ADOPTION AND EVOLUTION OF AGILE PRACTICES.

The traditional software product development models are characterised by a predictive approach derived from physical engineering processes. The recent developments of the software-related scenario have proved these plan-driven models to be inadequate, especially in high risk and rapidly changing environments. Agile methodologies were therefore developed as an answer to these issues. Due to their intrinsic agility, they confirmed to be capable to adapt to further changes occurred since their first introduction: methodologies were modified and tailored according to every different shortcoming found during their introduction. This research is aimed at detecting the dominant agile practices and adoption strategies, which transcends the original belonging to a certain model and may be affected by internal and external characteristics. A survey-based analysis was conducted in order to find out what are the most used practices. 194 valid questionnaires were returned. Factor analysis and cluster analysis allowed to relate practices to several environmental characteristics, with the purpose of seeking a significant relation between them. Results of the study showed that most of the companies prefer to adopt practices related to the general management of the development process, to the detriment of practices associated with coding and testing techniques. The opinions of the team members turned out to be the only inner factor responsible for the introduction or the abandonment of the practices. About the outer variables, the size of the team and the proximity of the team members have proven to significantly affect the adoption strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]