Development of a framework to understand the factors that influence software productivity in agile teams

Abstract

Productivity improvement in the software industry is one of the major challenges facing many software development companies in this century. Most companies have adopted agile methodologies in order to profit from the benefits claimed for them. Agile methodologies are characterised by frequent software delivery, short feedback loops, quicker response to change, and problem identification earlier in the development process. The agile approach has been recognised as paving a way for companies to acquire higher software productivity, delivering good-quality and cost-effective software, enabling software development companies to respond to business challenges with their demands for high quality, high performance and high development speed in delivering the final product. For companies that adopt agile methodologies, understanding the factors that influence their teams’ software development productivity is a challenging task for management and practitioners today. In this research, an analysis is presented that identifies productivity factors that affect agile teams. It is a study of agile methods to identify common agile practices and/or values that have impact on productivity, and describes suitable metrics that could be used to measure agile team productivity. A qualitative research approach was used, and the case study was chosen as the research strategy. Two South African companies that are located in two different provinces and that adopted agile methodologies in their software development, were selected for the case studies. Qualitative content analysis was used in the research to permit subjective interpretation of factors that influence agile team productivity, and to analyse to what extent these factors affected productivity. This research has shown that an understanding of the factors that influence an agile team’s productivity gives significant insight into the way agile teams work, motivates team members to work together, and leads to uniform metrics in tracking each team’s progress. The study indicates that tracking an agile team’s work and providing adequate tools needed to execute their tasks results in improving agile team productivity. It should be recognised that using metrics to measure performance in agile teams is helpful in creating a team’s culture and trust. In this study, it was found that the factors identified in both literature and case studies affected productivity in the two companies under study, both positively and negatively. The study also found that applying the correct metrics in assessing, analysing and reviewing an agile team’s performance is important when monitoring productivity. Successful software delivery is only possible if individuals are committed to their work, are provided with the necessary tools and have access to a stable working environment. In addition, individual factors such as knowledge, skills, abilities, personalities and experience should be considered when forming agile teams. Consideration of these factors will result in grouping people that are able to work together and achieve a common goal, which is important in improving productivity. A conceptual framework for agile team productivity was proposed. The discussion of the findings is presented in more detail in this research.