Derivation of an agile method construction set to optimize the software development process

Abstract

Today, IT and especially the development of customer-focused software, has become one of the most important elements for a company to remain competitive. The primary purpose of this article is to determine whether it is possible to improve the agile development of a company by adjusting its software development process in terms of cultural, technical, and managerial dimensions. Based on a literature analysis and practical experience in the company, different influencing factors and parameters, which affect the value creation throughout the software development process of a company were derived and clustered. Out of these clusters, a framework (Agile Method Construction Set) based on a Microsoft Excel questionnaire was created in order to analyze and identify optimization potential in the development process of a company. This construction set was adapted to meet the requirements of the development department of a large Swiss insurance company in order to validate and test the framework with real data.