Agile methods provide an organization or a team with the flexibility to adopt a selected subset of principles and practices based on their culture, their values, and the types of systems that they develop. More specifically, every organization or team implements a customized agile method, tailored to better accommodate its needs. However, the extent to which a customized method supports the organizational objectives, i.e. the 'goodness' of that method, should be demonstrable. Existing agile assessment approaches focus on comparative analyses, or are limited in scope and application. In this research, we propose a systematic, comprehensive approach to assessing the 'goodness' of agile methods. We examine an agile method based on (1) its adequacy, (2) the capability of the organization to support the adopted principles and strategies specified by the method, and (3) the method's effectiveness. We propose the Objectives, Principles and Strategies (OPS) Framework to guide our assessment process. The Framework identifies (a) objectives of the agile philosophy, (b) principles that support the objectives and (c) strategies that implement the principles. It also defines (d) linkages that relate objectives to principles, and principles to strategies, and finally, (e) indicators for assessing the extent to which an organization supports the implementation and effectiveness of those strategies. The propagation of indicator values along the linkages provides a multi-level assessment view of the agile method.  In this dissertation, we present our assessment methodology, guiding Framework, validation approach, results and findings, and future directions. / Ph. D.

Context. In recent years Agile has gained lots of importance in the fieldof software development. Many organization and software practitioners hasalready adopted agile practice due to its flexibility in nature. Hence, agiledevelopment methodologies have been replaced to traditional developmentmethods. Agile is a family of several methodologies namely Scrum. eXtremeprogramming (XP) and several others. These several methods areembedded with different set of agile practices for the organizations to adoptand implement for their development process. But there is still a need forempirical research to understand the benefits of implementing the Agilepractices which contributes to the overall success of accomplishment of thesoftware project. Several agile maturity models have been published over adecade but not all of the models have been empirically validated. Hence,additional research in the context of agile maturity is essential and needed. Objectives. This study focus on providing a comprehensive knowledgeon the Agile Maturity Models which help in guiding the organizations regardingthe implementation of Agile practices. There are several maturitymodels published with different set of Agile practices that are recommendedto the industries. The primary aim is to compare the agile maturity maturitymodels and to investigate how the agile practices are implemented inthe industry Later the benefits and limitations faced by the software practitionersdue to implementation of agile practices are identified. Methods. For this particular research an industrial survey was conductedto identify the agile practices that are implemented in the industry. Inaddition, this survey aims at identifying the benefits and limitations of implementingthe agile practices. A literature review is conducted to identifythe order of agile practices recommended from the literature in agile MaturityModels. Results. From the available literature nine Maturity Models have beenextracted with their set of recommended agile practices. Then the resultsfrom the survey and literature are compared and analyzed to see if thereexist any commonalities or differences regarding the implementation of agilepractices in a certain order. From the results of the survey the benefitsand limitations of implementing the Agile practices in a particular order areidentified and reported. Conclusions. The findings from the literature review and the survey resultsin evaluating the agile maturity models regarding the implementationof agile practices.

This dissertation aims to assist Agile champions in their organisations with their Agile adoption journey. Such a journey typically starts with identifying the Agile challenges and then determining how to address these challenges in their unique context (Hajjdiab & Taleb, 2011a:9). This study provides a manual together with an automated framework to showcase a list of prioritised Agile challenges and their corresponding possible solutions. Before reaching this automated framework, the research presented a comprehensive list of Agile adoption challenges, possible solutions and a mapping between them. The automated framework, also named Agile Adoption Coach (AAC), is in the form of an online tool: www.agilesense.coza/aac. The critical quantitative contribution to this study was the evaluation of the AAC by Scrum Masters and Agile coaches to determine the acceptability of the tool. The research has shown that there is, on average, an 86% acceptability rating for this tool in South Africa. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)