Contribution of agility to successful distributed software development

Abstract

In recent times, both researchers and practitioners have touted agility as the latest innovation in distributed software development (DSD). In spite of this acknowledgement, there is little understanding and evidence surrounding the effect of agility on distributed project success. This chapter reports on a study that examines practitioner views surrounding the relative importance of different sub-types of agility to DSD project success. Preliminary results indicate that practitioners view on-time completion of DSD projects, and effective collaboration amongst stakeholders as the top two criteria of DSD project success, with lower emphasis on within-budget considerations. Among the many agility sub-types examined, people-based agility, communication-based agility, methodological agility, and time-based agility emerged as the most important for practitioners in terms of ensuring DSD project success. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.