How agile are industrial software development practices?

  • Authors:

  • Christina Hansson;Yvonne Dittrich;Björn Gustafsson;Stefan Zarnak

  • Affiliations:

  • Blekinge Institute of Technology, Department of Technology, Ronneby, Sweden;Blekinge Institute of Technology, Department of Technology, Ronneby, Sweden and IT University of Copenhagen, Design and Use of IT Rued Langgaards Vej, København S, Denmark;Blekinge Institute of Technology, Department of Technology, Ronneby, Sweden;Blekinge Institute of Technology, Department of Technology, Ronneby, Sweden

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Systems and Software - Special issue: Selected papers from the 4th source code analysis and manipulation (SCAM 2004) workshop
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Representatives from the agile development movement claim that agile ways of developing software are more fitting to what is actually needed in industrial software development. If this is so, successful industrial software development should already exhibit agile characteristics. This article therefore aims to examine whether that is the case. It presents an analysis of interviews with software developers from five different companies. We asked about concrete projects, both about the project models and the methods used, but also about the real situation in their daily work. Based on the interviews, we describe and then analyze their development practices. The analysis shows that the software providers we interviewed have more agile practices than they might themselves be aware of. However, plans and more formal development models also are well established. The conclusions answer the question posed in the title: It all depends! It depends on which of the different principles you take to judge agility. And it depends on the characteristics not only of the company but also of the individual project.