Incorporation of adaptive management strategies for agile project success

Abstract

The software industry has become one of the fastest-growing industries worldwide over the past decades. Even though the Software development technologies have changed in a significant manner, but management methodologies have not changed significantly. This leads to a high percentage of unsuccessful software projects even with good financial support. Therefore, the Software industry requires new effective methods for managing software projects. The agile systems development approach is such a methodology used in the software industry in recent years. Agile software development emphasizes the development of a software product in an agile and flexible environment, further it facilitates the project to be completed in a compressed time frame and in an efficient way. Agile software development refers to a group of methodologies based on iterative development where prerequisites and solutions evolve through the cooperation of different teams. (Leffingwell, 2007). Hence Management role and their adaptive management strategies and support processes play a major role in managing and achieving the success of agile-based projects in an organization. Thus identifying, improving, incorporating, and applying those adaptive management strategies of an organization will lead to the success of agile-based projects and ultimately lead the organization to success. This research focused on identifying those adaptive management strategies which support agile project success. Hence a comprehensive literature review was carried out on the agile approach along with required adaptive management strategies for agile-based projects’ success. A questionnaire-based online survey was done with IT professionals who work in agile-based IT firms to identify the adaptive management strategies which impact agile project success. The research findings revealed that the management strategies of Risk Management, Appropriate Resource assignment, and Adaptability for technological upgrades have a positive impact on the agile project success. This research brings out valuable results that can be incorporated in improving the performance of the software industry. Further, this research hints on other avenues that could be explored further as future research in the field of agile project success in terms of customer satisfaction and improving adaptive management strategies in an organization.