What Makes Agile Software Development Agile
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 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

Författare

Marco Kuhrmann

Universität Passau

Paolo Tell

IT-Universitetet i Kobenhavn

Regina Hebig

Göteborgs universitet

Jil Klünder

Leibniz Universität Hannover

Jürgen Münch

Hochschule Reutlingen

Oliver Linssen

FOM University of Applied Sciences

Dietmar Pfahl

Tartu Ülikool

Michael Felderer

University of Innsbruck

Christian R. Prause

Deutsches Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (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 Universitesi

Gustavo Lopez

Universidad de Costa Rica

Nicolas Paez

Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero

Diego Fontdevila

Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero

S. A. Licorish

University of Otago

Steffen Küpper

Technischen Universität Clausthal

Guenther Ruhe

University of Calgary

Eric Knauss

Göteborgs universitet

Ozden Ozcan Top

Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi

Paul Clarke

Dublin City University

Fergal Hugh Mc Caffery

Dundalk Institute of Technology

Marcela Genero

Universidad de Castilla, La Mancha

Aurora Vizcaino

Universidad de Castilla, La Mancha

Mario Piattini

Universidad de Castilla, La Mancha

Marcos Kalinowski

Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro

Tayana Conte

Universidade Federal do Amazonas

Rafael Prikladnicki

Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul

Stephan Krusche

Technische Universität München

Ahmet Coskuncay

Atatürk Üniversitesi

Ezequiel Scott

Tartu Ülikool

Fabio Calefato

Universita degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

Svetlana Pimonova

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Rolf Helge Pfeiffer

IT-Universitetet i Kobenhavn

Ulrik Pagh Schultz

Syddansk Universitet

Rogardt Heldal

Høgskulen på Vestlandet (HVL)

Masud Fazal-Baqaie

IEM

Craig Anslow

Victoria University of Wellington

Maleknaz Nayebi

École Polytechnique de Montréal

Kurt Schneider

Leibniz Universität Hannover

Stefan Sauer

Universität Paderborn

Dietmar Winkler

Technische Universität Wien

S. Biffl

Technische Universität Wien

Cecilia Bastarrica

Universidad de Chile (UCH)

Ita Richardson

Lero - The Irish Software Engineering Research Centre

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

0098-5589 (ISSN) 19393520 (eISSN)

Vol. 48 9 3523-3539

Ämneskategorier

Mänsklig interaktion med IKT

Programvaruteknik

Systemvetenskap

DOI

10.1109/TSE.2021.3099532

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2023-01-18