Measuring Agility - A Quantitative Survey among IT Professionals

Student thesis: Master Thesis and HD Thesis

  • Rasmus Mortensen
  • Thomas Boje-Nielsen
  • Taregh Jasemian
4. term, Software, Master (Master Programme)
Several studies indicate an increase in the use of agile methods and practices in the software industry and that these methods and practices bring value to development projects. However, the few quantitative studies which examine the extent to which Agile Software Development is actually used, often rely on practitioners use and knowledge of specific agile practices and methods. Without distinguishing true use from hype-related use, such studies can be questioned. This report describes how the Agile Manifesto and its principles are operationalized into an instrument for measuring agility by assessing attitude and how the instrument is used in a quantitative survey among IT professionals. The project is based on an iterative survey research model and embody the design, execution and analysis of a questionnaire in order to answer four research questions. These concern the agility of IT professionals, teams, organizations and customers, and a software projects suitability for Agile Software Development. The project concludes that a large part of Information Technology (IT) professionals and their teams are agile-minded and that most software projects are suited for Agile Software Development. Organisations and customers on the other hand are not perceived as equally agile.
LanguageEnglish
Publication dateJun 2007
ID: 61070865