry and
practice track, experience reports, and Open Space sessions. Materials from all of these
sessions are available on the conference website at www.xp2017.org.
Moreover, three keynotes were given by highly renowned speakers. Andrea Goulet
from Corgibytes presented a talk on “Makers and Menders: Putting the Right Devel-
opers on the Right Projects” focusing on a group of developers called “menders” –
people who love taking an existing project and making it better over time. In his
keynote “End-to-End Agility at GitHub” Alain Hélaïli talked about the organization
and the efficient workflows at GitHub. Finally, Claes Wohlin from Blekinge Institute of
Technology answered the question “Evidence-Driven Change in Software Develop-
ment: Is It Feasible?”
Many people contributed to the success of the XP 2017 conference. We would like
to thank everyone, especially the authors and presenters of all papers, the Program
Committee members, the volunteers, and sponsors. Furthermore, we want to express
our gratitude to the XP 2017 organizers; they did a great job.
March 2017 Hubert Baumeister

Horst Lichter
Matthias Riebisch
Organization
Organizing Committee
General Chair
Jutta Eckstein IT communication, Germany
Conference Chairs
Marc Clemens codecentric AG, Germany
Nils Wloka codecentric AG, Germany
Academic Program Committee

Academic Program Chairs
Hubert Baumeister Technical University of Denmark
Horst Lichter RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Matthias Riebisch University of Hamburg, Germany
Scientific Workshops
Roberto Tonelli University of Cagliari, Italy
Poster Chair
Ademar Aguiar University of Porto, Portugal
PhD Symposium Chair

Stefan Wagner University of Stuttgart, Germany
Industrial Program Committee

Tutorials/Workshops
Nancy Van Lean-Agile Partners, USA
Schooenderwoert
Working Software
Aslak Hellesøy Cucumber, UK
Individuals and Interaction

Diana Larsen FutureWorks Consulting, USA
VIII Organization
Customer Collaboration
Ken Power Cisco Systems, Ireland
Responding to Change
Jan Coupette codecentric AG, Germany
Experience Reports
Rebecca Wirfs-Brock Wirfs-Brock Associates, USA
Avraham Poupko Cisco Systems, Israel
Open Space
Alexander Kylburg Paragraph Eins, Germany
Program Committee (Research Papers)

Ademar Aguiar University of Porto, Portugal
Mikio Aoyama Nanzan University, Japan
Leonor Barroca The Open University, UK
Hubert Baumeister Technical University of Denmark, Denmark
Jan Bosch Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
Steve Counsell Brunel University, UK
Torgeir Dingsøyr SINTEF, Norway
Christof Ebert Vector Consulting Services, Germany
Hakan Erdogmus Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Juan Garbajosa Technical University of Madrid, Spain
Alfredo Goldman University of São Paulo, Brazil
Des Greer Queen’s University Belfast, UK
Peggy Gregory University of Central Lancashire, UK
Rashina Hoda The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Helena Holmström Olsson Malmö University, Sweden
Casper Lassenius MIT, USA
Horst Lichter RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Lech Madeyski Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland
Michele Marchesi University of Cagliari, Italy
Sabrina Marczak Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul,
Brazil
Tommi Mikkonen University of Helsinki, Finland
Alok Mishra Atilim University, Turkey
Nils Brede Moe SINTEF, Norway
Juergen Muench Reutlingen University and University of Helsinki,
Germany/Finland
Sridhar Nerur University of Texas at Arlington, USA
Maria Paasivaara Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Kai Petersen Blekinge Institute of Technology/Ericsson AB, Sweden
Organization IX
Matthias Riebisch University of Hamburg, Germany

Pilar Rodríquez University of Oulu, Finland
Knut H. Rolland Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication
and Technology, Norway
Bernhard Rumpe RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Kurt Schneider Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
Helen Sharp The Open University, UK
Darja Smite Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
Roberto Tonelli University of Cagliari, Italy
Rini Van Solingen Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Stefan Wagner University of Stuttgart, Germany
Xiaofeng Wang Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Hironori Washizaki Waseda University, Japan
Agustin Yague Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain
Reviewers (Industry and Practice)

Giovanni Asproni Asprotunity, UK
Emily Bache Bache Consulting, Sweden
Filipe Correia Uphold, Portugal
Aino Corry Metadeveloper, Denmark
Lisa Crispin Pivotal, USA
Jutta Eckstein IT communication, Germany
Sallyann Freudenberg Sallyann Freudenberg Consulting, UK
Steve Holyer Steve Holyer and Associates, Switzerland
Lise Hvatum Schlumberger, USA
Allan Rennebo Jepsen Core Agile, Denmark
Jason Kerney Hunter Industries, USA
David Kramer Agile New England, USA
Casper Lassenius Aalto University, Finland
Olaf Lewitz trustartist.com, Germany
Ralph Miarka sinnvollFÜHREN, Austria
Maria Paasivaara Alto University, Finland
Dana Pylayeva Hudson’s Bay Company, USA
Seb Rose Cucumber, UK
Johanna Rothman Rothman Consulting Group, USA
Aki Salmi Ambientia, Finland
Andreas Schliep Das ScrumTeam, Switzerland
Irina Tsyganok Yoox Net-A-Porter Group
Nils Wloka codecentric AG, Germany
Joseph Yoder The Refactory, USA
Joe Wright Arnold Clark Automobiles, UK
X Organization
Additional Reviewers
Adam, Kai Kautz, Oliver

Bjørnson, Finn Olav Kusmenko, Evgeny
Britto, Ricardo Raco, Deni
Butting, Arvid Santana, Célio
Da Silva, Tiago Silva Santos, Viviane
Díaz, Jessica Stray, Viktoria
Edison, Henry Vestues, Kathrine
Fernández-Sánchez, Carlos Wang, Yang
Fögen, Konrad
Sponsors
“Cologne Cathedral” Sponsor
REWE digital
“Albertus Magnus” Sponsor
Accenture Interactive
“River Rhine” Sponsors
DATEV
EPLAN Software & Service
OPITZ CONSULTING
XebiaLabs
“Kölsch” Sponsor
Hänneschen and Bärbelchen
Organizer
codecentric
Contents
Improving Agile Processes
Reflection in Agile Retrospectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Yanti Andriyani, Rashina Hoda, and Robert Amor
What Influences the Speed of Prototyping? An Empirical Investigation

of Twenty Software Startups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Anh Nguyen-Duc, Xiaofeng Wang, and Pekka Abrahamsson
Key Challenges in Agile Requirements Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Eva-Maria Schön, Dominique Winter, María José Escalona,
and Jörg Thomaschewski
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo...: A Multiple Case Study on Selecting

a Technique for User-Interaction Data Collecting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Sampo Suonsyrjä
Comparing Requirements Decomposition Within the Scrum, Scrum

with Kanban, XP, and Banana Development Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Davide Taibi, Valentina Lenarduzzi, Andrea Janes, Kari Liukkunen,
and Muhammad Ovais Ahmad
Effects of Technical Debt Awareness: A Classroom Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Graziela Simone Tonin, Alfredo Goldman, Carolyn Seaman,
and Diogo Pina
Agile in Organizations
Don’t Forget to Breathe: A Controlled Trial of Mindfulness Practices

in Agile Project Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Peter den Heijer, Wibo Koole, and Christoph J. Stettina
Enhancing Agile Team Collaboration Through the Use of Large Digital

Multi-touch Cardwalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Martin Kropp, Craig Anslow, Magdalena Mateescu, Roger Burkhard,
Dario Vischi, and Carmen Zahn
Knowledge Sharing in a Large Agile Organisation: A Survey Study . . . . . . . 135

Kati Kuusinen, Peggy Gregory, Helen Sharp, Leonor Barroca,
Katie Taylor, and Laurence Wood
XII Contents
Teaching Agile Methods to Software Engineering Professionals:

10 Years, 1000 Release Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Angela Martin, Craig Anslow, and David Johnson
Are Software Startups Applying Agile Practices? The State of the Practice
from a Large Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Jevgenija Pantiuchina, Marco Mondini, Dron Khanna, Xiaofeng Wang,
and Pekka Abrahamsson
Adopting Test Automation on Agile Development Projects:

A Grounded Theory Study of Indian Software Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Sulabh Tyagi, Ritu Sibal, and Bharti Suri
Safety Critical Software
How is Security Testing Done in Agile Teams? A Cross-Case Analysis

of Four Software Teams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Daniela Soares Cruzes, Michael Felderer, Tosin Daniel Oyetoyan,
Matthias Gander, and Irdin Pekaric
An Assessment of Avionics Software Development Practice:

Justifications for an Agile Development Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Geir K. Hanssen, Gosse Wedzinga, and Martijn Stuip
Short Research Papers
Inoculating an Agile Company with User-Centred Design:

An Empirical Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Silvia Bordin and Antonella De Angeli
On the Usage and Benefits of Agile Methods & Practices: A Case Study
at Bosch Chassis Systems Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Philipp Diebold and Udo Mayer
Checklists to Support Test Charter Design in Exploratory Testing . . . . . . . . . 251

Ahmad Nauman Ghazi, Ratna Pranathi Garigapati, and Kai Petersen
Discovering Software Process Deviations Using Visualizations . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Anna-Liisa Mattila, Kari Systä, Outi Sievi-Korte, Marko Leppänen,
and Tommi Mikkonen
Exploring Workflow Mechanisms and Task Allocation Strategies

in Agile Software Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Zainab Masood, Rashina Hoda, and Kelly Blincoe
Contents XIII
Are Daily Stand-up Meetings Valuable? A Survey of Developers

in Software Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Viktoria Stray, Nils Brede Moe, and Gunnar R. Bergersen
Doctoral Symposium Papers
Knowledge Management and Reflective Practice in Daily Stand-Up

and Retrospective Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Yanti Andriyani
Self-Assignment: Task Allocation Practice in Agile Software Development. . . . 292

Zainab Masood
Software Development Practices Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Herez Moise Kattan and Alfredo Goldman
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Improving Agile Processes
Reflection in Agile Retrospectives
Yanti Andriyani1 ✉ , Rashina Hoda1, and Robert Amor2

( )
1
SEPTA Research, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
The University of Auckland, Building 903, 386 Khyber Pass, New Market,
1023 Auckland, New Zealand
yand610@aucklanduni.ac.nz, r.hoda@auckland.ac.nz
2
Department of Computer Science, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
trebor@cs.auckland.ac.nz
Abstract. A retrospective is a standard agile meeting practice designed for agile

software teams to reflect and tune their process. Despite its integral importance,
we know little about what aspects are focused upon during retrospectives and how
reflection occurs in this practice. We conducted Case Study research involving
data collected from interviews of sixteen software practitioners from four agile
teams and observations of their retrospective meetings. We found that the impor‐
tant aspects focused on during the retrospective meeting include identifying and
discussing obstacles, discussing feelings, analyzing previous action points, iden‐
tifying background reasons, identifying future action points and generating a plan.
Reflection occurs when the agile teams embody these aspects within three levels
of reflection: reporting and responding, relating and reasoning, and recon‐
structing. Critically, we show that agile teams may not achieve all levels of
reflection simply by performing retrospective meetings. One of the key contri‐
butions of our work is to present a reflection framework for agile retrospective
meetings that explains and embeds three levels of reflection within the five steps
of a standard agile retrospective. Agile teams can use this framework to achieve
better focus and higher levels of reflection in their retrospective meetings.
Keywords: Agile retrospective meeting · Reflection · Levels of reflection ·

Teams · Agile software development · Reflective practice
1 Introduction
Retrospective meetings embody the ‘inspect and adapt’ principle of Agile Software
Development (ASD) [1, 2]. They are designed to enable agile teams to frequently eval‐
uate and find ways to adjust their process [3]. There are several purposes for retrospective
meetings, such as to evaluate the previous work cycle or sprint; to determine the aspects
that need to be focused on as areas of improvement; and to develop a team action plan
[4]. The purpose and the techniques of the retrospective meeting have been stated and
described clearly as a guide for agile teams [2, 5, 6].
Much of the existing research focuses on the techniques of performing retrospective
meetings and provides lesser detail about the reflection process involved [5–9]. The
Reflective Agile Learning Model (REALM) [7] classified reflection in ASD practices
© The Author(s) 2017

H. Baumeister et al. (Eds.): XP 2017, LNBIP 283, pp. 3–19, 2017.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_1
4 Y. Andriyani et al.
into reflection-in-action or reflection that occurs during a practice, and reflection-on-

action or reflection that occurs post a practice based on definitions of the same by Argyris
and Schön [10]. A retrospective meeting was seen to embody reflection-on-action where
the agile teams reflect post finishing their sprint [7]. However, what is focused on during
retrospectives and how reflection occurs in this practice is not well understood.
To address this gap, we conducted Case Study research by observing four agile teams
and interviewing 16 of their members guided by the following research questions:
RQ 1: What aspects are focused on during the retrospective meeting?
RQ 2: How does reflection occur in the retrospective meeting?
2 Related Work
2.1 Agile Retrospective Meeting
There is a standard format commonly used to conduct an agile retrospective meeting

which involves setting the stage, gathering data, generating insight, deciding what to
do and closing the retrospective meeting [2]. Setting the stage involves welcoming and
explaining the aim of the retrospective meeting. Gathering data involves agile teams
sharing their review and feedback, reporting on what happened during the previous
sprint and briefly discussing with other team members. In generating insight, agile teams
participate in a further discussion and making agreements about what issues to focus on,
and then on how to solve those issues and what areas that need to improve in the deciding
what to do stage. Closing the retrospective involves summarizing the retrospective
meeting and appreciating all team members’ efforts.
There are several recommendations for embedding reflective practice within standard
agile practices as it is related to team performance improvement [7–9]. Cockburn [8] intro‐
duced a reflection workshop which involves collecting issues and generating tasks and
decisions. This workshop is performed regularly during or after the post-iteration work‐
shop. Babb et al. [7] investigated reflection in agile practices based on Argyris and Schön’s
[10] classification and introduced the Reflective Agile Learning Model (REALM).
REALM describes how some agile practices embody reflection-in-action and reflection-
on-action. Retrospective meetings were seen to embody reflection-on-action where the
agile teams reflect post finishing their sprint [7].
Most of the existing research focuses on the techniques of performing a retrospective
or identifying a broad classification of the type of reflection that occurs, e.g. reflection-
on-action [7]. What actual topics or aspects are discussed during a retrospective and how
reflection occurs, however, is not well understood. We build upon these works by inves‐
tigating the retrospective meeting in depth.
2.2 Reflective Practice
Reflective practice according to Osterman and Kottkamp [11], is defined as “a means

by which practitioners can develop a greater level of self-awareness about the nature
Reflection in Agile Retrospectives 5
and impact of their performance, an awareness that creates opportunities for profes‐
sional growth and development”.
Bain et al. [12] classified reflection into five levels: reporting, responding, relating,
reasoning and reconstructing. Level 1 and 2 are reporting and responding and enable
learners to share brief descriptions of their experience, their feelings about events, facts
or problems that they encountered. Level 3 is relating and involves connecting experi‐
ence with personal meaning. Understanding at this level occurs when learners try to
highlight good points (e.g. their ability, successful work) and negative points (e.g.
mistakes, failure) to learn and identify areas of improvement. Level 4 is reasoning where
learners explore the information shared as well as background knowledge related to the
occurrences. Level 5 is reconstructing which signifies a high level of learning where
learners generate the general framework of thinking, which is specified in a plan or action
for responding to similar obstacles in the future.
Our study refers to levels of reflection proposed by Bain et al. [12] and adjusts the
levels into three main levels, i.e. reporting and responding, relating and reasoning and
reconstructing, based on our observations of the agile retrospectives in practice.
Reporting and responding are grouped together as the first level as these levels closely
related to reviews sharing and discussions at the beginning of the retrospective meeting.
Relating and responding are grouped as the second level as agile teams participate in a
further discussion after they reported and responded to the reviews. The third level, the
reconstructing level is embodied when agile teams discuss to formulate a plan as an
improvement for the next sprint.
3 Research Method
The aim of this study is to investigate how reflection occurs in retrospective meetings.
Understanding this is particularly important as agile teams are reported to focus more
on their technical progress and tend to pay less attention to how reflection is performed
thereby compromising their potential for improvement [7, 13].
This research is conducted by implementing the Case Study research method [14].
First, existing studies related to reflection in retrospective meetings were reviewed, as
summarized in Sect. 2. The research gaps identified provided guidance on formulating
the interview questions. To gain rich data from interviews, we developed semi-struc‐
tured questions consisting of main questions and follow-up questions. The data collec‐
tion method is described in Sect. 3.1 and participant demographics summarized in
Table 1. All interviews and observation data were collected by the first author in person.
The raw data and emerging findings from the analysis were discussed in detail with the
supervisory team (co-authors) who provided feedback and guidance.
3.1 Data Collection
Participants. We wanted to include software practitioners with a minimum of 2 years’

industrial agile experience to participate in our research. During one of the Auckland
Agile meetups, we received interest in participation from an agile team lead working at
Table 1. Team and team members demographics (RMD: Retrospective meeting duration in
minutes; P#: Individual participant number; FAP: first agile project)
Team Interview Agile RMD and the P# Role Agile Agile
Name ed/total method frequencies experience projects
members (Year) (Total)
Jupiter 5 out of Scrum 65 min (every P1 UI 1 6–8
10 two weeks) Designer
P2 Developer 0.5 1
P3 Developer 7+ 6–7
P4 Business 7+ 20+
analyst
P9 Tester 3+ 10+
Saturn 6 out of Scrum 55 min (every P4 Business 7+ 20+
10 two weeks) analyst
P5 Developer 3 10+
P6 Designer 1 month FP
P7 Designer 0.5 FAP
P8 Tester 3+ 6
P9 Tester 3+ 10+
Uranus 2 out of 3 Kanban 45 min (every P10 Tester, 1 2
two weeks) Developer
P11 Scrum 6 6
Master,
Business
Analyst,
Product
Owner
Neptune 4 out of 6 Scrum 15 min (when P12 Tester 2 1
needed) P13 Developer 1.5 FAP
P14 Developer 1 FAP
P15 Tester <1 year FAP
Working across all four teams P16 Test 7 10+
chapter
lead
the largest online auction company in New Zealand, Trade Me. Trade Me had been
practicing agile software development for over three years and provided access to four
teams. Its headquarters are located in Wellington and the regional offices are in Auckland
and Christchurch.
For confidentiality purposes, the teams are named Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune. The team names and team members’ details can be seen in Table 1. Each team
consisted of between 3 and 10 members. All members were invited and those willing
were interviewed. All teams held retrospective meetings, which lasted for between 15
and 65 min. Sixteen individual practitioners from the four teams participated in the
interviews and the observations. All team members had a dedicated role in their team
and there were three participants that committed across different teams: P4 was not only
fully committed as a Business Analyst in Team Jupiter but also supported Team Saturn.
Similarly, P9 was a tester in Team Saturn and a half tester in Team Jupiter. P16 worked
as a test lead across all four teams.
Interviews and Observations. Face-to-face individual and one group interview (of six
team members) were conducted to gain comprehensive explanations, which would help
derive the real concerns from both individual and team perspectives. We conducted one-
on-one interviews with all participants (P1–P16), where the duration of individual inter‐
views varied from 35 to 50 min. We asked some semi-structured questions about their
experiences and perspectives related to reflection in a retrospective meeting. Some
sample questions include: “Based on the three main points discussed in a retrospec‐
tive (i.e. what went well, what went wrong, what can you improve), which one(s) do you
think are most helpful for your team’s reflection?”, “How does your team use those
points to find solutions and ways to improve? Could you give some real examples?” and
“What is the outcome of your retrospective meeting? Does your team/scrum
master preserve points from the meeting?”. A sample question of the group interview
includes: “I noticed that your team exhibited some different ways of sharing knowledge,
(e.g. post-it notes, verbal communication, drawing). Did it help your team to perform
reflection? How?”
The group interview was conducted immediately after the retrospective meeting of
Team Jupiter with six of its team members. Given the variable meeting times, work
commitments and deadlines for different teams, it was not possible to gain further team
availability for group interviews with the remaining three teams over and above the
individual interviews and team observations.
Observations were conducted during the retrospective meetings of all the teams and
of their general workplace. The observations aimed to capture the details of the retro‐
spective meeting (i.e. time spent, attendees, and discussion involved) and to help validate
the findings from the interviews. Photographs were taken during the observations in
order to document the actual situations in the meetings and the report presented by the
agile team members. Notes were taken to highlight the important aspects being shared.
The information collected (e.g. photographs and notes) from the observations were used
to support individual interviews by including the photographs and describing the activ‐
ities in the retrospective meetings as observed first hand. The duration of each obser‐
vation depended on how long the team conducted the retrospective meeting. Three out
of four teams conducted the meeting for around 40–60 min each and one team, Neptune,
had a shorter 15 min’ retrospective. Observational data (e.g. photographs and notes)
were found to support the findings from the interview data analysis thereby strengthening
them.
3.2 Data Analysis
This research involved sixteen individual interviews, one group interview (of six team
members), and notes taken from retrospective meeting observations which were
analyzed by conducting a thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is a method that aims to
recognize, analyze, evaluate and report patterns in data [15], which enables researchers
to search across a data set of interviews. Braun and Clarke [15] classify the analysis into
six phases: transcribing data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing
themes, defining and naming themes and making a report.
Sixteen interviews were transcribed and imported into NVivo software to facilitate
coding and thematic analysis. Generating initial codes involved code identification by
analyzing interesting features of a sentence, which were highlighted and added as a node
in NVivo representing a new code, such as identifying and discussing obstacles and
discussing feelings. Searching for themes involved comparing data with different codes
to see whether they have similar meanings or aspects. Parent themes were classified
based on five (grouped into three) levels of reflection, where each code was classified
based on the definition of each level.
Fig. 1. Levels of reflection in retrospective meetings: a thematic map (using levels of reflection
from Bain et al. [12])
Reviewing themes involved generating a thematic model to define the links and the
relationships between the themes (see Fig. 1). Defining and naming themes involved the
generation of several themes that emerged from the analysis, representing the aspects
discussed during retrospective meetings, which was formulated and explained in this
paper.
4 Findings
Following the thematic data analysis process, we identified seven themes that represent
important topics or aspects discussed in the retrospective meeting, which were then
mapped to the five (grouped into three) levels of reflection [12] (see Sect. 2.2).
Table 2 summarizes these themes along with their mapping to the reflection levels.
These themes and levels are described below along with pertinent quotes and photo‐
graphs from observations. The figures below (see Figs. 2 and 3) were captured during
the observation and show a glimpse of Team Jupiter and Team Saturn’s retrospective
meeting.
Table 2. Themes representing topics discussed during retrospectives, their description,

examples, and mapping to levels of reflection based on [12].
Levels of reflection Themes/topics discussed Description of themes Examples
Reporting and Identifying and Problems, issues and Unfinished tasks and
Responding discussing obstacles concern causing dependencies (e.g.
blockages expertise, activity,
resource or entity and
technical.)
Discussing feelings The Subjective response Negative and positive
that reflects the situation, feelings
fact or events from the
previous sprint
Relating and Reasoning Analyzing previous Evaluate the process Some improvement
action points improvement based on achieved or persisting
previous action points obstacles
Identifying background Analyzing some causes Testing environment
reasons and aspects related to issue related to external
issues on team person in different
improvement location, who is difficult
to contact
Identifying future action Evaluating what areas Evaluate successful
points need to be focused on stories and failures
more to be defined as
future action points
Reconstructing Generating a plan Define some action Action points
points for the next plan
Fig. 2. Team Jupiter’s retrospective Fig. 3. Team Saturn’s retrospective

4.1 Reporting and Responding

Reporting and responding can be realized when an agile team shares some aspects (e.g.
identifying and discussing obstacles and discussing feelings) while providing reviews
and feedback of the previous sprint. Each team had different techniques of performing
their reviews.
All teams were seen to engage in the reporting level of reflection by actively iden‐
tified and discussed obstacles and feelings. Similarly, all four teams were seen to be
actively involved in responding to their retrospective meeting discussions by providing
brief comments on the obstacles and feelings being shared. Teams were seen to report
on obstacles such as dependencies and unfinished tasks and respond with negative and
positive feelings based on the previous sprint, described below.
Identifying and Discussing Obstacles. Obstacles reported in the retrospective meet‐

ings related to the aspects that hindered the team from making progress. During the
retrospective meeting, agile teams gathered all the problems that occurred in the previous
sprint, which would be useful for the teams to highlight areas of improvement. There
were two specific obstacles reported: dependencies and unfinished tasks.
Dependencies. Most of the participant (11 out of 16) mentioned dependencies as the
specific type of obstacle most commonly reported in the retrospective meeting.
“If it’s delayed at the first point, if something is wrong at the first point the next person feels it.
So, if one brings it up [in the retrospective] and if it’s a true concern you will have support
because it does affect people.” P16 – Test Chapter Lead (Across All Teams)
By sharing problems about dependencies team members became aware of the other
team members’ tasks and how they related to their own tasks. By being aware of this
issue the team could think about ways to solve the dependency problems.
Unfinished tasks. Unfinished tasks were mentioned by three participants as an obstacle

reported in retrospective meetings. An unfinished task was a problem where team
members could not accomplish the tasks they had planned or considered the team to be
making slow progress.
“We were not achieving that daily goal and it is a kind of demotivating… let’s say you plan 10
stories for the sprint and you achieve just two or three. The rest we couldn’t complete for what‐
ever reason. So, we say that is one thing which didn’t go well.” P12 – Tester, Team Neptune
Surfacing this obstacle was helpful for teams to understand how much more effort
was required to finish the tasks, what tasks were challenging and why the tasks were
difficult to finish. For example, when Team Neptune faced a problem with a requirement
that delayed finishing tasks, they asked for clarifications from the product manager. It
was evident that dependencies led to unfinished tasks in some cases.
Discussing Feelings. Besides obstacles, agile teams also shared their feelings which
were visualized in several forms, e.g. as drawings or journey lines. The feelings shared
by team members represented the sense of facts and occurrences from the previous
sprint, such as when they were feeling down or happy.
There was an example of positive feelings shared, which had a positive impact on
the team’s productivity, where their work can be distributed well. Team Neptune
recruited an additional tester after they had a problem with tester resource. They felt
happy because their team was complete and balanced between developers and testers.
“We do put down smiley. When we got a new tester on board, a new person we had a happy
smiley saying that our squad is complete.” P12 – Tester, Team Neptune
These obstacles and feelings identified and discussed during the retrospective
meeting were supported by our observations of the retrospective meetings of Teams
Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. It was observed that Team Jupiter reported their review by
defining some words on sticky notes (see Fig. 4(a)).
(a) Team Jupiter (b) Team Saturn (c) Team Uranus
Fig. 4. (a) Words to describe obstacles and feelings in the Retrospective meeting; (b) and (c)
Journey lines visualizing emotions during a sprint in Retrospective meetings
For example, ‘muddy’ was used to describe a difficult situation where team members
had difficulty in understanding the detailed description of specific user stories in the
project. Upon asking a team member about what was the meaning of ‘muddy’, a partic‐
ipant explained:
“So, I think, he and I came up with the term of ‘muddy’; from observation - they were really
struggling to get the right data and really had to analyse the data for this project. I observed
that and for me, I would pick out a description which would explain what I’ve observed; as a
general team.”, P1 – User Interface Designer, Team Jupiter.
4.2 Relating and Reasoning

Relating and reasoning can be seen when agile teams compile the obstacles and the
feelings shared (from the previous reporting and responding level) and investigate the
relationship between those aspects. These levels consisted of activities such as analyzing
previous action points, identifying background reasons, identifying future action
points. The explanations below present the results from the individual interviews, which
supported by group interview and observations.
Analyzing Previous Action Points. An ‘action point’ refers to a specific item selected
by the team to focus on for improvement. In analyzing previous action points, agile
teams referred to the action points agreed upon by the team in the previous retrospective
and evaluated the actual effort made by the team on that specific point.
“..that’s how you define if you made any changes, we measure yourself based on your action
points and that you’ve actually made changes for. You could make 200 action points of your 20
weeks, but not a single one of those was followed up on, you really haven’t done anything.” P4
– Business Analyst, Team Jupiter and Saturn
From the example above, it was seen that agile teams reflected on the previous action
points by measuring the outcomes achieved by the teams (i.e. good or slow progress).
This statement was further supported by the observations where during the retrospective
meetings, agile teams shared the process improvement or the failures of the previous
sprint.
Identifying Background Reasons. The background reasons of the existing issues were
identified when teams were not actively progressing, they would explore the reasons
why and what blockers were related to this problem. By identifying the background
reasons, teams would understand what aspects needed to be improved.
This point is supported by Team Jupiter’s group interview, which a team member
tried to identify the reason of the major problem during the retrospective meeting.
“I think we addressed like the major issues are causing the squad stuck at the moment and things
like test environment and [..] dealing with an external dependency like platform team in [city
name]” P4 – Business Analyst, Team Jupiter and Saturn
During the retrospective meeting observation of Team Saturn, it was seen that there
was a cause analysis discussion. For example, when team members shared their sad
feelings experienced during the first week sprint, team members shared the reasons, such
as unclear user stories or the user story was considered as a big task. The scrum master
guided the team to identify the causes by asking why they used the sad feeling notation
for the first week. Several reasons were shared, such as too many tasks, the previous
estimation and the actual effort were different, the unclear scope of work restricted their
progress. Discussing those reasons led to the point where the team realized the main
background reason was about inaccurate estimation, i.e. the team had created high
achievement expectations for the big tasks without considering the actual effort required.
Identifying Future Action Points. Identifying future action points happened when the
teams analyzed previous action points and identified the background issues, which
followed by identifying areas of improvement and asking ideas and agreement from the
teams. From the discussion, the teams gained the understanding of the existing issues
which lead to the thoughts of what areas need to improve and how to improve. Identi‐
fying future action points, the teams discussed areas of improvement, which were
focused on the process improvement. For example, in the retrospective meeting, most
agile teams stressed testing environment issues that delayed the team progress.
“we list down what didn’t go well or problems or whatever, we usually derive action points on
those things, which is a good way to improve maybe something immediately like getting a test
environment set up so we can test something.…like a more immediate thing… but there are also
action points that are related to the squad as well; determine a team chart or something like
that.” P2 – Developer, Team Jupiter
From the example above, it was seen that by knowing the existing issues the team
to will understand several areas of the process that need to be focused on. To determine
future action points the teams also discussed by asking each other’s opinions.
“when we discussed it [a plan], we asked other people what they think about it, do they agree
or don’t they? If everyone says they think they agree with what you are saying, then we say so
what the action for that?” P12 – Tester, Team Neptune
During the retrospective observations of Team Saturn, an example of how the team
identified their future action points was noted. Team Saturn had identified that the main
reason for their slow progress was inaccurate estimation. Some ideas for addressing this
included elaborating the stories into small tasks, providing the clear ‘definition of done’
for specific tasks, and asking for clarifications from the product manager about the scope
of work. The team members were asked their opinions and perspectives about these
ideas. Most team members agreed on asking for clarifications from the product manager
and elaborating the stories into small tasks. Consequently, the Scrum master of Team
Saturn made these ideas as official action points for the next sprint.
4.3 Reconstructing
The Reconstructing level of reflection seems to happen when a team constructs an
agreement on a specific plan based on the team members’ perspectives. There were three
out of the four teams (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus) that seemed to engage in the recon‐
structing level as they performed further discussions and finalized by generating action
points.
Generating a Plan. In reconstructing, teams generated plans decided from their discus‐
sion in the retrospective meeting. Action points are an explicit outcome of the retro‐
spective meeting. It is useful to remind all team members about the goal for the next
sprint, who will responsible, and what are the associated deadlines.
“So, when they go up on their board and they are doing their sprint work, they can see, “Right,
let’s not forget what came out of this retro” and it is getting ticked off.” P11 – Scrum Master,
Business Analyst and Product Owner, Team Uranus
This point was brought up in a group interview (of Team Jupiter) where most of the
team members agreed that action points were used as a reference for evaluating improve‐
ment in the next retrospective meeting.
“umm we pulled out action points on the board. So, over the next two weeks, we will make sure
that everything talked about we follow through on.” P4 – Business Analyst, Team Jupiter and
Saturn
It was observed that Team Jupiter preserved their concrete action points on their
Scrum board (see Fig. 5). Another evidence from the observations was Teams Saturn
and Uranus did not have action points but their Scrum master made some notes during
the meetings and shared verbally the points that needed to be focused on at the end of
the retrospective meeting.
Fig. 5. Action points generated by team Jupiter posted on their Scrum Board (Photo taken during
on-site observations)
5 Discussion
We now discuss the findings related to a reflection framework for agile retrospectives
including the levels of reflection achieved by the teams studied, implications for practice
and limitations of the study.
In response to the RQ1: What aspects are focused on during the retrospective
meeting? We found that there are six important aspects discussed in the retrospective
meetings: identifying and discussing obstacles, discussing feelings, analyzing previous
action points, identifying background reasons, identifying future action points and
generating a plan. In response to the RQ 2: How does reflection occur in the retrospec‐
tive meeting? We found that the reflection that occurs in retrospective meetings can be
classified into three levels of reflection [12], reporting and responding, relating and
reasoning, and reconstructing.
5.1 A Framework of Reflection in Agile Retrospective Meeting
Based on these findings, we present a reflection framework for agile retrospectives

(Fig. 6) that combines the five steps of the standard agile retrospective – set the stage,
gather data, generate insight and decide what to do, close the retrospective – and the
levels of reflection – reporting and responding, relating and reasoning, and recon‐
structing [12] within those steps.
Fig. 6. Reflection in agile retrospective meeting (levels of reflection depicted in shaded areas
based on [12])
Setting the stage involves welcoming and explaining the aim of the retrospective
meeting. Gathering data step embodies the reporting and responding level of reflection
as agile teams share their reviews (e.g. identifying and discussing obstacles and discus‐
sing feelings). Identifying and discussing obstacles and feelings in retrospective meet‐
ings was seen to correspond to ‘descriptive reflection’ [16] – a reflection which attempts
to answer questions such as: What is happening? What is this working, and for whom?
For whom is it not working? How do I know? How am I feeling? What am I pleased
and/or concerned about? What do I not understand? The obstacles and feelings shared
by all team members answer these questions. From the obstacles and feelings reported,
the teams would be able to record and collect important points of the previous sprint.
By having reviews (e.g. obstacles and feelings) of the previous sprint, team members
can be prepared to deal with other similar experiences.
Generating insight step embodies the relating and reasoning level, where agile
teams are involved in analyzing previous action points, identifying the background
reasons behind identified issues and identifying future action points. Discussing these
aspects was seen to be related to ‘descriptive reflection’, which attempts to answer
questions: does this relate to any of my stated goals and to what extent are they being
met? [16] and why the issues happen in the previous sprint? The answers to these ques‐
tions support the reflection in the form of comparative analysis and looking back to the
background issues, which help agile teams to determine what areas needed to be focused
on. Agile teams move to deep analysis on ideas or perspective shared to identify future
action points for the next sprint. It can be perceived that there is a transformation in the
discussion from answering what is happening? in the previous sprint; to what are the
alternative views of what is happening? and what are the implications of the matter
when viewed from these alternative perspectives? [16]. These questions are answered
when all team members provide their accounts about solutions of the obstacles or ways
to improve.
In the deciding what to do step, agile teams have an explicit formulation which is
generated in the form of action points (generating plans). The action points will be used
as a reference for agile teams to act upon and improve the process. Close the retrospec‐
tive step involves summarizing the outcomes of the retrospective meeting.
5.2 Levels of Reflection Build on Each Other

We now discuss the findings related to the levels of reflection achieved by the teams
studied. A key finding of our study was that not all teams were performing on every
level of reflection. So, while all teams performed retrospective meetings, not all achieved
the higher levels of reflection, in particular reconstructing. Table 3 summarizes the levels
of reflection achieved by each of the teams and the associated aspects or topics discussed
in each level.
Table 3. Levels of reflection achieved by the teams (J: Jupiter; S: Saturn; U: Uranus; N: Neptune)
Levels of Aspects discussed in retrospective meeting J S U N
reflection
Reporting and Identifying and discussing obstacles ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
responding Discussing feelings ✓ ✓ ✓ X
Relating and Analyzing previous action points ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
reasoning Identifying background reasons ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Identifying future action points ✓ ✓ ✓ X
Reconstructing Generating a plan ✓ ✓ ✓ X
Three teams were found to be fully engaged in all levels of reflection and one of the
teams, Team Neptune, performed partially on the first two levels and did not achieve
the final level of reflection, i.e. reconstructing. Based on the observation of their retro‐
spective meeting, it was seen that they did not discuss their feelings explicitly and only
discussed briefly the obstacles related to changing of task priorities needing confirmation
with the product manager. They did not discuss it further as once they agreed on that
obstacle then the product manager directly proceeded to the Scrum Board, discussed the
issue and wrapped up the meeting. They did not record any outcomes, such as a plan or
action points, from the meeting. There was little evidence of analyzing previous action
points, identifying background reasons and identifying future action points. Besides, the
duration of the meeting was also short, around 15 min, and they reported performing
retrospective meetings only when it was necessary. Another interesting observation was
that they had adapted the retrospective practice, which seemed too repetitive for them
and people often seemed to have forgotten about what happened during the last two
weeks’ sprint. As result, they were used to placing all the individual reviews written up
on sticky notes in a “retro box” – a box especially allocated to collect individual reflec‐
tion. If there were no sticky notes during a two weeks’ sprint, they would not perform
a retrospective meeting.
The case of Team Neptune is likely related to the fact that three out of six members
of Team Neptune were new to agile projects. They had in effect introduced a new
reflective practice, that of using a retro box, as a way to identify the need for conducting
a standard retrospective. However, a lack of reaching the reconstruction level suggests
that they were not able to generate a plan for improvement as several aspects of the
retrospective meeting were missing. Our findings confirm that the levels of reflection
are related and build on each other [12]. Furthermore, we show that the highest level of
reflection, reconstructing, may not be reached at all or not reached effectively until the
prior levels are accomplished effectively.
5.3 Implications for Research and Practice

For the researchers in the area of reflective practice and agile teams, our findings present
a new perspective for exploring reflective practice in agile teams. Using the framework
presented in the previous section, researchers can study agile teams’ reflective practice
in terms of levels of reflection both in retrospective meetings and other practices that
involve reflection (e.g. daily standup, pair programming [7]). Future studies can explore
new aspects or topics covered in each level and further explore how the levels build
upon each other in different team contexts.
For agile practitioners, our findings show that not all agile teams reach all levels of
reflection by simply performing retrospectives. By being aware of the different levels
of reflection meant to be achieved in each retrospective step, teams can consciously
strive to achieve the most out of their retrospective meetings. In particular, they can see
that only reporting and responding and relating and reasoning levels are not enough
rather reconstructing to generate action points and following up on those points in future
meetings is critical to harnessing retrospective meetings to achieve continuous improve‐
ment. Thus, in order to maximize the benefits of their retrospective meetings, we recom‐
mend agile teams use our reflection framework (Fig. 6) to self-assess their level as a
whole based on their personal understanding of their team context and track it in practice
to achieve higher levels of reflection.
5.4 Limitations
A key limitation of this study lies in the fact that observations of a single retrospective
meeting per team is not strong enough to establish and confirm a particular team’s overall
level of reflection. For example, it may be that in other retrospective meetings Team
Neptune reached higher levels of reflection. However, the findings were arrived at by
combining the data from interviews as well as the observations, which provides multiple
perspectives that support the findings. Another related limitation is that the findings are
limited to the contexts studied in this research, which in turn are dictated by the avail‐
ability of participants. Further studies can confirm, adapt, or extend our framework to
include different team contexts and reflective practices.
6 Conclusion
Previous studies have focused on specifying the techniques of conducting a retrospective

meeting, with little focus on how the reflection in the retrospective meeting actually
occurs. One of the key contributions of our work is to present a reflection framework
for agile retrospective meetings that explains and embeds five (grouped into three) levels
of reflection within the five steps of a standard agile retrospective meeting. Critically,
we show that agile teams may not achieve all levels of reflection simply by performing
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days,” and to washing and getting up a pair of cuffs with her own
hands.
“You look quite smart, Maddie,” said Laurence, as she completed
her toilet, and came and showed herself to him.
“Yes; I don’t look so very, very poor, do I?”
“No-o,” rather dubiously. Then he added, with a smile, “No one
who looks at your face will think of your clothes; and, indeed,
Maddie, it is not fit that such a pretty girl as you are should be
travelling alone, and third class, such a long journey.”
“Rubbish! rubbish! rubbish!” she answered emphatically. “I’ll wear
a veil, if that will please you; and, indeed, no one will notice me. If
they do, they will think I am some poor girl going to a situation. You
think every one must admire what you thought pretty, you stupid
Laurence; but I heard Mrs. Kane saying the other day that I’d grown
‘awfully plain.’ And it’s not my face Mrs. Harper will notice—you may
be certain of that!”
Ten minutes later she had kissed the sleeping baby, taken leave of
Laurence, given many whispered directions to Mrs. Kane’s niece,
and a whole half-sovereign from her little fund; and then, with a
beating heart, started on foot for a distant terminus. No, she would
not take even a twopenny fare in a ’bus; she must save every penny,
and she would have plenty of rest in the train. And so she had, of a
sort, on the hard, upright seat of a crowded third-class carriage for
eight mortal hours. There is not much repose in such a situation, nor
much sleep to be obtained; and the train roared along through the
inky black night, and tore through small stations with a shriek of
contempt that shook them to their foundations, and nearly shook the
teeth of the unhappy third-class passengers out of their heads. After
a whole night’s travelling of this uneasy description, Madeline arrived
at her destination—Riverside—and quickly alighted on the platform.
One trouble was spared her—luggage.
She went and washed her face and hands, arranged her hair,
shook off some of the dust in the waiting-room, invested fourpence in
a bun and cup of coffee, and felt herself sufficiently fortified to
encounter Mrs. Harper—but not Miss Selina. Another journey by rail,
a short walk, and she found herself once more on the familiar
doorstep of Harperton House, and rang timidly.
A strange maid (who knew not the delinquencies of Miss West)
opened the door, and was evidently surprised to behold such an
early visitor.
She informed her that Mrs. Harper was not down yet, nor Miss
Harper, and showed her into the drawing-room, which was in
process of being dusted. Here she waited for some time, whilst a
sound of hasty footsteps and voices was very audible above her
head. She looked around the room, and felt as if she had only
quitted it yesterday. And oh! what a gap there was in her life between
the last time she stood there, listening to Miss Selina’s spiteful
remonstrances, and now! But the room was precisely the same.
There was the best piano, on which she had had many a music-
lesson. There was Alice Burns’ big coloured-chalk drawing, Amy
Watson’s two water-colours; Florence Blewitt’s brass work, and
Isabella Jones’s photograph screen—all votive offerings to the
Harper family, and advertisements to pupils’ relatives who came to
make inquiries about the school.
Presently the door opened, and Miss Harper—if we may dare to
say so—burst into the room.
“Oh, Madeline!” she exclaimed, “so it’s you. She only said a young
lady. How more than thankful I am to see you!” shaking hands as
she spoke, and looking into her face with eager scrutiny. “You are
thin—very thin; but thin or fat, you are welcome back. Come up at
once to my mother’s room; she is dressing. She does not come
down early now, and she wants to see you” (here was an honour).
“Come, the girls are all in the schoolroom. The breakfast-bell will be
rung in ten minutes,” turning to lead the way. Then she paused for a
moment, with the handle in her hand. “You have heard about
Selina?” she asked, with a red spot on either cheek, and a spark in
either eye. “What! Have you not heard?” she added hurriedly.
Miss Selina! It was not of Miss Selina Madeline had come to hear;
and she shook her head and answered, “No; is she dead?”
“Dead! She’s married. She married nearly a year ago,” returned
her sister, impressively, “Mr. Murphy, the red-haired curate. She—
she behaved atrociously. Don’t mention her to my mother, nor ask
about her, on any account. We don’t speak,” flinging the door wide
as she gasped out the last sentence.
All the reply Madeline made was “Indeed!” But nevertheless she
felt a very lively satisfaction to hear that her old enemy was no
longer an inmate of Harperton, and had gone away, like herself, in
disgrace.
“You will find my mother rather changed,” whispered Miss Harper,
as she rapidly preceded her upstairs. “She’s had a slight stroke. All
the troubles and annoyance about Selina were enough to kill her,
and she is not what she was. She never comes down till the
afternoon; but take no notice.”
“Madeline!” cried the old lady, as Madeline entered her room and
beheld her propped up in bed, in her best day cap. “This is too good
to be true! I scarcely expected it, though I have advertised every day
in the Times. Come here, my dear, and kiss me”—tendering a
withered cheek. The old lady’s mind was certainly affected, thought
her late pupil. That she who had been so ignominiously cast out
should be thus welcomed back, and with kisses, was scarcely
credible, unless viewed from the idea that Mrs. Harper had become
imbecile in the meanwhile. But no, the reason of this astonishing
change from the frost of neglect to the sun of welcome—affectionate
welcome—was a very potent one indeed. It was nothing less than
the prospect of a large sum of money.
Since Madeline had been banished, nothing had gone well. Her
place had been taken by a governess who had actually required a
salary, as well as civility, and had been a great encumbrance and
expense. Then came Selina’s wicked tampering with her sister’s
sweet-heart, a heart-burning scandal, family linen sent to the public
wash, and a serious falling off in the school. Things were going
badly. Every step was down hill—one girl leaving after another, and
there were many vacant places at the long dinner-table.
At last came a letter—from Mr. West of all people! enclosing a
large draft on his bankers, and announcing his return a wealthy and
successful man. The draft was to pay for two years’ schooling, with
interest up to date; but for a whole year Miss West had been
elsewhere! How could they honestly claim these badly-wanted
pounds? They had banished the man’s daughter, and the money
must be restored.
Viewed now—in a softer light, through a golden atmosphere—
Madeline’s deeds were excusable. The poor girl had been Selina’s
victim, and therefore more to be pitied than blamed. Madeline must
be sought and, if possible, discovered and reinstated as if there had
been no hiatus, as if nothing disagreeable had occurred. And we
have seen the “state of life” in which Madeline had been found.
“Letitia, do you go down now, and presently send up a nice
breakfast for two—two fresh eggs—whilst I have a talk with dear
Madeline.” Thus the old lady, who still held the reins of authority,
although she had lost the use of her right hand; and Letitia, having
previously rehearsed the whole “talk” with her mother, and fearing
that “too many cooks might spoil the broth,” departed with meek
obedience.
“Take off your hat and jacket, my love, and make yourself at home.
I am sure you will not be surprised to hear—yes, put them on the
ottoman—that your father is alive and well, and returning an
immensely”—dwelling lovingly on the word—“rich man.”
Madeline’s heart bounded into her mouth, her face became like
flame. So her presentiment had come true!
“Ah! I see you are surprised, darling: so were we when we got his
letter, a week ago. Here, bring me that case, the green one on the
little table, and I’ll read it to you at once—or you may read it yourself
if you like, Madeline.”
Madeline did as requested, picked out a foreign letter in a well-
known hand, and sat down to peruse it beside Mrs. Harper’s bed.
That lady, having assumed her spectacles for the nonce, scanned
her late pupil’s face with keen intentness.
This is what the letter said:—
“Royal Kangaroo Club,
“Collins Street, Melbourne.
“My dear Mrs. Harper,
“After such a long silence, you will be surprised to see my
writing, but here I am. I am afraid Madeline has been rather
uneasy about me—and, indeed, no wonder. I met with some
terrible losses in bank shares two years ago: nearly the whole
of my life’s earnings were engulphed in an unparalleled
financial catastrophe. The anxiety and trouble all but killed me
—threw me into a fever, from the effects of which I was laid
up for months—many months, and when I again put my
shoulder to the wheel I was determined not to write home until
I was as rich a man as ever. I knew that you, who had had the
care of Madeline since she was seven, would trust me, and
everything would go on as usual. I had always been such
punctual pay, you would give me time for once. I am now, I
am glad to say, a wealthy man. Some lots of land I bought
years ago have turned up trumps—in short, gold. I am not
going to speculate again, but am returning home a millionaire,
and Maddie shall keep house in London, and hold up her
head among the best. Stray bits of news have drifted to my
ears. I heard a foolish story about some beggarly barrister or
curate and her. A schoolgirl wrote it to her brother; but I am
certain it was only girls’ tittle-tattle. Surely you would never
allow my heiress to play the fool! If she did, she knows very
well that I would disown her. I am a fond father in my way, and
a good father, as you can testify, but I’ll have no pauper
fortune-hunters, or puling love affairs. A hint from you to
Madeline, that at the least nonsense of that sort I marry again,
and let her please herself, will be, at any rate, a stitch in time.
She has had a good education. She can earn her bread; but I
know it is not necessary to continue this subject. You are a
sensible woman; Madeline is a sensible girl, if she is my
daughter. And I have great views for her, very great views. I
shall follow this letter in about six weeks’ time, and will write
again before I leave. I shall come by the Ophir, Orient Line,
and you and Maddie can meet me in Plymouth. I enclose a
draft on my agents for six hundred pounds, five hundred for
Maddie’s schooling and outfit for two years, and the balance
for pocket-money and a few new frocks, so that she may be
smart when her old daddie comes home.”
Madeline paused, and shook the letter. No, no draft fluttered out.
“I have banked it,” put in Mrs. Harper, precipitately, who had been
scrutinizing every change in the girl’s face. “It is quite safe.”
“And now I must wind up, hoping soon to see Madeline,
and with love to her and compliments to yourself and
daughters, especially the lively Miss Selina.
“Yours faithfully,
“Robert West.”
“Well, Madeline, tell me what you think of that?” demanded Mrs.
Harper, wiping her glasses.
“I—I—am very glad of course,” she returned, her brain and ideas
in a whirl; but now fully comprehending the cause of Mrs. Harper’s
blandishments and welcome.
“We are so sorry, love, that we were so hasty about Mr. Wynne. It
was entirely Selina’s doing, I do assure you. I am most thankful to
see—especially after your father’s letter—that you did not marry him
after all!”
“Not marry him,” echoed the girl, colouring vividly. “What do you
mean?”
“I see you are not married by your hand,” pointing a long finger at
Madeline’s ringless member. “Is not that sufficient proof?” she asked
sharply.
Madeline was suddenly aware that she was at a crisis—a great
moral crisis—in her life, when she must take action at once, an
action that meant much. Her father’s letter, Mrs. Harper’s conclusion,
her own dire want, all prompted the quick decision made on the
instant. She would for the present temporise—at least till she had
met her father, told him her story in her own way, and accomplished
a full pardon. To declare now that she was a wife would be ruin—ruin
to her, death to Laurence, for of course her father would cut her off
with a shilling. She was aware that he had very strong prejudices, a
grotesque adoration for rank and success, and a corresponding
abhorrence of those who were poor, needy, and obscure; also that
he was a man of his word. This she had gleaned out in Australia
when but seven years of age. They had lived in a splendid mansion
in Toorak, the most fashionable suburb of Melbourne, and an elderly
reduced Englishwoman had been her governess. But because she
had permitted her to play with some children whose father was in
difficulties, who was socially ostracised, she had been discharged at
a week’s notice, and Madeline had been despatched to England. Her
father was peculiar—yes. In a second her mind was resolved, and,
with hands that shook as she folded up the crackling foreign
notepaper, she reassumed the character of Miss West!
CHAPTER IX.
BARGAINING.
“You see, my love,” proceeded Mrs. Harper, in a smooth,

insinuating tone, “it is not every one who would take you back under
the circumstances;” and she paused, and peered at the girl over her
spectacles with a significant air. (The circumstances of five hundred
pounds, thought her listener bitterly.) “Will you give me your word of
honour that you have not been doing anything—unbecoming—
anything that—that—would reflect on your reputation? My dear, you
need not look so red and indignant. I’m only an old woman. I mean
no offence.”
“I have done nothing to be ashamed of, or which I shall ever blush
for or regret,” rejoined Madeline, impressively; “and to that I can give
my word of honour. But, Mrs. Harper, you ask strange questions—
and I am no longer at school.”
“Well, well, my dear—well, well; we did hear that you were in the
mantle department at Marshall and Snelgrove’s. I believe there are
ladies in these establishments;” and then she added craftily, “You
have such a nice, tall, slight figure—for trying on things. You were
always so graceful, and had such taking manners!”
“I was not there, Mrs. Harper,” returned Madeline; “and I cannot
tell you where I was, beyond that I lived with a friend, and that I was
very poor.”
“A friend, at Solferino Place?” quickly.
“Yes”—with visible reluctance—“at Solferino Place. And now what
do you want with me, Mrs. Harper?” she asked, with unexpected
boldness.
“Well, I wish”—clearing her throat—“and so does Letitia, to let
bygones be bygones; to allow your father to find you here, as if you
had never been away; to hush up your escapade—for though, of
course, I believe you—it might sound a little curious to him. No one
knows why you left, excepting Selina—Mrs. Murphy. It happened in
the holidays. These girls are a new set, and have never heard of
you; and, even if they had, they would not meet Mr. West, as he
arrives during the Easter term. Do you agree to this?”
“Yes,” replied Madeline, with sudden pallor, but a steady voice, “I
agree; it will be best.”
“That is arranged, then,” said the old diplomatist, briskly. “And,
now, what about the money?—what about that? Shall we keep the
five hundred pounds, and give you the balance?”
In former days Madeline would have assented to this proposition
at once; but now her heart beat tumultuously as she thought of
Laurence and the baby. She must secure all she could for their
sakes, and, feeling desperately nervous, she replied—
“No, I can’t quite see that, Mrs. Harper. To one year’s payment and
interest you are, of course, entitled; but the second year I worked for
my living—worked very hard indeed. You can scarcely expect to take
two hundred pounds, as well as my services—gratis.”
But Mrs. Harper had expected it confidently, and this unlooked-for
opposition was a blow. Madeline was not as nice as she used to be,
and she must really put some searching questions to her respecting
her absence, if she was going to be so horribly grasping about
money; and Madeline, blushing for very shame as she bargained
with this old female Shylock, reluctantly yielded one hundred pounds
for the year she had been pupil-teacher. It was money versus
character—and a character is expensive.
Mrs. Harper, on her part, undertook to arrange Madeline’s past
very completely, and Madeline felt that it must be veiled from her
father for the present—at any rate, until Laurence was better, and
able to resume work and a foothold on existence.
She had assured him yesterday that she would steal for him if
necessary. Was not this as bad, she asked herself, bargaining and
chaffering thus over her father’s money, and dividing it with the
greedy old creature at her side? However, she was to have one
hundred and eighty pounds for her share. Oh, riches! Oh, what could
she not do with that sum?
She was to return to her friends at Solferino Place for three weeks
—(she had struggled and battled fiercely for this concession, and
carried the day)—was then to return to Harperton, and be
subsequently escorted to Plymouth by Miss Harper, who would
personally restore her to her father’s arms.
After the morning’s exciting business, Madeline was wearied,
flushed, and had a splitting headache. She was not sorry to share
Mrs. Harper’s excellent tea, and to be allowed to take off her dress
and go and lie down in a spare room upstairs—a room once full, but
now empty—and there she had a long think; and, being completely
worn out, a long, long sleep.
After dinner—early dinner—she went out with Miss Harper, and
the money—her share—was paid to her without delay. She had
stipulated for this. Could it be possible that it was she, Madeline
Wynne, who stood opposite to the cashier’s desk cramming notes
and sovereigns into her sixpenny purse? As they pursued their walk,
Madeline recognized a few old faces, and many old places. She
purchased a new hat, which she put on in the shop; and she heard,
to her relief, that the Wolfertons had left, and gone to live abroad.
Some former schoolfellows, now grown up—no young plant grows
quicker than a schoolgirl—recognized and accosted her. These had
been day-boarders. They mentally remarked that she had turned out
very different to what they expected, and that she looked much older
than her age. “She was staying at Mrs. Harper’s, was she?”
Before they had time to ask the hundred and one questions with
which they were charged, Miss Harper prudently hurried her pupil
away, saying, as she did so—
“Least said, soonest mended, my dear. It’s well you had on your
new hat! Now you had better get some gloves.”
She was not quite as keen about the money as her mother, and
was inclined—nay, anxious—to be amiable. Madeline West, the
great Australian heiress, had possibilities in her power. She was
resolved to be friendly with her, and to reinstate her at once as the
favourite pupil of former days, burying in oblivion the teacher
interlude.
The girls Madeline had met walked on disappointed, saying to one
another—
“Fancy that being Maddie West! How awful she looks! So seedy,
and so thin and careworn; and she is barely my age—in fact, she is
a week younger!”
“And so frightfully shabby,” put in another.
“Did you see her dress—all creases?”
“And her gloves!” (The gloves were apparently beyond
description.)
“All the same, Miss Harper was making a great fuss—a great deal
of her. It was ‘dear’ this, and ‘love’ that. She is never affectionate for
nothing. I know the old boa-constrictor so well. Perhaps Maddie has
been left a fortune?” hazarded the sharpest of the party.
“Her dress and jacket looked extremely like it,” sneered number
one. “As to her hat, I saw it in at Mason’s this morning—I noticed it
particularly, marked eleven and ninepence. That looks like being an
heiress! Oh, very much so, indeed!”
The price of the hat settled the question!
CHAPTER X.
MRS. KANE BECOMES AFFECTIONATE.
Mrs. Harper would not hear of Madeline returning to London by

night. No, it was a most shocking idea, and not to be entertained.
She must remain until the next day at least, “and travel properly,”
which meant that Miss Harper herself conducted the heiress to
Riverside, and saw her off by the morning express, first class. It was
in vain that Madeline protested that such precautions were quite
unnecessary. She was anxious to save her fare, and return third; for,
even with such wealth as one hundred and eighty pounds, every
shilling would be required. But her voice was silenced. Miss Harper
carried the day, took her late pupil to the station, gave her into the
charge of the guard, and even went so far as to present her with a
two-shilling novel, to wile away the journey (an attention that she
hoped would bear fruit by-and-by). But Madeline did not need it; her
own thoughts were sufficient to absorb her whole attention as she
travelled rapidly homeward. She was sensible of some disquieting
pangs when she thought of Laurence. Would he be angry when he
heard that his wife had once more assumed her maiden name, and
pretended that she was still Madeline West?
No, no; he must forgive her, when there was so much at stake.
Her hand closed involuntarily on her purse, that precious purse
which contained the first payment for the fraud, she had been
compelled to practise. About five o’clock that evening Madeline’s
quick foot was once more heard ascending the stairs, and with hasty
fingers she opened the sitting-room door, and rushed into her
husband’s presence. He was up and dressed—(at all but the worst
of times he would insist on dragging himself out of bed and dressing)
—seated at her table, laboriously doing some copying, with slow and
shaky fingers.
It should here be stated, in justice to Mrs. Harper, that she had
passed Madeline under the harrow of searching inquiries, and
elicited the intelligence that she made her livelihood by law copying,
and she was satisfied that it was a respectable employment.
“Ah!” exclaimed the astute dame, “I suppose Mr. Wynne put that
bit of work in your way, did he?” Fortunately for her new rôle,
Madeline could truthfully reply “No,” for it was not Laurence who had
been the means of procuring this employment, such as it was, but
Mr. Jessop.
“You will give me your permanent address, Madeline,” said Mrs.
Harper, austerely. “That must be thoroughly understood.”
“But you have it already, Mrs. Harper.”
“Have you lodged there long?” she asked, feeling confident that no
well-known counsel at the bar could outdo her in crafty questions.
“Fourteen months,” said her pupil, rather shortly.
“Then you must have been pretty comfortable?”
To which Madeline evasively replied that she had been quite
happy. (No thanks to Mrs. Kane.)
And Mrs. Harper was satisfied. She had found out all she wished
to know. Madeline’s past was as clear as daylight now! Was it?
And now behold Madeline at home once more, flushed with
excitement, exhilarated by the change, by the money in her purse,
and with her bright eyes, bright colour, and new hat, making quite a
cheerful and brilliant appearance before the amazed and languid
invalid.
He was looking very ill to-day. These close stifling rooms and
sleepless nights were gradually sapping his scanty stock of vitality.
“Baby is asleep,” she said, glancing eagerly into the cradle. “And
now I am going to tell you all about it,” taking off her hat and gloves,
and pushing aside her husband’s writing materials, filling him up a
glass of port, fetching a biscuit, and taking a seat opposite to him, all
within the space of three minutes.
“You have good news, Maddie, I see,” he remarked as he looked
at her, and noticed her condition of suppressed excitement, and her
sparkling eyes.
“Good?—news, yes; and money!” pulling out her purse and
displaying thick rolls of Bank of England notes, and some shining
sovereigns. “Oh, Laurence dear, I feel so happy, all but in one little
corner of my conscience, and I’m afraid you’ll be angry with me—
about something—that is the one drawback! I don’t know how to
begin to tell you—best begin with the worst. I’ve gone back to being
Madeline West once more; they don’t know that I am married.”
“Madeline!” he ejaculated sternly. “You are not in earnest.”
“Now, dear, don’t; don’t speak till you hear all. You know how I left,
how I travelled with the price of my rings. I arrived, was shown up
into Mrs. Harper’s own room—where, in old times, girls were sent for
to have bad news broken to them. She has had a stroke. Miss Selina
is married, and Mr. Murphy is gone. The school is going down. So
when Mrs. Harper had a letter from my father, enclosing five hundred
pounds for two years’ expenses, and one hundred for me for pocket-
money, it was a most welcome surprise, and they were anxious to
find me, of course”—pausing for a second to take breath. “Don’t
interrupt me, yet,” she pleaded, with outstretched hands. “Mrs.
Harper gave me papa’s letter to read. He had lost money, he had
been ill for a long time, he had no wish to write until he was again a
rich man. Now he is a millionaire, and is coming home immediately,
expecting to find me still at the Harpers’, and still Miss West. I am to
be a great heiress. I am to keep his house; and, Laurence dear, he
had heard a hint of you. I know it was that detestable gossip, Maggie
Wilkinson. She had a cousin in an office in Melbourne, and used to
write him volumes. And, oh, he says dreadful things—I mean my
father—if I marry a poor man, as he has such—such—views. That
was the word; and if I disappoint him, I am to be turned from his door
penniless, to earn my own bread!”
“As you are doing now,” observed her listener bitterly.
“Yes!” with a gesture of despair; “but what is it—for you and me
and baby—what are nine shillings a week? Then Mrs. Harper
exclaimed, with great relief, ‘I see you are not married!’ pointing to
my hand; and it all came into my mind like a flash. I did not say I was
not married, I uttered no actual untruth; but I allowed her to think so.
The temptation was too great; there was the wealth for the taking—
money that would bring you health. I said I would steal for you,
Laurence; but it was not stealing, it was, in a sense, my own money,
intended for my use. Are you very angry with me for what I have
done, dear?” she wound up rather timidly.
“No, Madeline. I see you could not help yourself, poor child, with
starvation staring you in the face, and a sick husband and infant to
support! Your father has views for you, has he? I wonder how this
view”—indicating himself and the cradle—“would strike him. As far
as I am concerned, it won’t be for long, and your father will forgive
you; but the child Maddie—on his account your marriage——”
“Laurence!” she almost screamed, “don’t! Do you think the child
would make up for you? Am I not doing all this for you—acting a
part, clothing myself in deceit, for you—only for you? Do not tell me
that it is all to go for nothing! If I thought that, I would give it up at
once. My sole object is to gain time, and money, until you are
yourself once more, and able to earn our living at your profession.
Then, having done all to smooth the way, I shall confess my
marriage to my father. If he renounces me, I shall still have you, and
you will have me. But, without this money to go on with, to get the
best advice, plenty of nourishment, and change of air, I don’t know
what I should do?” And she surveyed him with a pair of truly tragic
eyes. “It has come to me like a reprieve to a condemned criminal.
Say, Laurence, that I have done right. Oh, please, say it!” putting out
her hands, with a pretty begging gesture.
“No, dearest Maddie, I cannot say that; but I will say that, under
the circumstances, it was a great, an almost irresistible temptation.”
“Then, at least, say you are not angry with me.”
“I can say no to that from the bottom of my heart. How can I be
angry, when I myself am the cause—when it has all been done for
me? The only thing is, that there maybe difficulties later on,” looking
into the future with his practical lawyer’s eye. “There may be
difficulties and a desperate entanglement in store for you, my pretty,
reckless Maddie. You know the lines—
“‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave,

When once we practise to deceive.’”
“At any rate, I shall make the best of my web,” said his wife,
springing up. “I am going to take Mr. Jessop into my confidence.”
“Are you? Well, I suppose it will be best.”
“Yes, of course it will; I am going to write to him now. The very first
doctor in London is to come and see you; and, as soon as you can
be moved, you go into the country—that I insist upon.”
“I go into the country, do I?” with a grim smile. He was saying to
himself, as he looked at her eager anxious face, that the only country
he would ever go into now would be down to the old burying-place of
the Wynne family. At least his relations could not refuse him
admission there, or close that door—the door of the family vault—in
his face.
And when he was at rest, under the walls of the old grey church,
Madeline, as a widow, would be as much her father’s heiress and
housekeeper as if she had never been a wife. In fact, her days of
misfortune would enhance her domestic worth, at least she had
learnt the value of money! As for himself, he was reduced to such a
low ebb, mentally and physically, that death would be a release. To
return to life—with a capital L—and to take up his heavy load, and
plod on and on like an omnibus horse, was not an alluring prospect.
Madeline’s future was safe, and he would rather be under the green
sod, with all the dead and gone Wynnes—when, after life’s fitful
fever, they slept well.
It will be seen from this that Mr. Wynne was in a bad way—too
weak, too hopeless, even to care to struggle back to health. But
Madeline had now sufficient energy for two. Hope pervaded her
young veins, decision and prompt action were its outcome, and
money was power.
In the first place, she scribbled a hasty note to Mr. Jessop, and
begged him to call on them that evening without fail. This she
despatched by a little boy, paying a precious sixpence to save time.
Then she descended like a whirlwind upon Mrs. Kane, and begged
to see her for a moment alone. She had made a bold resolve—there
was no alternative. She was about to take Mrs. Kane—the insolent,
the red-faced, the incredulous—into her confidence. She had
Hobson’s choice, and, in fact, was at her wits’ end. Supposing
inquiries were made, supposing Mrs. Harper wrote and asked
awkward questions, and who so ready to answer them—unless
previously prepared, previously bribed, previously flattered, by being
let into the secret—as Mrs. Kane?
“Mrs. Kane,” said Madeline, knocking at that lady’s door, the door
of her own sanctum, “I have something to say to you in private.”
“Bless me, Mrs. Wynne, how white your face is!” exclaimed the
other tartly, having been just about to sit down to her supper—tripe
and bottled stout. “Whatever is the matter now? Not the bailiffs—that
I do hope.”
“No, no, no; quite the contrary.” Then, struck by a happy thought,
“How much do we owe you, Mrs. Kane?”
“Ah, owe me!” rather staggered. “Let’s see, thirteen weeks, at ten
shillings, is six pounds ten; then the coal——Here,” making a raid on
a rickety writing-table, “I have it all down,” searching among some
papers. “Yes, here it is. Coal, one pound one, kindling wood,
matches, postage on a parcel—total, eight pounds, thirteen and
sevenpence-halfpenny. Are you going to settle it?” she asked briskly.
“Yes, I am,” replied Madeline, now drawing out her full, her
overflowing purse. What courage, what confidence were conferred
by the very feel of its contents! Mrs. Kane gazed at it with eyes as
distended as those of a bull frog, and with her mouth half-open. “A
ten-pound note, Mrs. Kane.” And Mrs. Wynne tendered one as she
spoke.
“So I see,” in a milder key. “I’ll get you change, and, though I says
it as shouldn’t, it’s not everybody, you know yourself, who would
have——”
“Yes, quite true, I know all that already, thank you, Mrs. Kane.
Never mind the change just now, it can go towards the milk bill. What
I wanted to speak to you about is to tell you a family secret—which
concerns me.”
“A family secret! Laws, Mrs. Wynne!” suddenly seating herself with
a plunge, and looking at her lodger with a countenance of gratified
anticipation, “whatever can it be?”
“Promise, on your solemn word of honour, not to tell any one.”
“Oh, I’m as safe as a church; no one will get anything out of me”—
mentally resolving to tell her niece and husband without any churlish
delay—“unless it’s something not on the square.”
“It is quite on the square; you need not fear. Once I was a Miss
West.”
“So you told me,” nodding her head.
“I was at school near Riverside for a good many years. My father
is an Australian merchant—very rich.”
“Oh, indeed!” in a comfortable tone.
“But for two years he had not been heard of, we thought that he
was dead, and I became a teacher at school. Mr. Wynne saw me
there, and paid me attention, which displeased Mrs. Harper very
much. I was sent away, and we were married. We have been here
ever since.”
“So you have,” agreed Mrs. Kane, as much as to say, “And it’s
highly to your credit!”
“Well, now my father has written at last; he is coming home,
immensely rich. He has not heard of my marriage.”
“Laws, you don’t say so!” in a tone of admiration and
astonishment.
“No one has heard of it, you see. I had no friends. And if my father
knew that I had married a poor man, he would be dreadfully angry—
at least at first. I went down to Mrs. Harper’s; she showed me his
letter. She thinks I am not married, for,” holding up her bare left hand,
“I pawned my rings to pay my railway fare.”
“Oh, my goodness! Did you really, now?”
“And she took it for granted that I was still Miss West. I confessed
nothing. I told her I had lived here for fourteen months, that I worked
at law stationery, and was very poor, and she was apparently
satisfied; but, all the same, I firmly believe she will write and ask you
all about me. Neither she nor my father must know of my marriage—
yet. And now, are you quite prepared? I am Miss West, you know,
who has lived with you since last January year. You understand, Mrs.
Kane?”
“Oh yes!” with an expressive wink. “A nice, quiet, respectable
young lady—never going nowhere, keeping no company, and I only
wishes I had a dozen like her. I’ll give it her all pat, you be quite
certain,” said her landlady, rubbing her bare fat arms with the liveliest
delight at her own rôle in the piece. “But how about Mr. Wynne and
the baby?” she asked slyly.
“You need not mention them. It will be all right later on, when I see
my father and prepare him, you know. But now I am obliged to keep
him in the dark. Mrs. Harper would not have given me my money,
had she known. It’s only for a short time that I am forced to resume
my old name, and I assure you, Mrs. Kane, that it’s not very
pleasant.”
“Ay, well now, I think it’s rather a joke—something like a play at the
Adelphi, where in the end the father comes in and blesses the young
couple, and they all live together, happy as sand-boys, ever after.
That will be your case, you’ll see!” emphatically.
“I hope so, but I doubt it,” returned her lodger. “I will be content if
my husband recovers his health. Money is nothing in comparison to
health.”
“Ay, may be so; but money is a great comfort all the same,” said
Mrs. Kane, squeezing the note affectionately in her hand, and
wondering how many more of the same quality were in Mrs. Wynne’s
purse—“a great comfort!”
“Well then, now you know all, Mrs. Kane,” said the other, rising, “I
can depend on you? You will be our friend in this matter, and, believe
me, you will be no loser.”
“Certainly you can’t say fairer nor that, can you, ma’am?—though,
as far as I’m concerned, I’m always delighted to oblige a lady for
nothing, and I always fancied you from the first time I saw you in the
hall, and you knocked over that pot of musk, and so Maria will tell
you. As for the secret, wild horses would not tear it from me; and I’m
that interested in you, as I couldn’t express to you, and allus was—
you ask Maria—just as if you was my own daughter. I can’t say fairer
nor that, can I?”
And opening the door with a wide flourish, she waved Madeline
through, who, rather staggered by this unexpected compliment,
passed quickly into the lobby, and with a farewell nod, hurried back
to her family in the upper regions, and set about preparing tea. She
also made preparations for the expected visit of their chief
counsellor, Mr. Henry Jessop.

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Agile Processes in Software

Engineering and Extreme Programming

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme

Algorithms and Complexity 10th International Conference

Software Business 8th International Conference ICSOB

Exploring Services Science 8th International Conference

Matthias Riebisch (Eds.)

ISSN 1865-1348 ISSN 1865-1356 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017937714

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

March 2017 Hubert Baumeister

Academic Program Committee

PhD Symposium Chair

Industrial Program Committee

Individuals and Interaction

Program Committee (Research Papers)

Matthias Riebisch University of Hamburg, Germany

Reviewers (Industry and Practice)

Adam, Kai Kautz, Oliver

“Cologne Cathedral” Sponsor

“Albertus Magnus” Sponsor

“River Rhine” Sponsors

Hänneschen and Bärbelchen

Improving Agile Processes

Reflection in Agile Retrospectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

What Influences the Speed of Prototyping? An Empirical Investigation

Key Challenges in Agile Requirements Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo...: A Multiple Case Study on Selecting

Comparing Requirements Decomposition Within the Scrum, Scrum

Effects of Technical Debt Awareness: A Classroom Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Don’t Forget to Breathe: A Controlled Trial of Mindfulness Practices

Enhancing Agile Team Collaboration Through the Use of Large Digital

Knowledge Sharing in a Large Agile Organisation: A Survey Study . . . . . . . 135

Teaching Agile Methods to Software Engineering Professionals:

Adopting Test Automation on Agile Development Projects:

Safety Critical Software

How is Security Testing Done in Agile Teams? A Cross-Case Analysis

An Assessment of Avionics Software Development Practice:

Short Research Papers

Inoculating an Agile Company with User-Centred Design:

Checklists to Support Test Charter Design in Exploratory Testing . . . . . . . . . 251

Discovering Software Process Deviations Using Visualizations . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Exploring Workflow Mechanisms and Task Allocation Strategies

Are Daily Stand-up Meetings Valuable? A Survey of Developers

Doctoral Symposium Papers

Knowledge Management and Reflective Practice in Daily Stand-Up

Self-Assignment: Task Allocation Practice in Agile Software Development. . . . 292

Software Development Practices Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Yanti Andriyani1 ✉ , Rashina Hoda1, and Robert Amor2

Abstract. A retrospective is a standard agile meeting practice designed for agile

Keywords: Agile retrospective meeting · Reﬂection · Levels of reﬂection ·

© The Author(s) 2017

into reflection-in-action or reflection that occurs during a practice, and reflection-on-

2.1 Agile Retrospective Meeting

There is a standard format commonly used to conduct an agile retrospective meeting

2.2 Reﬂective Practice

Reﬂective practice according to Osterman and Kottkamp [11], is deﬁned as “a means

3.1 Data Collection