Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Agile Software Development – Do We Really Calculate the Costs? A Multivocal Literature Review

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement (EuroSPI 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1251))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 4054 Accesses

Abstract

Agile software development methods, in their various different forms, have become the basis for most software projects in today’s world. The methodology is present in almost all organisations today. However, despite the popularity, failure rates in software projects remain high. This paper identifies why agile methodologies have become so successful. In addition, the paper discusses certain factors that may often be overlooked in organisations that have adopted agile methods, such as rework, maintainability, adoption, turnover rates and the potential costs associated with each. The research carried out was a multivocal literature review (MLR). Multiple white and grey literature which was deemed to be relevant was selected. 32 contributions from white literature were selected for use in the review as well as 8 from grey literature sources. We find that while agile has many advantages, organisations may overlook the potential downsides of using an agile methodology. If not managed or implemented correctly, organisations risk taking on more hidden and expensive costs, for example in relation to rework. It is important that organisations are sufficiently trained in agile methods in order to succeed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Annual State of Agile Survey. www.stateofagile.com/. Accessed 10 June 2020

  2. Shewchuk, J.P.: Agile manufacturing: one size does not fit all. In: Bititci, U.S., Carrie, A.S. (eds.) Strategic Management of the Manufacturing Value Chain. ITIFIP, vol. 2, pp. 143–150. Springer, Boston (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35321-0_16

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. Agile budgeting: How much will it cost? Agilest.org. Accessed 10 June 2020

    Google Scholar 

  4. Stoica, M., Marinela, M., Bogdan, G-M.: Software development: agile vs. traditional. Inf. Econ. 17(4) (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Korkala, M., Maurer, F.: Waste identification as the means for improving communication in globally distributed agile software development. J. Syst. Softw. 95, 122–140 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Boehm, B.: Get ready for agile methods, with care. Computer 35(1), 64–69 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Serrador, P., Pinto, J.K.: Does Agile work?—A quantitative analysis of agile project success. Int. J. Proj. Manage. 33(5), 1040–1051 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Highsmith, J.: Agile Software Development Ecosystems. Addison Wesley, Boston (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Shore, J.: The Art of Agile Development: Pragmatic Guide to Agile Software Development. O’Reilly Media, Inc., Newton (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Van Der Westhuizen, D., Fitzgerald, E.P.: Defining and measuring project success. In: Proceedings of the European Conference on IS Management, Leadership and Governance 2005. Academic Conferences Limited (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Standish Group. 2015 Chaos Report

    Google Scholar 

  12. McDonald, K.: Agile Q&A: Why do Organizations Adopt Agile? www.agilealliance.org/why-do-organizations-adopt-agile/. Accessed 10 June 2020

  13. Jefferies, R.: Developers should abandon agile. https://ronjeffries.com/articles/018–01ff/abandon-1/. Accessed 10 June 2020

  14. Nicolette, D.: Questioning Agile Dogma. www.leadingagile.com/2019/02/questioning-agile-dogma/. Accessed 10 June 2020

  15. Chow, T., Cao, D.-B.: A survey study of critical success factors in agile software projects. J. Syst. Softw. 81(6), 961–971 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Hoda, R., Noble, J., Marshall, S.: The impact of inadequate customer collaboration on self-organizing agile teams. Inf. Softw. Technol. 53(5), 521–534 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Knippers, D.: Agile software development and maintainability. In: 15th Twente Student Conference (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Ersoy, I.B., Mahdy, A.M.: Agile knowledge sharing. Int. J. Softw. Eng. (IJSE) 6(1), 1–15 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  19. An Agile Agenda, 6Point6 Technology Services, April 2017. https://6point6.co.uk/insights/an-agile-agenda/. Accessed 10 June 2020

  20. Dikert, K., Paasivaara, M., Lassenius, C.: Challenges and success factors for large-scale agile transformations: a systematic literature review. J. Syst. Softw. 119, 87–108 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Chau, T., Maurer, F.: Knowledge sharing in agile software teams. In: Lenski, W. (ed.) Logic versus Approximation. LNCS, vol. 3075, pp. 173–183. Springer, Heidelberg (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-25967-1_12

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. Kajko-Mattsson, M.: Problems in agile trenches. In: Proceedings of the Second ACM-IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Ramdoo, V., Huzooree, G.: Strategies to reduce rework in software development on an organisation in mauritius. Int. J. Softw. Eng. Appl. 6(5), 9–20 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Fairley, R.E., Willshire, M.J.: Iterative rework: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Computer 38(9), 34–41 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. The Agile Manifesto, Agile Alliance (2001). https://agilemanifesto.org/. Accessed 10 June 2020

  26. Inayat, I., Marczak, S., Salim, S.S.: Studying relevant socio-technical aspects of requirements-driven collaboration in agile teams. In: 2013 3rd International Workshop on Empirical Requirements Engineering (EmpiRE). IEEE (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Chichakly, K.: Modeling agile development: when is it effective? In: Proceedings of International Conference of the System Dynamics Society (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Alsalemi, A.M., Yeoh, E.-T.: A survey on product backlog change management and requirement traceability in agile (Scrum). In: 2015 9th Malaysian Software Engineering Conference (MySEC). IEEE (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Saran, C: Agile development, an ‘IT fad’ that risks iterative failure, May 2017. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/450418205/Agile-development-an-IT-fad-that-risks-iterative-failure. Accessed 10 June 2020

  30. Johnston, A.: The role of the agile architect. https://www.agilearchitect.org//agile/role.htm. Accessed 10 June 2020

  31. Nerur, S., Mahapatra, R., Mangalaraj, G.: Challenges of migrating to agile methodologies. Commun. ACM 48(5), 72–78 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Krigsman, M.: Worldwide cost of IT failure, December 2009

    Google Scholar 

  33. Coram, M., Bohner, S.: The impact of agile methods on software project management. In: 12th IEEE International Conference and Workshops on the Engineering of Computer-Based Systems (ECBS 2005). IEEE (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Geographically Distributed Agile Teams, PMI Disciplined Agile. https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/agility-at-scale/tactical-agility-at-scale/geographically-distributed-agile-teams. Accessed 10 June 2020

  35. Kajko-Mattsson, M., Azizyan, G., Magarian, M.K.: Classes of distributed agile development problems. In: 2010 Agile Conference. IEEE (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Melnik, G., Maurer, F.: Comparative analysis of job satisfaction in agile and non-agile software development teams. In: Abrahamsson, P., Marchesi, M., Succi, G. (eds.) XP 2006. LNCS, vol. 4044, pp. 32–42. Springer, Heidelberg (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/11774129_4

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  37. Tripp, J.F., Riemenschneider, C., Thatcher, J.B.: Job satisfaction in agile development teams: agile development as work redesign. J. Assoc. Inf. Syst. 17(4), 267 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Meier, A., Kropp, M., Anslow, C., Biddle, R.: Stress in agile software development: practices and outcomes. In: Garbajosa, J., Wang, X., Aguiar, A. (eds.) XP 2018. LNBIP, vol. 314, pp. 259–266. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91602-6_18

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  39. Mannaro, K., Melis, M., Marchesi, M.: Empirical analysis on the satisfaction of IT employees comparing XP practices with other software development methodologies. In: Eckstein, J., Baumeister, H. (eds.) XP 2004. LNCS, vol. 3092, pp. 166–174. Springer, Heidelberg (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-24853-8_19

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  40. Tessem, B., Maurer, F.: Job satisfaction and motivation in a large agile team. In: Concas, G., Damiani, E., Scotto, M., Succi, G. (eds.) XP 2007. LNCS, vol. 4536, pp. 54–61. Springer, Heidelberg (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73101-6_8

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  41. DeMarco, T., Lister, T.: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2013). pp. 17, 118

    Google Scholar 

  42. Documentation in agile: how much and when to write it? InfoQ, January 2014. https://www.infoq.com/news/2014/01/documentation-agile-how-much/. Accessed 10 June 2020

  43. Clarke, P., O’Connor, R.V., Yilmaz, M.: In search of the origins and enduring impact of agile software development. In: ACM Proceedings of the International Conference of Software and System Processes (ICSSP 2018), Gothenburg, Sweden, 26–27 May 2018, pp. 142–146 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Clarke, P., O’Connor, R.V.: The situational factors that affect the software development process: towards a comprehensive reference framework. Inf. Softw. Technol. 54(5), 433–447 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Clarke, P., O’Connor, Rory V.: The meaning of success for software SMEs: an holistic scorecard based approach. In: O‘Connor, R.V., Pries-Heje, J., Messnarz, R. (eds.) EuroSPI 2011. CCIS, vol. 172, pp. 72–83. Springer, Heidelberg (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22206-1_7

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  46. Garousi, V., Felderer, M., Mäntylä, M.V.: Guidelines for including grey literature and conducting multivocal literature reviews in software engineering. Elsevier J. Inf. Softw. Technol. 106, 101–121 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. O’Connor, R.V., Elger, P., Clarke, P.: Continuous software engineering - a microservices architecture perspective. J. Softw.: Evol. Process 29(11), 1–12 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Beck, K.: Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change. Addison Wesley, Boston (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  49. Clarke, P., O’Connor, R.V., Leavy, B.: A complexity theory viewpoint on the software development process and situational context. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Software and Systems Process (ICSSP), pp. 86–90 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  50. Rashid, M., Clarke, P., O’Connor, R.V.: A systematic examination of knowledge loss in open source software projects. Int. J. Inf. Manag. (IJIM) 46, 104–123 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. O’Connor, R.V., Elger, P., Clarke, P.: Exploring the impact of situational context: a case study of a software development process for a microservices architecture. In: proceedings of the International Conference on Software and Systems Process (ICSSP), Co-Located with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), pp. 6–10 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1145/2904354.2904368

  52. Clarke, P.M., O’Connor, R.V., Solan, D., Elger, P., Yilmaz, M., Ennis, A., Gerrity, M., McGrath, S., Treanor, R.: Exploring software process variation arising from differences in situational context. In: Stolfa, J., Stolfa, S., O’Connor, R.V., Messnarz, R. (eds.) EuroSPI 2017. CCIS, vol. 748, pp. 29–42. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64218-5_3

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  53. Giray, G., Yilmaz, M., O’Connor, R.V., Clarke, P.M.: The impact of situational context on software process: a case study of a very small-sized company in the online advertising domain. In: Larrucea, X., Santamaria, I., O’Connor, R.V., Messnarz, R. (eds.) EuroSPI 2018. CCIS, vol. 896, pp. 28–39. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97925-0_3

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  54. Marks, G., O’Connor, R.V., Clarke, P.M.: The impact of situational context on the software development process – a case study of a highly innovative start-up organization. In: Mas, A., Mesquida, A., O’Connor, R.V., Rout, T., Dorling, A. (eds.) SPICE 2017. CCIS, vol. 770, pp. 455–466. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67383-7_33

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  55. Clarke, P., O’Connor, R.V.: Changing situational contexts present a constant challenge to software developers. In: O’Connor, R., Umay Akkaya, M., Kemaneci, K., Yilmaz, M., Poth, A., Messnarz, R. (eds.) EuroSPI 2015. CCIS, vol. 543, pp. 100–111. Springer, Cham (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24647-5_9

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  56. Clarke, P., O’Connor, R.V., Leavy, B., Yilmaz, M.: Exploring the relationship between software process adaptive capability and organisational performance. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 41(12), 1169–1183 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1109/tse.2015.2467388

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported, in part, by Science Foundation Ireland grant 13/RC/2094 and co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund through the Southern & Eastern Regional Operational Programme to Lero - the Irish Software Research Centre (www.lero.ie).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Aidan Fogarty, Aaron Edgeworth, Oishin Smith, Michael Dowling, Murat Yilmaz, Silvana Togneri MacMahon & Paul Clarke

  2. Lero – the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, Limerick, Ireland

    Murat Yilmaz, Silvana Togneri MacMahon & Paul Clarke

Authors
  1. Aidan Fogarty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Aaron Edgeworth
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Oishin Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Michael Dowling
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Murat Yilmaz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Silvana Togneri MacMahon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Paul Clarke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul Clarke .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Murat Yilmaz

  2. University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Jörg Niemann

  3. School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Paul Clarke

  4. I.S.C.N. GesmbH, Graz, Steiermark, Austria

    Richard Messnarz

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Fogarty, A. et al. (2020). Agile Software Development – Do We Really Calculate the Costs? A Multivocal Literature Review. In: Yilmaz, M., Niemann, J., Clarke, P., Messnarz, R. (eds) Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement. EuroSPI 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1251. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56441-4_15

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56441-4_15

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-56440-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-56441-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics