Agile systems development and stakeholder satisfaction: a South African empirical study

  • Authors:

  • Carlos Ferreira;Jason Cohen

  • Affiliations:

  • Business Systems Group (Africa), Illovo, RSA;Wits University, WITS, RSA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 2008 annual research conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists on IT research in developing countries: riding the wave of technology
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

The high rate of systems development (SD) failure is often attributed to the complexity of traditional SD methodologies (e.g. Waterfall) and their inability to cope with changes brought about by today's dynamic and evolving business environment. Agile methodologies (AM) have emerged to challenge traditional SD and overcome their limitations. Yet empirical research into AM is sparse. This paper develops and tests a research model that hypothesizes the effects of five characteristics of agile systems development (iterative development; continuous integration; test-driven design; feedback; and collective ownership) on two dependent stakeholder satisfaction measures, namely stakeholder satisfaction with the development process and with the development outcome. An empirical study of 59 South African development projects (using self reported data) provided support for all hypothesized relationships and generally supports the efficacy of AM. Iteration and integration together with collective ownership have the strongest effects on the dependent satisfaction measures.