Qualitative Study of Successful AgileSoftware Development Projects

摘要

Various studies show that the agile method has become a mainstream methodology for software develop- ment. When agile pioneers introduced this approach, they executed very successful projects which lead to the enormous popularity of agile development. With becoming mainstream, less experienced teams start- ed to apply the agile approaches and news about failed agile projects appeared. This raises the question, what it needs to conduct successful agile projects. In a qualitative study we asked IT companies about the essential success factors in their successful agile projects. We found that there was a strong focus on engi- neering and management best practices. We found that when these practices did not work, mature teams sensed that following a recipe is not sufficient, and they started adapting the agile process to their needs. Applying a sense-making methodology like the Cynefin framework, theoretically explains our observations in the study.