Measuring Process Flow using Metrics in Agile Software Development

Abstract: Context. Software Project management focuses on planning and executing the activities for developing software. Agile Software Project Management helps to plan shorter iterations and frequent changes to customer requirement. Developing the process flow metrics helps to monitor the process and to tune the process for the given context. Objectives. The main objectives in the thesis are to identify process flow metrics and frameworks that are suitable for measuring the process flow in Agile projects especially projects with significant dependence on hardware components. Apart from identified metrics from the literature, we identify the impact, challenges, and advantages of using agile models with the help of productivity and process flow metrics and implement them on a test phase project and compare the productivity of agile model with waterfall model. Methods. The thesis presents a two-step study. The first step was to perform a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and collect the metrics from the literature study that can be used for the comparison of the productivity of both the processes. The Second step was to conduct a case study at Volvo Cars to get us a better understanding the impact of the agile and how the process flow metrics can be used in real time for measuring and comparison.   Results. In the first step of SLR, 363 metrics that can be used by software teams have been identified of which 10 were suitable for the comparison of our current case study required by the second step of our thesis. In the second step, in the first iteration after the transition, an increase in productivity of 6.25% is achieved by the team following the agile process over the team following the traditional process. Several advantages and challenges faced during the transition have been identified which might have affected the achieved productivity. Conclusions. We conclude from the results achieved that metrics can be used as a tool to enhance the benefits of the Agile process. Process Flow metrics can be of good use to compare the difference of productivity between different processes and make improvements to the current processes. Use of process flow metrics increases the insight of all the team members on the progress of the project and guides them to enhance team performance and stay on track with the project schedule.