Adopting agile methods in the public sector: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Agile software development (ASD) has become an important research topic. However, despite the increase in the number of studies in this area in the last few years, there is a lack of structured information about its adoption in the public sector. Since the public sector is the part of the economy concerned with providing various government services, the goal of this study is to report from a systematic literature review and provide information that may enhance the understanding of the implications of adopting ASD within public companies. As the main results, we found that ASD could indeed be adopted in the public sector. The analysis suggests that a good alternative is to start the adoption of ASD with people willing to change-strongly supported by senior management-working on important pilotprojects. Second, we found that job satisfaction is greater when adopting agile methods within public companies. Finally, we also found some barriers that are difficult to overcome, including the ingrained use of plan-drive methods, as well as big bang deliveries and lack of experience in ASD.