The Impact of Methods and Techniques on outcomes from Agile Software Development Projects

The Impact of Methods and Techniques on outcomes from Agile Software Development Projects

It is quite difficult getting hard facts on whether Agile offers improved productivity etc as the evidence are often anecdotal. However, based on a 2006 survey by Scott Ambler, David Parsons, Hokyoung Ryu and Ramesh Lai further analysed the raw data collected via an online survey to see if they could glean any more nuggets of information with respect to effectiveness of method combinations, and technique combinations in the Agile Space. They concluded

·         Adoption of at least one agile method improves outcomes in terms of quality, satisfaction and Productivity over the use f Non-Agile methods without a significant increase in cost.

·         The most effective way to apply agile methods is to combine more than one method together - two is optimum.

·         The most effective combination is SCRUM and XP –  they blend well since SCRUM is a framework or wrapper within which XP or other techniques can slot into

·         Pair Programming and Co-Location are the two most significant techniques for positive outcomes across all Agile Methods

·         Across XP, most important techniques are code re-factoring, collaborative working and TDD

·         At least five of the core XP techniques must be used to gain the full benefits of adopting XP

Successful adoption of Agile requires blending complementary methods. It is better to select the techniques that provide the best outcomes rather than the easiest ones to do! There is a critical mass of techniques that need to be adopted in order to give a project the best chance of success. Companies should carry out their own performance metrics on what works.

The full article can be found here:  Article

Note: Scott Ambler’s original surveys can be found here:

·     Agile Adoption Rate Survey (March 2006) – the basis of the further work above

·     Agile Adoption Rate Survey (March 2007)

·     Agile Adoption Rate Survey (February 2008)

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