Fit of Development Methodologies in Software Projects

Software project outcomes characterized by meeting goal achievement and performance triad of budget, schedule and quality have been shown to be contingent upon project environment factors. However, choice of methodology and its implications on project outcomes still remain under- investigated. Following contingency theory, we empirically examine the effect of the fit between the choice of development methodology and project environment on the project outcome. We analysed a sample of 163 software development projects using PLS-SEM and our results show that the use of traditional methodology strongly countered the negative effect of requirement volatility on project outcome compared to agile methodologies and use of hybrid methodologies showed a stronger positive effect of project complexity on goal achievement. Further, for critical projects, use of agile methodologies favored goal achievement

Defects and agility: localization issues in agile development projects

It has been noted that software localization does not always fit well into agile software development. This poster aims to illustrate the relationship between the two by examining how localization issues occur in agile projects. A list of common localization issues is presented and examined as to where and why they can be caused during development and if there is a connection to agile methodologies. The poster serves as an introduction to our research in this area

Adopting Free/Libre/Open Source Software Practices, Techniques and Methods for Industrial Use

Today’s software companies face the challenges of highly distributed development projects and constantly changing requirements. This paper proposes the adoption of relevant Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) practices in order to improve software development projects in industry. Many FLOSS projects have proven to be very successful, producing high quality products with steady and frequent releases. This study aims to identify FLOSS practices that can be adapted for the corporate environment. To achieve this goal, a framework to compare FLOSS and industrial development methodologies was created. Three successful FLOSS projects were selected as study targets (the Linux Kernel, the FreeBSD operating system, and the JBoss application server), as well as two projects from Ericsson, a large telecommunications company. Based on an analysis of these projects, FLOSS best practices were tailored to fit industrial development environments. The final results consisted of a set of key adoption opportunities that aimed to improve software quality and overall development productivity by importing best practices from the FLOSS environment. The adoption opportunities were then validated at three large corporations

Towards a software development methodology for projects in higher education institutions

All educational institutions in the United States have certain particularities that differentiate them from many other public and private institutions. Some of these particularities include, among many others: academic year cycles that set very specific constraints and hard deadlines to the delivery of any tangible and intangible projects the institution is trying to accomplish; an always changing population of constituents that will be associated with the institution for a limited amount of time; and federal and state laws that are always evolving and that require the institutions to promptly act and adapt to fulfill the expectations set, in order to avoid severe lawsuits and fines. As any other teams working in projects for educational institutions, software development teams are also heavily constrained by these particularities. This makes the adoption of Software Development Methodologies that perfectly fit other industries a daunting challenge, if not almost impossible, for these teams. Software development teams in higher education are always in the need of finding a way to adapt to these challenges and efficiently perform their projects in order to address the rapid changes occurring not only in the education sector, but also in the technology industry in general. The purpose of the research in this thesis was to identify opportunities and challenges of software development methodologies used in higher education and to recommend a software development methodology to be used by software development teams working for those institutions

eXPERT approach for e-business software development

All Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) developing e-commerce and e-business software have similar business objectives as less time to the market, better quality, and cheaper cost. Current projects are very large and complex and it becomes difficult to handle them. There are different private methods and techniques developed to overcome this problem. The latest studies on the well-known software development methodologies and their applicability to e-projects reveal that they do not fit very well the priorities, the abilities and the corporate culture of SMEs developing e-business or e-commerce applications. Traditional methodologies assume that if the programmers tried hard enough, they could anticipate the complete set of requirements early and reduce cost by eliminating change, which can be reasonable in stable environments, but it is not the case at all in e-projects. In the fast changing environment of e-projects change cannot be eliminated; rather than eliminate rework, the new strategy is to reduce its cost, while retaining quality. There are a number of reports showing increased productivity and software quality by applying Extreme Programming (XP) principles [1]. However, even projects that have adopted several or all XP practices meet project management problems, which are related to estimating and planning the project, both in terms of time and costs. To overcome this obstacle European project eXPERT (IST-2001-34488) has the objective to define agile and integrated approach guiding development of e-projects. The approach, named also eXPERT, focuses on combining XP and Personal Software Process (PSP) practices [2]. The main aims and logics of eXPERT project and underlying software methodologies are presented in this paper. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the objectives of eXPERT project. In section 3 we describe the basic software engineering practices, which will be used – XP and PSP. Section 4 discusses issues in the process of combination of XP and PSP principles. Section 5 concludes the paper

Identifying the Critical Factors in Software Development Methodology Fit

In software development, one size does not fit all. Contingencies shape the alignment between the project and its environment, and between software development and project success. Yet the conditions favouring a particular software development methodology (e.g., waterfall or scrum) are not well understood. The current research aims to answer two questions: (1) What are the important factors in software development methodology (SDM) fit? (2) What is the role of SDM fit in project success? A review of the IT literature revealed two kinds of SDMs. On the one hand, there are traditional, plan-driven methodologies that seek compliance to a pre-established plan and existing processes. On the other hand, there are agile methodologies that seek to embrace the increasing changes and uncertainty involved in software development projects. The literature review established that there is no agreement on the contingencies associated with the use of each methodology, nor agreement on how to measure project success. Exploratory research was undertaken to identify contingencies in software development. Preliminary interviews of projects workers, using a card sort procedure, helped to identify key constructs and to generate and refine a set of measurement items. Then an international survey of software development project workers was conducted. Data analysis revealed two factors that are important in SDM fit: one is organizational culture; and the other is empowerment of the project team. The first factor encapsulates variables related to the project environment such as the level of entrepreneurship and methodology supported by top management. The second factor is related to the characteristics of the project and includes variables such as procedural empowerment and project uncertainty. No support was found for factors such as project size, criticality and the need for personnel supervision that are generally considered important contingencies. The current study also demonstrates that SDM fit is one of the predictors of project success, and affirms prior claims that one methodology does not fit all projects. The current research contributes to the SDM fit literature a contingency model that includes the impact of factors associated with the project and the project environment, on SDM fit and project success. The contingencies identified and evaluated by this research may assist practitioners to select the most appropriate methodology, and to achieve higher project success rates

Agile methods in biomedical software development: a multi-site experience report

BACKGROUND: Agile is an iterative approach to software development that relies on strong collaboration and automation to keep pace with dynamic environments. We have successfully used agile development approaches to create and maintain biomedical software, including software for bioinformatics. This paper reports on a qualitative study of our experiences using these methods. RESULTS: We have found that agile methods are well suited to the exploratory and iterative nature of scientific inquiry. They provide a robust framework for reproducing scientific results and for developing clinical support systems. The agile development approach also provides a model for collaboration between software engineers and researchers. We present our experience using agile methodologies in projects at six different biomedical software development organizations. The organizations include academic, commercial and government development teams, and included both bioinformatics and clinical support applications. We found that agile practices were a match for the needs of our biomedical projects and contributed to the success of our organizations. CONCLUSION: We found that the agile development approach was a good fit for our organizations, and that these practices should be applicable and valuable to other biomedical software development efforts. Although we found differences in how agile methods were used, we were also able to identify a set of core practices that were common to all of the groups, and that could be a focus for others seeking to adopt these methods

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

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 software projects

Abstract. Since the publication of the agile manifesto twenty years ago, its influence on software projects has been steadily growing and organisations and managers now have another methodology to choose from in addition to waterfall. The question remains, however, whether software managers fully consider both methodologies and how easy it is for management to determine which methodology is the best fit for their project. This thesis will investigate the two main software development methodologies, waterfall and agile, and determine the critical success factors for each one using the research literature. Based on the critical success factors and an exploration of what makes each methodology powerful, selection criteria for choosing one or the other methodology will then be presented as a tool for helping management select the correct methodology. The research questions of this thesis are: RQ1: What are the core elements and key characteristics of agile and waterfall software development methodologies? RQ2: What are the critical success factors for agile and waterfall software development methodologies? RQ3: Which criteria to use when selecting agile or waterfall? A meta-analysis of critical success factors is carried out across ten research papers, which are systematic literature reviews and in total comprise 298 articles and 550 surveys. Based on their output, the critical success factors are ranked in importance and are used to build some selection criteria to help management determine when a project would benefit more from using one software methodology over the other. The thesis will provide a detailed definition and core characteristics of agile and waterfall which will be used as a foundation for linking the methodology theory to the critical success factors and selection criteria. The overall aim of this thesis is to discover if agile is always the correct methodology for software development, and if not, to help managers determine when agile should be used. Management will be able to select the correct methodology based on the characteristics of their project and map those to the critical success factors in this thesis. The important findings of the thesis are that it is rare for a project to be agile or waterfall and therefore selecting the correct methodology is not so black and white. The ideal methodology is one that is customised for the unique project. Factors that are especially important to consider are customer participation, team competency, top management support and specification changes. The results of this thesis can be used by project managers to increase the success of their projects by changing or modifying their methodology or by changing certain key factors in their project, e.g., increasing customer participation during the development life-cycle