A Framework for Situated Evaluation of Methodology Usage in Agile Environments

Abstract

While certainly not the “silver bullet” to systems and software development problems, agile methodologies are definitely growing in popularity which is evident in the increasing number of success stories, experience reports and claims of their successful adoption. The majority of the published methodology research literature mainly deals with experimental studies of methodology use either in a single project or with the use of a specific practice such as pair programming with no consideration of the wider issues of systems development which innovations such as agile methods form part of. Research has continued to focus mainly on technical issues rather than on cultural and social aspects [2, 6], and the effect of all contextual and influential factors on usage has not been taken into consideration. Dyba & Dingsoyr [1] believe that the current state of theory and research is still clearly nascent, and highlight the need for exploratory qualitative studies that focuses on human and social factors.