A Selection Framework for Agile Methodologies

Abstract

Agile software development methodologies provide a significant improvement on the control and management of the software development process. Literature gives evidence of improvement in areas like development of software that meets the user requirements, delivery of the product on time and within budget. With the growing number of agile methodologies the selection of a methodology that is suitable for a particular project becomes a nontrivial issue. This research work aims at devising a mechanism that can be used by practitioners to select the most suitable agile methodology for a given software development project. The literature survey done so far reveals that whilst those who have used agile methods have made significant benefits, there is a lot of apprehensiveness and uncertainty about the use of agile methods in the IT industry. This uncertainty is due to the lack of literature on the representation of agile methods and the lack of empirical data on the use of agile methods. The literature also shows that due to these gaps there is also a lack of ways of selecting the appropriate methodology for a given project.