Towards the Strategic Analysis of Agile Practices

Abstract. Agile methods are widely believed to have the potential to improve software processes. Given the variety of agile practices, organizations face difficult decisions on which ones to adopt. Recognizing that agile adoption is often motivated by strategic concerns such as market competitiveness or responsiveness to customer needs, this paper outlines a framework for the strategic analysis of agile practices. The framework aims to support the decision making process leading to agile adoption. The framework builds upon a knowledge base of experiences collected from empirical studies. Goal modeling techniques from requirements engineering are incorporated in the form of a Strategies Graph. The graph resembles the Strategy Map from Balanced Scorecards familiar to many managers