Agile methods selection model: A grounded theory study

Abstract

Agile methods adoption has increased in recent years because of its contribution to the success rate of project development. Nevertheless, the success rate of projects implemented using Agile methods has not completely reached its expected mark, and selecting the appropriate Agile methods is one of the reasons for such lag. Selecting the appropriate Agile methods is a challenging task because there are so many methods to select from. In addition, a lot of organizations consider the selection of Agile methods as a mammoth task. Therefore, to assist Agile team members, this study aimed to investigate how the appropriate Agile methods can be determined for different projects. Based on a Grounded Theory study, 23 Agile experts drawn from 19 teams across thirteen countries were interviewed. Hence, this study employed the Ground Theory of selecting Agile methods. Sixteen factors, grouped into five categories, have been found to affect the selection of twenty Agile methods. The nature of project (size, maturity, criticality and decomposability), development team skills (communication skills, domain knowledge, team technical skills and maturity), project constraints (cost/value/ROI, cost of change, time, scope and requirements volatility), customer involvement (collaboration, commitment and domain knowledge) and organizational culture (type of organizational culture) are the key factors that should guide Agile team members in the selection of an appropriate Agile methods based on the value these factors have for different organizations and/or different projects.