Enhancing research informatics core user satisfaction through agile practices.

Area of Science:

• Research informatics
• Software development in science
• Core facility management

Background:

• Research informatics cores are growing in size and complexity.
• There is a lack of published operational best practices for these facilities.
• Increased team size at Huntsman Cancer Institute Research Informatics Shared Resource (RISR) correlated with decreased user satisfaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and implement best practices for research informatics cores.
• To enhance the effectiveness of RISR following team expansion and reduced user satisfaction.
• To evaluate the impact of agile software development on core facility operations.

Main Methods:

• RISR transitioned from a water-scrum-fall model to agile software development practices.
• Agile implementation focused on the product owner role for enhanced user engagement.
• All software development teams adopted agile practices in early 2020.

Main Results:

• Annual user survey scores for service quality increased by 17% nine months post-implementation.
• Annual user survey scores for turnaround time increased by 11% nine months post-implementation.
• All project teams are now led by a product owner acting as the user's advocate.

Conclusions:

• Agile software development shows potential for increasing research informatics core facility effectiveness.
• Agile practices may address challenges in applying software engineering principles to scientific contexts.
• Further study is needed to establish agile as a best practice for operating research informatics cores.