Hp2413471352

Akhil Kumar, Bindu Goel / International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications
(IJERA ISSN: 2248-9622 www.ijera.com
Vol. 2, Issue4, July-august 2012, pp.1347-1352
Factors Influencing Agile Practices: A Survey
Akhil Kumar1, Bindu Goel2
1
(University School of Information Technology, GGS Indraprastha University, New Delhi-110075)
2
(University School of Information Technology, GGS Indraprastha University, New Delhi-110075)

ABSTRACT
In the last decade agile methodologies Development methodology. Access to external
have gained widespread popularity among the resources, requirements capturing and organization
software community. Software practitioners size all significantly impact the implementation of an
across the globe are adopting agile methodologies agile software development methodology. In the
to meet the challenges involved with turbulent present work we moved a step ahead and tried to find
business environment where requirements the effects of other factors like access level to
changes with time. Agile as name means stakeholders to fix a problem, elicitation techniques
flexibility is a group of various methodologies and strategies used to capture requirements, effect of
emphasizing the practice of Whole team, Short experience of professional in the field and impact of
releases, Measures, Customer collaboration, team size on successful implementation of an agile
Test-driven development, Pair programming and methodology. In the present work we also tried to
Refactoring. find the effect of agile methodologies on customer
In this paper we have presented the satisfaction and the effect on productivity of business
results of a survey conducted online to show the of an organization.
various factors considered by software
practitioners while adopting agile methodologies 2. AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
and the effects of practicing agile on their METHODOLOGIES
customers and business. On the basis of the Agile SDM is a group of various
results of questions asked in the survey we have methodologies used to produce highly potential
drawn six hypotheses namely agile method software in scheduled time meeting customer’s
popular among practitioners, Impact of team requirements. Agile software development
size, Impact of requirement gathering for agile methodologies share several features including the
methodologies, Effective requirement capturing practice of Whole team, Short releases, Measures,
method, Time taken to resolve a problem and Customer collaboration, Test-driven development,
Impact of small response time with customer on Pair programming, Prototyping, Refactoring (to
software development. The results of this improve the quality of code) and Lesser
research work clearly indicates adopting agile documentation to produce quality software.
have increased the productivity of an
organization while increasing customer 2.1 EXTREME PROGRAMMING (XP)
satisfaction. Extreme programming is a software
development methodology based on the set of
Keywords: Agile, Crystal, DSDM, Extreme practices mainly pair programming, customer
Programming, FDD, Scrum collocation with development team stressing
customer satisfaction [1].
1. INTRODUCTION
Agile software development is an emerging Extreme programming is most popular
discipline of software engineering [6] constituting of among developers because of its simpler rules of
set of principles initially advocated by a group of Iterative planning, Daily communication and Team
seventeen software practitioners and now practiced empowerment. Extreme Programming can improve
by many software professionals worldwide. Agile can programming quality while shortening delivery
be defined [6] as: An iterative and incremental schedules.
software development process performed in a highly
collaborative manner within an effective framework 2.2 CRYSTAL CLEAR
that produces a high quality software meeting the Crystal Clear is an example of agile or light
changing requirements of its stakeholders in weight methodology. Crystal clear states people
scheduled time. effects more a software development than processes
In the previous studies [2] it is shown that and tools [4]. Crystal clear is a collection of
there are many factors under management control methodologies named as toolkit elements which
that impact the implementation of an agile software

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organizations combine to make a suitable 6. Practice use to elicit requirements?
methodology to their project. 7. Technique used to capture requirements?
In Crystal clear number of elements used to create a 8. Professional position in the industry?
methodology increases and decreases with the size of 9. Work experience in the industry?
project, larger the size of project more the elements. 10. Employee Size: Work force in the organization?
11. Business sector organization deals in?
2.3 FEATURE DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT (FDD) 12. Effect of agile practices on satisfaction of
Feature-driven development is an iterative business stakeholders and work produced?
and incremental software development process. FDD On the basis of results of survey we have
blends a number of industry-recognized best drawn six hypotheses showing factors which effect
practices into a cohesive whole. These practices are the successful implementation of agile methodologies
all driven from a client-valued functionality (feature) and meet the requirements mentioned in the agile
perspective. Its main purpose is to deliver tangible, manifesto.
working software repeatedly in a timely manner.
H1: Popular adopted agile methodology: Extreme
2.4 DYNAMIC SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT Programming is adopted by the most.
METHODS (DSDM)
Dynamic Systems Development Methods H2: Impact of team size on agile methodologies:
(DSDM) is an agile software development Agile methodologies are chosen by small team’s
framework. Dynamic systems development method more than large teams.
sought to fix cost, quality and time at the outset and
uses the prioritization scope into H3: Impact of requirement gathering for agile
musts, shoulds, coulds and won't haves to adjust the SDM: The requirement gathering is most effective
project deliverable to meet the stated time constraint with One-on-One interactions with stakeholders.
[5]. DSDM is used for developing software and non-
IT solutions. H4: Effective requirement gathering method:
Agilist’s uses methods like user stories, Free form
2.5 SCRUM diagrams to capture requirements which can be
Scrum is iterative and incremental altered at any stage of development process.
framework within which practitioners can employ
various processes and techniques to develop a H5: Agile practitioners use to resolve problems
complex product. immediately: Agile practices gives higher access
Core to Scrum is Sprint, a time-boxed effort usually level to stakeholders.
two weeks to a month. In sprint work is divided in
sub parts and is to be completed in the assigned time H6: Impact of small response time with customer
limit. Once a sprint is defined no changes can be on software development: Adopting agile has
made to it. A sprint begins with planning meeting and increased customer satisfaction and work produced.
ends with demonstrable release.
Scrum is a methodology that can be used on small 4. RESULTS
and large projects. Scrum focuses more on There were only 103 respondents out of
management of the development process than coding 1793 invitations having response rate of 5.77%.
techniques [3]. Although the response rate is very low and cannot
present the clear picture of larger population but can
3. RESEARCH ANALYSIS help us to draw conclusions on the successful
To make a sustainable progress in this area adoption and implementation of agile methodologies.
we have created a questionnaire and conducted an In this section now we are presenting the results of
online survey by sending survey links to 1793 various questions asked in the survey and draw the
software practitioners across the globe including conclusions of hypotheses created.
mailing list of agile alliance. There were 12 questions
asked reflecting requirements of agile methodologies 4.1 H1: POPULAR ADOPTED AGILE
and the factors considered during adoption and METHODOLOGY
implementation of agile methodologies. This hypothesis is drawn from the results of
Questions asked in the survey: question: Which agile methodology your
1. Which agile methodology preferably is adopted organization has adopted.
by your organization?
2. Project type working on?
3. Term used to refer stakeholders?
4. Access level to stakeholders?
5. Elicitation technique used by developers to learn
about stakeholders requirements?

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Popular Agile Employee Size
Methodology

(501-
1000)
(101- 2%
Others 500) 1000+
9% 10% 9%
Extreme
Scrum Program
13% ming (51-
(XP) 100) (1-10)
37% 5%
48%

Agile (11-50)
Unified 26%
Feature
Process
Driven
(AUP)
Develop DSDM
20%
ment Agile
Crystal 5%
(FDD) MSF
0% Process
14%
2%

Figure 2 Impact of Team Size
The results of this question clearly indicate
Figure 1 Popular Agile Methodology that agile methodologies are mostly adopted by
From the results as shown in the chart given organizations having small workforce or employees
above we can clearly deduce that Extreme i.e. from employee size of 1-10 and 11-50 in the
Programming is most popular and adopted by organization.
practitioners at most. Next to XP is Agile Unified The organization’s having employee size of 501-
Process than Feature driven development and so on 1000 is very less to adoption of agile methodologies
and Crystal Process is used by only 2% of 103 i.e. only 2% of 103.
respondents. There were no reply for Agile MSF and
hence it is not used by any of respondent practitioner. 4.3 H3: IMPACT OF REQUIREMENT
Nine respondents replied as ATDD, RUP and Lean as GATHERING FOR AGILE SDM
the adopted agile methodology as others. This hypothesis is drawn from the results of two
4.2 H2: IMPACT OF TEAM SIZE ON AGILE questions:
METHODOLOGIES 1. Elicitation technique used by developers to
This hypothesis is drawn from the results of question: learn about stakeholders requirements.
Employee Size: Work force in the organization. 2. Practice use to elicit requirements.

Elicitation followed by Response
developers Count
Stakeholders representative 40
Written specifications 24
Direct interaction with 29
stakeholders
The team creates their own 10
requirements

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Figure 3 Elicitation technique used by developers
to learn about stakeholders requirements Requirement
Practice followed to elicit Response Gathering Method
requirements Count
High level Requirements 30 Business
envisioning Program
diagram
Detailed Requirements 20 Others s
envisioning 6% Business
12%
User interface Prototyping 15 Rules
Whiteboard sketching 09 6%
User
Paper based modeling 05 Stories
CASE modeling 02 14%
Demonstration of working 10 Class
Use
software Diagram
Cases
s
JIT model storming 09 11%
17%
Structured modeling 03 Data
One-on-one interviews with 30 Mind Models
stakeholders Maps 14%
3%
Free-
Figure 4 Practice followed to elicit requirements
Form
diagram
From the results of these two questions we
can clearly deduce results to our hypothesis H3: s
Impact of requirement gathering for agile SDM. 17%
The results in the survey shows majority of
developers directly interact with stakeholder’s
representative or stakeholder to elicit requirements. Figure 5 Effective requirement gathering method
In very few cases the development team creates
requirements of their own. Previously software practitioners use to
This direct communication between create Mind maps and Business rules and Use cases
developers and stakeholders can lead to increase of to capture requirements for a project. From the results
high understanding of requirements and delivery of a of this question we can clearly deduce that
more potential product. practitioners following agile methodologies have
migrated from traditional requirement capturing
4.4 H4: EFFECTIVE REQUIREMENT methods and create Business Program diagrams, User
GATHERING METHOD Stories, Free Form diagram, Data models and class
This hypothesis drawn on the basis of diagrams which can be altered at any stage of
question: Technique used to capture requirements. development with the changing requirements of
stakeholders.

Respondents who replied as others
mentioned Shell statement, UI Prototype, Screen
Specifications as their requirement capturing
technique.

4.5 H5: AGILE PRACTITIONERS USE TO
RESOLVE PROBLEMS IMMEDIATELY
Fixing problem is of very big concern in the
software industry. Resolving of a problem is
completely dependent on the access level to the
customer or stakeholder. Sometimes a problem is
fixed within a minute and sometimes it takes a lot of

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time which directly increases the cost of project and
delays the scheduled delivery of product. How agile methodologies have
improved customer satisfaction and
We have drawn this hypothesis on the basis of work produced
question: Access level to stakeholders.
Much
Higher
Access level to stakeholders 7%

Within a Only
month during No
0% require Change
ments 34%
gatherin
Immedia
g Phase
te
3% Somewh
16%
at
With in a Higher
59% Somewh
day at Lower
48% Within a
week 0%
Much
22% Lower
0%

Within Figure 7 How agile methodologies have improved
customer satisfaction and work produced
two
Out of 103 respondents only 59 replied to
weeks
this question. Although the response count for this
11% question is very low and cannot present the vote of
larger population but can help us to find how
Figure 6 Access level to stakeholders to fix a prevalent is agile methodologies adopting.
problem Majority of respondents replied that adopting agile
The results clearly shows that majority of methodologies have increased their customer
agile practitioners contact their stakeholders to fix a satisfaction and work produced. None of the
problem within a day. 16% of agile practitioners respondent replied as adopting agile has lowered their
contact their stakeholders immediately. work produced and customer satisfaction.
None of the agile practitioners take long time of a The table given below gives clear picture of the
month to fix a problem. respondents.
Effect Response
4.6 H6: IMPACT OF SMALL RESPONSE TIME Count
WITH CUSTOMER ON SOFTWARE Much Lower 00
DEVELOPMENT Somewhat Lower 00
The idea behind presenting agile No Change 20
methodologies to software community was to Somewhat Higher 35
increase the communication between developers and Much Higher 04
stakeholders and to deliver a potential product in Figure 8 Response count to effect of agile
scheduled time with the changing requirements of methodologies on customer satisfaction and work
stakeholders. produced
In this section we have presented the result
of how prevalent is agile methodologies adoption to 5. CONCLUSIONS
both customers and the development organization. The aim of this research is to find how
The hypothesis drawn in this section is created by the popular and prevalent are agile practices .The study
results of question: Effect of agile practices on also aims at analyzing the effect of the various factors
satisfaction of business stakeholders and work which influence the agilist’s while practicing agile
produced. methodologies. The results to this research clearly
indicates agile practitioners have higher level of
communication and access level to their stakeholders

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to resolve a problem; agilist’s have migrated from
traditional methods of requirement capturing and
practice newer methods like user stories, Free form
diagrams to meet challenges involved with changing
requirements of stakeholders. The result to this
research also shows that small teams practice agile
methodologies more than large team size. Extreme
programming is found to be most popularly practiced
agile methodologies.
At the end we only found that adopting agile
methodologies have increased the work produced and
the customer satisfaction from organizations
practicing agile methodologies.

6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A Huge thanks to Mr. Scott W. Ambler for
providing his permission to conduct work on this
area.

REFERENCES
Journal Papers:
[1] B. Boehm & R. Turner, Management
challenges to implementing agile processes
in traditional development organizations,
IEEE Software, 22(5), 2005, 30-39.
Proceedings Papers:
[2] J. A. Livermore, Factors that impact
implementing an Agile Software
Development Methodology, Proc. IEEE
SoutheastCon, 2007, 82-86.
[3] C. Mann & F. Maurer, A case study on the
impact of scrum on overtime and customer
satisfaction, Proc. IEEE Proceedings of the
Agile development conference, Denver, CO,
2005, 70-79.
Books:
[4] J. Highsmith, agile software development
ecosystems (Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA,
2002).
[5] Dai Clegg, Richard Barker, case method
fast-track: a rad approach (Addison-
Wesley, 1994).
[6] Scott W. Ambler, agile modeling- effective
practices for extreme programming and
unified process (John Wiley & Sons, 2002).

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