Catching up with Method and Process Practice: An Industry-Informed Baseline for Researchers
This research addresses the gap between theoretical software development methods and industry practices, providing insights for companies to optimize their processes, though it is incremental as it builds on existing knowledge about hybrid methods.
The study analyzed software development process use in practice through an international survey of 732 data points, finding that 76.8% of companies implement hybrid methods and that combining planned improvement programs with process evolution can increase process suitability by up to 5%.
Software development methods are usually not applied by the book. Companies are under pressure to continuously deploy software products that meet market needs and stakeholders' requests. To implement efficient and effective development processes, companies utilize multiple frameworks, methods and practices, and combine these into hybrid methods. A common combination contains a rich management framework to organize and steer projects complemented with a number of smaller practices providing the development teams with tools to complete their tasks. In this paper, based on 732 data points collected through an international survey, we study the software development process use in practice. Our results show that 76.8% of the companies implement hybrid methods. Company size as well as the strategy in devising and evolving hybrid methods affect the suitability of the chosen process to reach company or project goals. Our findings show that companies that combine planned improvement programs with process evolution can increase their process' suitability by up to 5%.