Critical success factors in Agile software development projects

Abstract: The demand for combining Agile methodologies with large organizations is growing as IT plays a larger role in modern business, even in traditional manufacturing companies. In such organizations, management feel they are losing the ability to plan and control as the developers increasingly utilize Agile methodologies. This mismatch leads to frustration and creates barriers to fully Agile software development. Therefore, this report aims to evaluate what factors affect Agile software development projects in an organizational context, and in particular how these factors can be monitored by the effective use of measures. This master thesis project has conducted a case study at Scania IT, a subsidiary of truck manufacturer Scania, as well as an extensive literature review, which together help identify several critical success factors for combining Agile methodologies with an organization. The report concludes that several aspects are important when agility is introduced to a functional organization and also when combined with a project stage gate model. Moreover, it was found that measures, in particular software metrics, can greatly aid the organization in overcoming several organizational barriers. However, to succeed, corrective actions must be defined that help the organization prevent the measure from becoming yet another statistic data, but rather learn and improve its way of working.