Exploring the Perceived Success Factors of Agile Software Projects in Indonesian Startups

Abstract: A startup is a fledgling business designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. In the 21st century, startups have been growing significantly both in developed and developing countries. Since2014, startups are currently a new booming phenomenon in Indonesia. Nowadays, there are 1,716 registered startups that have been rapidly growing in Indonesia which also places the country in 4th place worldwide after theUnited States, India, and the United Kingdom. Startups in Indonesia were forecasted to grow significantly due to a strong macroeconomic outlook and favorable demographics. This research is a qualitative study to provide an academic literature for Indonesian startups, especially for agile software development. Regarding the high failure rate for startups, the purpose of this study is to explore the perceived success factors of Indonesian agile development startups. It also covers the adoption of implementing agile project management. This study was conducted through interviews from 20 participants within various IT-related startups in Indonesia. The implementation of agile methodologies has been broadly found in software development projects in Indonesian startups with Scrum as the common agile practice. Most of them have been using agile methods for less than a year. Contrarily, a minority of the participants refused to use agile methodologies and chose a traditional way, such as the waterfall method. It has been investigated that there are six perceived critical success factors that were found in implementing agile methodologies, as follows: project definition process, management commitment, project schedule, team environment, team capability, and delivery strategy. In addition, there is a positive correlation between those critical success factors with previous studies and startup characteristics.