Modelling the critical success factors of agile software development projects in South Africa

There are several critical success factors suggested for why agile software development projects succeed, including organisational and process factors. Although there are an increasing number of identified critical success factors, IT professionals lack the modelling techniques and the theoretical framework to help them meaningfully understand their influences. To solve this problem, this study developed a model by employing the following theories: Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to create a fit model for agile software development projects. The research sought to answer the question: What are the critical success factors that influence the success of agile software development projects? The literature review considers the continued failure of agile and traditional software development projects which have led to the consideration of, and dispute over, critical success factors — the aspects most vital to a methodology’s success. Though TRA, TPB and UTAUT have previously been applied to agile methodologies, empirical models have not been completely integrated to develop a fit model. This research sought to fill this gap. Data was collected in South Africa through a web-based survey using structured questionnaires and an interview guide. Face-to-face interviews were done to identify the critical success factors in agile projects. The data was captured and analysed for descriptive statistics, convergent and discriminant validity, composite and internal reliability, and correlation in order to inform the structural equation modelling (SEM). SEM was used to test the research model and hypotheses to answer the research questions. The results informed development of a comprehensive model that could provide guidelines to the agile community. The study contributes towards understanding the critical success factors for agile projects. It examined direct, indirect and moderating effects, and the findings contribute towards developing a framework to be used by agile professionals. These key result shows that organisational factors have a great influence on performance expectancy characteristics. To ensure success of agile projects, managers are advised to focus on the effect of the organisation’s environment, culture and policies on performance and effort expectancy.School of ComputingPh. D. (Computer Science

The business intelligence competence centre as an interface between IT and user departments in maintenance and release development

Software development projects still fail at an unacceptable rate although prior studies have identified critical success factors needed for project success. This study contributes to the project management literature by providing further insight into the nature and role of ‘top management support’ (TMS), which is widely recognised as one critical factor in the success of software development projects. The study seeks insight into the nature and role of TMS from the perspective of software development project managers and their perceptions of actions required by top management in facilitating project success. A qualitative case-based approach was employed. Sixteen top management ‘actions’ are identified, and subsequently framed by a conceptual model consisting of three top management roles: strategy, facilitate and lead. The study represents the first stage of an ongoing research program. The model will be tested in the Asia-Pacific region in the second stage. The expected final outcome of the research program is a framework that will support project environments by defining top management actions needed to support a software development project in different stages of the life of a project

Distributed software development in a financial services organisation

The outsourcing of IS functionality to offshore development firms has been a growth industry that has blossomed over the last 10 years. This is as a result of organisations, seeking to optimise costs, mitigate risks, and achieve greater return on shareholder value by delegating the delivery of business information systems and applications to third party vendors. At the same time, distributed approaches to software development has arisen, there has been a growing interest in the applicability of lightweight or Agile development methodologies. As such, this paper this paper discusses experiences of a European Financial Services firm in outsourcing, and subsequently offshoring, two of its IT projects to vendor firms in India, where Agile approaches were used. The authors provide a model of the financial firm’s critical success factors presented as a frame of reference for others interested and involved in this topical area

The Dynamics of Implementing Software Engineering Projects

The study set out to establish whether project dynamics is perceived as a factor that affects the implementation of software engineering projects in Nairobi, Kenya and used the findings to model the dynamics of the implementation process. According to literature, the software industry in Kenya is relatively young and therefore necessary to look into other more established industries to identify key factors and challenges. Kenya's software projects experience a myriad of dynamism during implementation; the budgets are volatile, human resources required for project implementation come on board with many differing skills that add to the complexity of executing and implementing the projects, and there are also many internal and external variables to the implementation process that keep on changing. Since many projects suffer from the 90% syndrome in which a project is thought to be 90% complete for half of the total time required, software projects are not excluded. Tasks which are completed as part of a software project may be flawed and may need rework. For software projects, implementation is double phased and there are numerous changing variables in both phases that contribute to the dynamics of implementing software projects. The study used the Kenya ICT sector as a case study and utilized the findings to model the dynamics of implementing software projects. The model depicted that there is a lot of dynamism in implementing software projects. The dynamism revolves around the changing project variables that influence the success or failure of the said projects. The study recommends that modeling the dynamics of implementing any software project is critical to enable detection of any hindrances to successful implementation and avoid wastage of resources. The models can aid in detecting the effects of any unforeseen uncertainties within the implementation process early enough so that appropriate action can be taken to mitigate any uncertainties.

Ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen menestystekijät

Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa tarkasteltiin ketterää ohjelmistokehitystä ja ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen kriittisiä menestystekijöitä. Ketterää ohjelmistokehitystä on tutkittu paljon ja ketteriä menetelmiä käytetään ohjelmistokehityksen lisäksi lukuisilla eri toimialoilla. Ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen lisäksi tutkielmassa keskitytään ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen kriittisiin menestystekijöihin, joilla tarkoitetaan projektitiimin ominaisuuksia, toimintatapoja ja edellytyksiä, jotka antavat parhaan mahdollisuuden onnistumiseen. Toisin sanoen, tutkielma pyrkii kertomaan, mitä vaaditaan ketterässä ohjelmistoprojektissa onnistumiseen. Ketteriä ohjelmistokehitysmenetelmiä voidaan soveltaa hyvin erilaisin tavoin, mutta tyypillisesti ketterä ohjelmistokehitys tapahtuu sprinteissä, joiden aikana asiakastarpeiden määrittely tarkentuu tiiviin kommunikoinnin ja asiakasyhteistyön myötä. Koska ketteriä menetelmiä käytetään erilaisissa projekteissa ja erilaisin tavoittein, myös kriittisten menestystekijöiden painotukset ja tärkeysjärjestykset ovat projektikohtaisia. Siitä huolimatta huolellisen laadullisen tutkimuksen avulla oli mahdollista selvittää sellaisia menestystekijöitä, jotka ovat onnistumisen kannalta kriittisiä kaikille ketterille ohjelmistokehitysprojekteille. Tutkielman tutkimuskysymyksenä on siis: ”Mitkä ovat ketterän ohjelmistokehitysprojektin onnistumisen kriittiset menestystekijät?” Tutkielman tavoitteena on löytää ketterän ohjelmistokehityksen kriittiset menestystekijät ja luoda käytännön avuksi malli, jonka mukaan ketterän ohjelmistoprojektin edellytykset tulisi suunnitella, jotta projektilla olisi parhaat mahdollisuudet onnistua. Tutkielman tavoite pyrittiin saavuttamaan tarkastelemalla kattavasti ensin aiheeseen liittyviä tutkimuksia, jonka jälkeen haastateltiin alalla työskenteleviä asiantuntijoita teemahaastatteluiden muodossa. Teemahaastatteluiden tuloksia analysoitiin teemoittelun avulla. Tuloksista löydettiin kuusi kriittistä menestystekijää ketterälle ohjelmistoprojektille, jotka ovat tiimin kyvykkyys, johdon tuki, asiakasyhteistyö, kommunikaatio, julkaisustrategia sekä organisaatiokulttuuri. Tutkielman tavoite saavutettiin löytämällä kriittiset menestystekijät ja luomalla edellä mainittu malli, johon organisaatiot voivat peilata toimintaansa ja tämän pohjalta kehittää omaa ketteryyttä sekä mahdollisuutta saavuttaa onnistuneita ohjelmistoprojekteja. Mallin keskeisimmän sanoman mukaan projektitiimin tulee varmistaa ensi kädessä asiakasyhteistyön sujuvuus varmistamalla toimiva kommunikaatio ja keskittyä vain asiakkaalle eniten arvoa tuottaviin toimiin. Tämä vaatii perusteellista vaatimusten määrittelyä projektin alkuvaiheessa sekä tuoteversioiden toimittamista asiakkaalle lyhyin ja säännöllisin syklein, jotta projekti etenee nopeasti olennaiseen keskittyen ja asiakas voi antaa palautetta kehitystyöstä tai vaatimusten muuttumisista. Projektitiimiltä vaaditaan syvää osaamista, jotta projektitiimillä olisi mahdollisuudet vastata nopeasti vaativiin tehtäviin ja vaatimuksiin sekä laajaa osaamista, jotta vältytään pullonkauloilta. Tärkeää on myös projektitiimin kyky edetä kehitystyössä kokeilemisen ja oppimisen kautta, jotta asiakkaalle eniten arvoa tuottavat asiat löydetään. Projektitiimin sekä koko organisaation tulisi vaalia yrityskulttuuria, joka kannustaa työn tekemiseen kokeilunhalun ja oppimishalukkuuden kautta, itseohjautuvaan työskentelyyn sekä matalahierarkkiseen päätöksentekoon.This master’s thesis researched agile software development and the critical success factors of agile software development. Agile software development has been researched extensively and agile methods are used in many different industries in addition to software development. Together with agile software development, this thesis focuses on the critical success factors of agile software development, which refer to the features, practices, and qualifications of a project team that provide the best chance of success. In other words, this thesis seeks to explain what is required to succeed in an agile software project. Agile software development methods can be applied in very different ways, but typically agile software development takes place in sprints, during which the definition of customer needs is refined through quality communication and customer collaboration. Because agile methods are used in many different kind projects and for different purposes, the order of importance of critical success factors is also project-specific. Nevertheless, with the help of high-quality and careful qualitative research, it was possible to identify success factors that are critical to success for any agile software development project. The research question of the thesis is: "What are the critical success factors of agile software development project?" The objective of the thesis is to find the critical success factors of agile software development and to create a model for practical help, according to which the features, practices, and qualifications of an agile software project should be designed, that the project has the best chance of success. The objective of this thesis was to achieve by first conducting a comprehensive review of related studies, followed by interviewing experts working in the field in the form of thematic interviews. The results found six critical success factors for agile software project, which are team capability, management support, customer collaboration, communication, delivery strategy, and organizational culture. The objective of the thesis was achieved by finding the critical success factors and creating the above-mentioned model in which organizations can mirror their activities, and on this basis develop their own agility as well as the possibility to achieve successful software projects. According to the key message of the model, the project team must first and foremost ensure the quality of customer cooperation by ensuring effective communication and focus only on the activities that create the most value for the customer. This requires a thorough definition of requirements at the beginning of the project and the delivery of product versions to the customer in short and regular cycles so that the project progresses quickly with a focus on the essentials and the customer can provide feedback on development work or requirements changes. Deep expertise is required from the project team to enable the project team to respond quickly to demanding tasks and requirements, as well as extensive expertise to avoid bottlenecks. Also important is the project team's ability to move forward in development work through experimentation and learning to find the things that create the most value for the customer. The project team and the entire organization should foster a corporate culture that encourages work through experimentation and a willingness to learn, self-directed work and low-hierarchy decision-making

Model faktor kejayaan kritikal projek pembangunan semula perumahan rakyat akibat gempa bumi di Indonesia

The rebuilding of community homes after earthquakes is a process that provides basic needs and promote economic recovery as nell as income sources for the affected community. In Indonesia, the effectiveness of the implementation of post-earthquake community home reconstruction projects still needs to be improved due to the presence of various problems such as poor coordination among rehabilitation and reconstruction agencies, ineffective construction management strategies, low contractor capacity, and lack of community involvement. All these problems need to be looked at in depth and addressed more effectively. The aim of this study is to develop a model that can help to improve the management of post-earthquake community home reconstruction projects by identifying the factors that guarantee the success of project implementation as well as their relationship with project performance. The identified success factors are relevant to the characteristics of reconstruction projects in Indonesia. This study employs a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The main methodology in this study involved semi-structured interviews with post-earthquake reconstruction experts, questionnaire survey to stakeholders, data analysis by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software and the formation of a structural model of the relationship between critical factors and project performance based on the Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) method. Data analysis shows that in the context of community home redevelopment projects in Indonesia, a total of eleven problems that frequently occur have been identified in line with the problems discovered through the literature review. These problems relate to damage assessment, community involvement, land grants, openness and accountability, funding adequacy, strategy and policy, resource availability, communication and coordination, staff experience and ability, technical specifications and disaster risk reduction, where each one has a positive relationship and contributes significantly to the problems in post-earthquake community home redevelopment projects. This study also successfully identified 34 important factors that influence the success of post-earthquake redevelopment projects which can be grouped into four distinct stages of project development, namely the Initiation Stage, Planning Stage, Implementation Stage, and Closing Stage. The four stages of project development are constructs resulting from Factor Analysis. This finding allows a PLS-SEM model to be developed that explains the relationship between Critical Success Factors and Project Performance for post-earthquake community home reconstruction projects in Indonesia. Hypothesis testing confirmed that the Planning Stage and Project Closing Stage have significant relationships with Project Performance. In addition, a guideline has been successfully developed from the resulting model, making it a practical document that can be used by various parties involved in post-earthquake community home reconstruction projects in Indonesia. It will be the main reference for stakeholders in Indonesia to plan and implement future reconstruction projects

Client’s Readiness Assessment Success Factors for Outsourcing Software Projects

IT services such as software development, application maintenance, disaster recovery, help desk, network and operations are critical and highly demanded to better support the operations and management of organizations, especially in the government sector. The government sector faces various problems in providing IT services due to constraints or lack of knowledge, skills and expertise, human resource and technology. Thus, IT services need to be outsourced to overcome these problems. While the need for outsourcing has increased, reported weaknesses of the outsourcing activities are attributed to issues such as project rationale and the unclear role of the project team, lack of involvement of subject matter experts and users in the early stages, lack of control and lack of emphasis on quality. These issues indicate the low readiness level of the client’s organization to take up outsourcing activities. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the contributing readiness factors that clients should comply with in order to ensure the success of outsourcing software projects. Systematic reviews and content analysis were employed in order to propose a conceptual model. There are 27 factors identified and classified into 9 dimensions.  There are six internal dimensions were identified as contributing to the client’s readiness such as strategy, people, organization culture, process, technology and management whilst three other external dimensions include the government, market and people. The outcome of this study is a software outsourcing readiness model that will assist software practitioners in designing effective outsourcing software project strategies. The model is important since the agencies have difficulty in addressing their readiness level as part of the implementation plan and to avoid project failure

Critical success factors for outsourced software development projects from a vendor's perspective: A structural equation modelling analysis of traditional plan-based and agile methodologies

There are many factors proposed as to why software projects fail, one of them is the inappropriate choice of a project management methodology. Although there is an increased range of available management choices, project managers do not frequently consider their alternatives. They tend to narrowly tailor project categorisation systems and use categorisation criteria that are not logically linked with objectives. To address this, this study develops and tests an integrative contingency fit model for contrasting perspectives of traditional plan-based and agile methodologies specifically for outsourced software development projects. In addition, it takes a vendor‘s perspective, rather than the client perspective that is mostly used. Overall, the research seeks to answer these questions: (RQ1) what are the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for outsourced software development projects from a vendor‟s perspective? (RQ2) What are the differences in these CSFs for traditional plan-driven and agile methodologies towards project success from a vendor‟s perspective? The IT literature reveals two major distinct categories of methodologies: traditional plan-based and agile. Previous research has identified CSFs with respect to project success with mixed findings. The recent increase in popularity of methodologies has shifted the debate, interest and controversy to CSFs that are the factors which are most important to make a methodology successful. While there is an increasing diversity of project types, project contexts and methodologies, the frameworks or theories connecting these are limited. To date software development projects studies have addressed generally one methodology per study and perceived candidate CSFs as a form of reasons of success amidst a wide range of project success criteria. Although contingency theory has been previously argued for outsourced software development projects, empirical models have frequently not fully incorporated contingency as fit or fit as moderation (i.e. traditional vs. agile). This study sought to fill this research gap. Cross-sectional data from 984 senior vendor project managers and team leaders was collected by a global web-based survey. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) (a multivariate statistical technique, in which parameters are estimated by minimizing the discrepancy between the model-implied covariance matrix and the observed covariance matrix) was used for data analysis. SEM results provide support for several contingency hypotheses theorizing relationships between candidate CSFs and project success. Project management methodology was found to moderate the effects of various CSFs on project success, and in different ways for various success measures. Similarly, the results show the level of project uncertainty moderates the impact of various CSFs on project success, and in different ways for various success measures. Together these findings provide empirical support for contingency as fit and more fully incorporate fit as moderation. The study contributes towards understanding the differences between traditional plan-based and agile project management based on the perceptions of vendor respondents with regard to their client organizations, and also to understanding what are the most significant antecedents of success (the CSFs) in different project contexts. The study also examines the indirect and interaction effects, and the findings contribute towards understanding of the contingency perspective as a framework to be used by project managers and organizations. Practical implications of these results suggest that project managers should tailor project management methodologies according to various project types, which is likely to improve current project success rates

Critical Success Factors In Implementing SAP ERP Software

This project gives an overview of the Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation roadmap and tools that make up a complete implementation method to allow any organization to plan and execute the implementation of SAP ERP software. The ASAP (Accelerated SAP) implementation methodology is used as the SAP implementation reference model in this study as most of the companies implementing SAP use ASAP methodology. In a survey of software implementation effectiveness, more than 30% of projects were perceived to have failed because of a lack of effective project planning, while 10% were perceived to have failed because of technology-driven causes1. Critical success factors and reasons for SAP ERP implementation success and failures are discussed in this project. Content analysis of articles reporting SAP implementations in twenty companies from all over the world have been done. Ten of these companies had a successful SAP ERP implementation and the other ten were failures. Common critical success factors have been identified for successful SAP ERP implementations based on the content analysis. Sustained executive management support and their ownership of the implementation, project team composition and good project management especially pertaining to process design, testing and training of the end users are the most important factors contributing to the success of SAP implementations in most organizations. The lack of sustained management support / contribution and user involvement / training and testing seems to be the most important factors contributing to the failure of SAP implementations in most organizations