Software development practices in Costa Rica: A survey

Abstract

In recent years, many studies have focused on software development practices around the world. The HELENA study is an international effort to gather quantitative data on software development practices and frameworks. In this paper, we present the Costa Rican results of the HELENA survey. We provide evidence of the practices and frameworks used in 51 different projects in Costa Rica. Participants in this survey represent companies ranging from 50 or fewer employees to companies with more than 2500 employees. Furthermore, the industries represented in the survey include software development, system development, IT consulting, research and development of IT services and software development for financial institutions. Results show that Scrum, Iterative Development, Kanban and Waterfall are the most used software development frameworks in Costa Rica. However, Scrum doubles the use of Waterfall and other methods.