Measuring Success in Agile Software Development Projects: a GQM Approach

Agile software development has become one of the most commonly used methodologies for developing software. It promises to deliver many benefits, but nevertheless, the implementation of agile practices and techniques require many changes that might be a challenge for organizations attempting to succeed with agile software development projects. Claiming the success of agile software projects is difficult, and there is a need for more measurements with which agile success could be evaluated. This paper develops an instrument with which the success of an agile software development project could be measured. The criteria of the success are driven from the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of agile development which have been identified prior developing this instrument. The proposed instrument will evaluate the success of agile software development projects in achieving these identified success factors. The instrument was developed following the Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach. This study conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 experts in the field of agile development. The aim of these interviews was to review and confirm the proposed instrument for measuring the success of agile projects. Following comments from the interviews, the instrument was revised. The developed instrument proposes measuring the agile success using 6 goals, 30 questions, and 7 metrics.