An empirical investigation of the factors affecting agile usage
Mali Senapathi, Ananth Srinivasan · 2014
Context: Although agile software development (ASD) method use has grown dramatically in recent years, there is lack of empirical evidence for their effective use and predicted improvements in software development. This suggests that there is an imprecise understanding of their use and practice in organisations beyond the adoption phase. There is a lack of clarity on what 'usage' or 'effectiveness' mean in the context of ASD. In particular, the relationship between agile usage and agile effectiveness has not been investigated. Objective: To study the factors that impact usage of ASD methods and analyse the relationship between post-adoption use of ASD methods, i.e. agile usage and the results effectively achieved in terms of improvements in development outcomes, i.e. agile effectiveness. Method: An agile usage model of post-adoption or continued agile usage is tested using a survey instrument. The study employs variance-based or partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) implemented in SmartPLS version 2.0. Special attention is given to the quality of the measures used by developing reliable and valid measures of study variables. Results: The results from a partial least squares (PLS) analysis shows that relative advantage and agile coach significantly influence the usage of agile methods. Results also support the thesis that agile usage as measured by intensity and extent of agile method use significantly impacts agile effectiveness. Conclusions: The overall contribution of this research is to improve the effectiveness of ASD methods by increasing the likelihood that ASD methods will be effectively used and sustained beyond the adoption phase.