Measuring Agile software project success beyond the triple constraint

Abstract

Background: The triple constraint – cost, scope and time – has been previously used to measure the success of traditional developed software projects. However, these triple constraints are no longer effective to measure the success of Agile software projects. Research shows that there are many other metrics that are being used to measure Agile methods beyond the triple constraint. Organisations are adopting Agile methods for a number of reasons which in turn are benefiting the software developing organisation in various ways. However, these software developing organisations still face challenges when adopting Agile methods.Objective: This study aimed to investigate the different metrics to be considered when measuring Agile software project success beyond the triple constraints.Method: Data were collected through an online survey. The population of interest included Agile specialists who are working on Agile software projects. The collected data were analysed using IBM SPSS version 26.Results: Our results showed that software developing organisations implementing Agile software projects are using strategic metrics that bring value to software developing organisations when measuring their Agile software projects. One of the most cited metrics is customer satisfaction, which is believed to show more value because software projects cannot be accepted unless customers see the value in such projects.Conclusion: There is a pragmatic shift in software development method, adoption and implementation. Organisations that are eager to see success are now shifting from using traditional methods to Agile methods of software development, and by doing so, success is inevitable.

Software Metrics in Agile Software Development: A Review Report

“…The answer to this question seeks to determine the most widely used software metrics in ASD. Traditionally, software development companies considered scope, budget, and timeline the most critical software metrics for measuring the performance of the software project [2]. According to [2], these triple constraints -scope, budget, and time are not suitable for measuring the performance of ASD.…”

“…This category consists of reliability, portability, efficiency, and other metrics used for measuring the characteristics of the software product [1]. Modern software development projects use Agile software development processes because they enable on-time delivery of high-quality software within the allocated budget [2]. Large-scale software development projects also utilize Agile practices to develop their software systems [3].…”

“…Managing and implementing the agile framework can be challenging in both large-scale software projects [3] and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) [7]. Several proposed software metrics are available for measuring the performance of Agile software development processes [2]- [20]. As highlighted by [3] and [7], managing the Agile processes requires continuous monitoring, and software metrics measure and monitor the performance of Agile software development processes.…”

Impact of project governance on project success, with mediating role of organizational support and project team cohesion

“…In contemporary times, PS is viewed from the lens of the iron triangle, i.e. from the parameters of time, cost and scope, also known as triple constraints (Kandengwa and Khoza, 2021). Besides this, PS in the era of 1990s and 2000s was determined by scientific performance and the impact on the organization's strategic objectives.…”

Identifying Key Characteristics of Business Rules That Affect Software Project Success

“…Moreover, existing surveys are concentrating on business rules (i.e., taxonomy of BR organizing approaches regarding business process compliance [14], factors affecting the business process and BR integration [15], dynamically stable business processes operation [16], modeling context for BR management [17], etc.) or on software project success (such as soft skills for IT project success [18], scope creep factors and their impact on software project success [19], agile software project success [20], transparent task allocation [21], etc. ), but there are no studies on the conjunction of those two topics.…”