What Makes Agile Software Development Agile
Journal article, 2022
Together with many success stories, promises such as the increase in production speed and the improvement in stakeholders' collaboration have contributed to making agile a transformation in the software industry in which many companies want to take part. However, driven either by a natural and expected evolution or by contextual factors that challenge the adoption of agile methods as prescribed by their creator(s), software processes in practice mutate into hybrids over time. Are these still agile In this article, we investigate the question: what makes a software development method agile We present an empirical study grounded in a large-scale international survey that aims to identify software development methods and practices that improve or tame agility. Based on 556 data points, we analyze the perceived degree of agility in the implementation of standard project disciplines and its relation to used development methods and practices. Our findings suggest that only a small number of participants operate their projects in a purely traditional or agile manner (under 15%). That said, most project disciplines and most practices show a clear trend towards increasing degrees of agility. Compared to the methods used to develop software, the selection of practices has a stronger effect on the degree of agility of a given discipline. Finally, there are no methods or practices that explicitly guarantee or prevent agility. We conclude that agility cannot be defined solely at the process level. Additional factors need to be taken into account when trying to implement or improve agility in a software company. Finally, we discuss the field of software process-related research in the light of our findings and present a roadmap for future research.
Standards
Data collection
Companies
Software Development
Hybrid Development Methods
Collaboration
Software
Survey Research
Instruments
Software Process
Agile Software Development
Market research
Author
Marco Kuhrmann
Universität Passau
Paolo Tell
IT University of Copenhagen
Regina Hebig
University of Gothenburg
Jil Klünder
University of Hanover
Jürgen Münch
Reutlingen University
Oliver Linssen
FOM University of Applied Sciences
Dietmar Pfahl
University of Tartu
Michael Felderer
University of Innsbruck
Christian R. Prause
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Steve Macdonell
Auckland University of Technology
Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende
Makerere University
David Raffo
Portland State University
Sarah Beecham
University of Limerick
Eray Tuzun
Bilkent University
Gustavo Lopez
University of Costa Rica
Nicolas Paez
National University of Tres de Febrero
Diego Fontdevila
National University of Tres de Febrero
S. A. Licorish
University of Otago
Steffen Küpper
Clausthal University of Technology
Guenther Ruhe
University of Calgary
Eric Knauss
University of Gothenburg
Ozden Ozcan Top
Middle East Technical University (METU)
Paul Clarke
Dublin City University
Fergal Hugh Mc Caffery
Dundalk Institute of Technology
Marcela Genero
University of Castilla, La Mancha
Aurora Vizcaino
University of Castilla, La Mancha
Mario Piattini
University of Castilla, La Mancha
Marcos Kalinowski
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Tayana Conte
Federal University of Amazonas
Rafael Prikladnicki
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul
Stephan Krusche
Technical University of Munich
Ahmet Coskuncay
Atatürk University
Ezequiel Scott
University of Tartu
Fabio Calefato
University of Bari Aldo Moro
Svetlana Pimonova
National Research University Higher School of Economics
Rolf Helge Pfeiffer
IT University of Copenhagen
Ulrik Pagh Schultz
University of Southern Denmark
Rogardt Heldal
Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
Masud Fazal-Baqaie
IEM
Craig Anslow
Victoria University of Wellington
Maleknaz Nayebi
École Polytechnique de Montréal
Kurt Schneider
University of Hanover
Stefan Sauer
Padernborn University
Dietmar Winkler
Vienna University of Technology
S. Biffl
Vienna University of Technology
Cecilia Bastarrica
University of Chile (UCH)
Ita Richardson
Lero - The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
0098-5589 (ISSN) 19393520 (eISSN)
Vol. 48 9 3523-3539Subject Categories
Human Aspects of ICT
Software Engineering
Information Science
DOI
10.1109/TSE.2021.3099532