PPMP20015 Research: Agile Method for Software Development Projects

This literature review examines the effectiveness of the Agile method in software development projects within Australia, addressing its increasing popularity and potential for improving project execution and success rates. The review analyzes existing literature, focusing on the agile process's impact on large-scale software development, its advantages over traditional cascading methods, and its ability to manage projects in chaotic environments. It critically assesses an article discussing the dimensions of efficiency, stakeholder satisfaction, and overall project performance, while also identifying limitations such as the lack of empirical validation and the use of single-item measurements. The review proposes preliminary research questions concerning challenges and success factors for large-scale agile transformations, reflecting on the complexities of software development project management and the need for further research with larger, more diverse datasets. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study tools and resources for students.

Running head: Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
Table of Contents
1A. Description of the topic:......................................................................................................2
Table of four relevant articles:...............................................................................................2
Summary of the most relevant article....................................................................................3
Critical assessment of the article:...........................................................................................4
Preliminary research questions:.............................................................................................4
Personal reflection..................................................................................................................5
1B:..............................................................................................................................................5
Self-assessment:.....................................................................................................................5
References:.................................................................................................................................7

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
1A. Description of the topic:
The subject of effective software development project management has always been a
major concern across the industries all over the world including Australia as well. However,
the area of software development software development projects is the most talked about due
to the amount of complexities and innovation involved, let keep aside the cost. Over the years
it has been seen that even with expert project managers and skilled employees, often the
software development projects become difficult. In order to maintain high success in software
development projects implementation, agile process was developed. Over the years, this agile
process has become very popular in the field of software development project management
and control. The report here seeks to review the effectiveness of the agile process and how it
helps in improving the software development project execution and success rate.
Articles Keywords
1. Špundak, M., 2014. Mixed agile/traditional
software development project management
methodology–reality or illusion? Procedia-
Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, pp.939-
948.
Agile software development project
management; traditional software
development project management;
methodology; methodology elements.
2. Hoda, R. and Murugesan, L.K., 2016. Multi-
level agile software development project
management challenges in software
development: A self-organizing team
perspective. Journal of Systems and
Software, 117, pp.245-257.
Success; Agile; Methodology; software
development : Efficiency
3. Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Software Agile development; large-scale software

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
development project management for
engineering, business and technology.
Routledge.
development; virtual teams, social
capital, inter-team coordination; agile
transformation, self-management, shared
decision making
4. Muller, R., 2017. Software development
project governance. Routledge.
Software development project
development, agile development,
software development, software
development project success
Table of four relevant articles:

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
Summary of the most relevant article
The authors in the first article illustrate the impact of agile process for effective
management of large scale software development software development project. According
to the authors, the IT industry in Australia is becoming stronger with huge investment to
strengthen the industry. The agile process is becoming highly popular in Australia as it is an
effective solution to develop quality software based projects while minimizing the risk as
well as the cost of development. The authors argues that the agile technique helps to
formulate the methodology for successful software development project execution. It
eliminates most of the problems with the traditional software development project
management approach which follows cascading software development project planning
method. The shortcomings of the traditional software project management approach served as
the need for designing new and improved software development project control method that
delivers success. The agile process, as per the authors is an excellent choice for managing
software development projects in chaotic settings.
In this article the authors have discussed about the three dimensions that effect the
software development software development project success. These dimensions are
efficiency, stakeholder satisfaction and the software development project performance as a
whole. According to the article, the choice for the level of the agile process has a significant
impact on all the three dimensions discussed above. A statistical model for the same has been
discussed to illustrate variation. The authors claim that with the inclusion of the agile process
a significant improvement is possible in the delivery time of the software development
project.

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
In this article regression model has been discussed for assessing the impact for agile
process. The analysis shows that agile process improves interactions over process of the
software development project. It improves the customer collaboration over contracts and
negotiations that are formal in nature. It also improves the responsiveness associated with the
rigid planning. The author point it out that although the agile process was introduced for the
software development process, it is becoming popular in other sectors too.
Critical assessment of the article:
Even though the authors in the first article have described the effectiveness of the
agile process in the field of software development project management and control, it has not
been validated with empirical validation. The absence of the empirical validation, is one of
the shortcomings of the article. The paper does not consider large scale empirical analysis
that is developed through varying levels the agile process is related to. Hence, success rate for
the process is not properly known when considering practical applications.
Although the article contains some experience report and few case studies, it lacks a
systematic overview. The synthesis technique for large scale agile adoption is also missing.
Although two moderators, team experience and software development project complexity has
been included, it does not explicitly define how this two moderators decides the effectiveness
of the agile process for software development project success.
The regressions analysis is effective for providing significant results, but there is a
major problem associated with the method. It follows single item measurement which is not
always reliable. In order to improve the result and avoid the issue with the measurement, a
new index should be created. However no such approach is followed in the article by the
authors.

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
Preliminary research questions:
In the review, we study the following research questions:
 RQ1: What challenges need to be addressed for large-scale agile transformations in
the software projects?
 RQ2: What success factors needs to consider for large-scale agile transformations
with reference to the software development?
Personal reflection
The study about the agile method for software development project management
requires extensive research (Kerzner, 2018). While exploring the topic I learned that the
process of software development project management is a difficult topic and it has been the
major concern for industries across various sector (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). In order to
understand the topic in details, I have also done a through literature review. Four article has
been chosen. For this report I have done an extensive analysis of one article that seems most
relevant in this regard. The article has been first reviewed to find out the important facts and
findings the authors have included. I have also done a critical appraisal of the article. In order
to do this I have also conducted a study to understand the essence of literature review and
steps that need to be followed for an effective approach. One thing that I have learned while
doing the review of the article, that only the study of the article is not enough to construct a
proper literature review, a thorough knowledge of the topic is necessary to form a
constructive criticism which not only assess the findings of the authors, but tries to find out
the gap in the research so that it can be improved through further research. The report that I
have presented here has some different view regarding the topic and tries to explore it from a
new perspective. The articles reviewed in this context have conducted the research either
based on single case studies or considered small sample size. However, my report suggest
that research on this topic should be done with a large number of industries following

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
different software development project setting. The approach is an effective one. It gives a
clear overview about the factors that must be followed for obtaining success in the software
development project management with the agile process. The factor that must be considered
is that such approach must be applied with proper measurement, as it involves a large set of
data. Additionally the simulations with large data set often involves error due to statistical
variations. The technique for dealing with such error should also be included. Based on my
study and several others article I have reviewed for preparing the critical assessment, I think
that two of the most important factors for effectively introducing the agile process into
software development project management is the efficiency and the stakeholder satisfaction.
Although I have tried my best to do the critical review, there is always possibilities for
improvement due to limitations of knowledge and the report is open to any kind of
constructive criticism and suggestion.

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Agile Method For success in Software Development projects in Australia
References:
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Software development project management: a systems
approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., 2018. Software development project management best practices: Achieving
global excellence. John Wiley & Sons.
Špundak, M., 2014. Mixed agile/traditional software development project management
methodology–reality or illusion?. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, pp.939-948.
Hoda, R. and Murugesan, L.K., 2016. Multi-level agile software development project
management challenges: A self-organizing team perspective. Journal of Systems and
Software, 117, pp.245-257.
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Software development project management for
engineering, business and technology. Routledge.
Muller, R., 2017. Software development project governance. Routledge.