Adoption and Suitability of Software Development Methods and Practices
This research addresses the need for better understanding and support of diverse software methods for practitioners, but it is incremental as it builds on existing academic efforts.
The study surveyed 184 practitioners in Brazil, Finland, and New Zealand to understand the adoption of software development methods and practices, finding that Scrum and Kanban were most used, with Coding Standards, Simple Design, and Refactoring being highly suitable for project management.
In seeking to complement consultants' and tool vendors' reports, there has been an increasing academic focus on understanding the adoption and use of software development methods and practices. We surveyed practitioners working in Brazil, Finland, and New Zealand in a transnational study to contribute to these efforts. Among our findings we observed that most of the 184 practitioners in our sample focused on a small portfolio of projects that were of short duration. In addition, Scrum and Kanban were used most; however, some practitioners also used conventional methods. Coding Standards, Simple Design and Refactoring were used most by practitioners, and these practices were held to be largely suitable for project and process management. Our evidence points to the need to properly understand and support a wide range of software methods.