Choice of Agile Methodologies in Software Development: A

Vendor Perspective

Submitted by Group 3
Chirag Gupta (34BM15)
Deepak Kumar Sood (34BM17)
Madhur Ranjan (34BM20)
 Introduction
• How vendor firms make choice about agile methodologies in software projects and their fit.
• A development methodology has a direct relationship with managing project complexity
• Vendors choose the methodology based on
• usability
• Maintainability
• Reliability
• Portability
Agile methodologies in whole

Have addressed the Outcomes Limitations

shortcomings of TM
• heavy documentation, • Customer • Highly Self Motivated team
• lack of productivity, commitment • Lack of adequate support for
• reliability and • Self Motivated repetitive and large scale
• simplicity team projects
• Decision Time • Dependence on run time tacit
knowledge
Introduction (Cont..)

Questions were are going to answer :

What are the

key
determinants
Are these How are decisions Are these any
in the choice identified on the choice of frameworks for
of agile factors are agile analyzing
methodologie being methodologies characteristics of
s in order to taken in practice?
meet project followed? agile method ?
goals?
 Literature Review
Comparison of Agile Methodologies Role of the customer in Agile Adoption
• drive the project, interact constantly with business users
and provide requirements and participate in
retrospection
Purpose they • Customer Effectiveness can be summarized in agile
solve based Extent of projects in three ways
on the coverage for • Real Customer Involvement
demand or phases of the
customer SDLC • Whole Team
needs • Energized Work

Agility Organizational culture and deployment of agile methods

Characteristic
Team
s (Qumer and • Agile methodologies are more suited for organizations
Composition
Henderson – following democratic culture
Sellers)
• Agile methods are not compatible with hierarchical
culture, however we can go for hybrid agile method
 Literature Review (Cont..)
Aspects XP Scrum
Iteration Length 1-2 weeks 2-4 weeks
If the team has not started working, Once the priority is set for product
Handle Changes with an the set priority can be changed, backlog, that set of items remains
Iteration however deliverable feature should be unchanged through the end of the
of equivalent size sprint.

Priority of Features Yes Priority is decided by Team

 
Engineering Practices Very strict Require developers to be conscious

• Scrum emphasizes on self-organization

• XP emphasizes on strong engineering practice constraints.
Decision Factors in choosing AGILE Methodologies
• delivery strategies (short delivery cycles)
• software engineering techniques (simple design, strong
testing strategy)
• team capability (highly competent teams)
• adaptive management style

Different authors
• Strong training mechanism)
• project management process (strong requirement
management)
have summarized • configuration management(communication management
processes)

key dimensions of
• team environment (team location, self-organized teams)
• customer involvement (strong relationship with customers,
customer having full authority)
agile • innovation
• rapid response to change

methodologies • initiative
• Learning
• project size
• highly competent personnel
• criticality
• Reliability
• safety issues
Research Methodology
 Follow a deductive case study approach (analyzing qualitative data)
 3 companies Chosen

S. No Company Name Total Emp Turn Over (Rs) Business Focus No. of
Projects
1 ABC Limited 100000+ 40 Million IT, Consulting, 3
BPO
2 DEF Tech Limited 100000+ 600 Billion IT, Consulting 1
3 GHI Technologies 100 IT, Consulting 1

 All Diverse projects viz. 2 projects (SCRUM with pair programming, 2 project (SCRUM) and
1 project with XP.
 Respondents must fulfill 3 criteria
 10 years experience minimum in SDLC projects
 Minimum 5 agile project experience
 Experience in methodological decision of project management
 Data Analysis Framework
• Two frameworks used to analyze data

Framework 1 Framework 2

• Agility degree was determined by the • Agility degree was determined on variables from project
variables from project scope, features, management support, SDLC, availability of concrete
agile values and development process guidance for application, adaptability in actual use.

• This framework consisted 12 variable

Which helped in choosing agile method

 Each methodologies and frameworks has its own pros and cons
 Determinants of agile methodology for development
Determinants P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
Agile Method Scrum + PP Scrum Scrum + PP XP Scrum
Project Size Medium Large Large Medium Small
Development style Iterative, DA Accpt testing driven Test driven dev, DA Fixed price model, Iterative, DA
dev Test driven dev
Requirements uncertainty High Medium Medium Low High

Cost and time estimation accuracy Low Medium Medium High Medium

Software criticality High Medium High High Medium

Complexity High Medium High Low Medium
Technology environment RTC, RAD RAD RTC Bugzilla, VSS Rally
Business culture Collaborative Conducive Cooperative Collaborative Collaborative
Physical environment Distributed- Distributed-ON&OFF Distributed-ON&OFF Distributed-ON&OFF Distributed-ON&OFF
ON&OFF
Client familiarity with agile Medium Medium Low High Medium
Team size Medium Medium High High Low
Team familiarity with agile Low Low Low Medium Medium
 Analysis of agile methodology for development
Perspectives
Project management support
Software development life cycle
Availability of concrete guidance
for application
Adaptability in actual use
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5
Iteration Manager Scrum Master Scrum Master, Scrum of Project Manager Sprint Planning & daily Scrum
Scrum Master meeting
Life cycle for Architecture and design – No requirement Customer validation, 2 sprints of design and
requirements, Iteration-1 phase. finalisation. acceptance testing and planning. At the end of each
design and system Development- Test cases Dry run on initial iteration release of usable sprint build and demo is
testing. phase. Unit testing and product. The project done and moved to
Implementation weekly integration testing followed all principles. acceptance. At the end of 4th
phase doesn’t in same sprint and sprint release planning done
follow any functional testing of and moved for production.
particular life cycle previous sprint in
subsequent sprint
Implementation Subjectively driven with Best practices used for Derived from practical Emphasis on Abstract
phase of design, no concrete guidance requirement gathering settings and concrete principles over concrete
coding and unit and integration testing guidance guidance for flexibility in
test relied on phase. Rest life cycle was development
abstract principles free flow
Adaptability in High Adaptability wears Flexibility is required for XP followed rules but Situation based adaptability,
actual use but not the team soon due to adaptability Principles and process no pre-described practices
in adaptation rules unexpected changes were changed
 Analysis of agile methodology for development

Final Variables P1 P2 P3 P4 P5

Agile Method Scrum + PP Scrum Scrum + PP XP Scrum

Decision Makers Customer + Customer Customer Customer Customer + Vendor

Vendor Consultants
Fitment Medium Medium Medium Low Medium

Reasoning High Requirement High Requirement High Requirement The project was High Requirement volatility +
volatility + Low to volatility + Low to volatility + Low to repetitive , Low to medium cost and
medium cost and medium cost and time medium cost and time requirements were time estimation accuracy
time estimation estimation accuracy estimation accuracy stable and estimations
accuracy were near accurate
 Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to develop understanding about the choice of agile development
methodologies in software development projects.

The findings show that the fit was poor for P4 and the decision was made by the client
predominantly based on their prior experience. Other projects considered in the study had a
medium fit with the methodologies chosen however, the decision was again influenced by the
client.

This influential role of the client in the decision to choose methodology

was not related to the size of the vendor firm.

The motivation for the choice of the chosen methodology, the actual choice was guided by more
subjective considerations. These subjective reasons are not fully known as we did not have access
to the client firms due to confidentiality requirements of the vendors involved in the study.
 Way forward

This study provides a theoretical basis to conduct future research that could be more
generalizable by following quantitative approach.

The variables identified in this study for understanding choice of agile methodology and their
proposed relationships with the choice could be tested using statistical techniques. Such findings
will provide substantial and valuable guidelines for project management related to software
development.
Thank you