Abstract
Agile software development methods have become increasingly popular since the late 1990s, and may offer improved outcomes for software development projects when compared to more traditional approaches. However there has previously been little published empirical evidence to either prove or disprove this assertion. A survey carried out in March 2006 gathered responses from a large number of software development professionals who were using many different methods, both traditional and agile. A statistical analysis of this data reveals that agile methods do indeed improve outcomes from software development projects in terms of quality, satisfaction, and productivity, without a significant increase in cost. However, adoption of methods appears to involve a high degree of adaptivity, with many methods being used in combination and sets of techniques being adopted on an ad hoc basis. In this context, our analysis suggests that choosing specific combinations of methods can be particularly beneficial. However, we also find that successful adoption of an agile method is to some extent dependent on rigorous integration of certain core techniques.
Chapter PDF
References
Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J., and Warsta, J. Agile Software Development Methods: Review and Analysis, Oulu, Finland: VTT Publications, 2002.
Ambler, S. “Agile Adoption Rate Survey,” Ambysoft, March 2006a (available online at http://www.ambysoft.com/surveys/agileMarch2006.html).
Ambler, S. “Agile Adoption Rate Survey: Discussion of the Results,” Ambysoft, March 2006b (available online at http://www.ambysoft.com/surveys/agileMarch2006.html#Discussion).
Ambler, S. “Survey Says: Agile Works in Practice,” Software Development Magazine, August 3, 2006c (available online at http://www.ddj.com/dept/architect/191800169).
Anderson, J. D. Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004.
Aveling, B. “XP Lite Considered Harmful?,” in J. Eckstein and H. Baumeister (eds.), Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering: 5 th International Conference, Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany, June 6–10, 2004, pp. 94–103.
Beck, K., and Andres, C. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (2nd ed.), Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2005.
Beedle, M. “Agile Enterprise,” 2006 (available online at http://www.e-architects.com/AE/).
Bhat, T., and Nagappan, N. “Evaluating the Efficacy of Test-Driven Development: Industrial Case Studies,” in Proceedings of the 2006 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 21–22, 2006, pp. 356–363.
Boehm, B. “Get Ready for Agile Methods, with Care,” IEEE Computer (35:1), 2002, pp. 64–69.
Bradner, E., and Mark, G. “Why Distance Matters: Effects on Cooperation, Persuasion and Deception,” in Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, New Orleans, LA, 2002, pp. 226–235.
Canfora, G., Cimitile, A., Garcia, F., Piattini, M., and Visaggio, C. “Evaluating Advantages of Test Driven Development: A Controlled Experiment with Professionals,” in Proceedings of the 2006 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 21–22, 2006, pp. 364–371.
Datta, S. “Agility Measurement Index: A Metric for the Crossroads of Software Development Methodologies,” in Proceedings of the 44 th Annual ACM Southeast Regional Conference, Melbourne, FL, 2006, pp. 271–273.
Dominguez, J., Linecar, P., and Black, S. “Visualization of a Suitability Filter for Agile Methods,” in R. Dawson, E. Georgiadou, P. Linecar, M. Ross, and S. Staples (eds.), Software Quality Management XIV: Perspectives in Software Quality, Proceedings of the 14 th International Software Quality Management Conference, Southampton, UK, April 10–12, 2006, pp. 299–319.
Dustin, E., Raskha, J., and Paul, J. Automated Software Testing, Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1999.
El Emam, K. “Finding Success in Small Software Projects,” Agile Project Management Executive Report (4:11), 2003.
Erdogmus, H., and Williams, L. “An Economic Analysis of Pair Programming,” in L. Williams and R. Kessler (eds.), Pair Programming Illuminated, Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2003, pp.221–236.
George, B., and Williams, L. “An Initial Investigation of Test-driven Development in Industry,” in Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Melbourne, FL, March 9–12, 2003, pp. 1135–1139.
Grossman, F., Bergin, J., Leip, D., Merritt, S., and Gotel, O. “One XP Experience: Introducing Agile (XP) Software Development into a Culture That Is Willing but Not Ready,” in H. Lutfiyya, J. Singer, and D. Stewart (eds.), Proceedings of the 2004 Conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative Research, Markham, Ontario, Canada, October 4–7, 2003, pp. 242–254.
Highsmith, J. Agile Software Development Ecosystems, Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2002.
Hussman, D. “A Fishbowl with Piranhas: Coalescence, Convergence or Divergence? The Future of Agile Software Development Practices: Some Assembly Required,” in Proceedings of the Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications, Portland, Oregon, October 22–26, 2006, pp. 937–939.
Keenan, F. “Agile Process Tailoring and Problem Analysis,” in Proceedings of the 26 th International Conference on Software Engineering, Edinburgh, UK, May 23–28, 2004, pp. 45–47.
Lindvall, M., Muthig, D., Dagnino, A., Wallin, C., Stupperich, M., Kiefer, D., May, J., and Kahkonen, T. “Agile Software Development in Large Organizations,” IEEE Computer (37:12), December 2004, pp. 26–34.
Mar, K., and Schwaber, K. “Scrum with XP,” Informit.com, March 22, 2002 (available online at http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=26057&rl=1; article provided courtesy of Prentice-Hall).
Mišic, V. “Perceptions of Extreme Programming: An Exploratory Study,” ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes (31:2), 2006, pp. 1–9.
Muller, M. M., and Hagner, O. “Experiment About Test-First Programming,” IEE Proceedings Software (149:5), 2002, pp. 131–136.
Nerur, S., Mahapatra, R., and Mangalaraj, G. “Challenges of Migrating to Agile Methodologies,” Communications of the ACM (48:5), 2005, pp. 73–78.
Paige, R., Chivers, H., McDernid, A., and Stephenson, Z. “High-Integrity Extreme Programming,” in Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, Santa Fe, New Mexico, March 13–17, 2005, pp. 1518–1523.
Sfetsos, P., Angelis, L., and Stamelos, I. “Investigating the Extreme Programming System: An Empirical Study,” Empirical Software Engineering (11:2), 2006, pp. 269–301.
Shine Technologies. “Agile Methodologies Survey Results,” Shine Technologies Pty. Ltd., 2003 (available online at http://agilealliancebeta.org/system/article/file/l121/file.pdf).
Stephens, M., and Rosenberg, D. Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP, New York: Apress, 2003.
Williams, L., Maximilien, M., and Vouk, M. “Test-Driven Development as Defect-Reduction Practice,” in Proceedings of the 14 th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering, Denver, CO, November 17–21, 2003, pp. 3–4.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Parsons, D., Ryu, H., Lal, R. (2007). The Impact of Methods and Techniques on Outcomes from Agile Software Development Projects. In: McMaster, T., Wastell, D., Ferneley, E., DeGross, J.I. (eds) Organizational Dynamics of Technology-Based Innovation: Diversifying the Research Agenda. TDIT 2007. IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, vol 235. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-72804-9_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-72804-9_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-72803-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-72804-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)