Plan-Based and Agile Companies: A Comparison of Project Management Approaches

Plan-Based and Agile Companies: A Comparison of Project Management Approaches

연구 분야: Software Development

학회: World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering & Applied Computing

Background: Agile Methods have been around for nearly 25 years, yet there is still ongoing debate about their effectiveness in improving software development. Project management remains one of the most critical aspects of Agile Methods. Objective: This paper examines how Agile companies implement project management compared to those using plan-based approaches extending the works performed in 2005 and 2016–2019 by some of the authors. Methodology: The research problem is defined using the Goal Question Metric approach. A questionnaire was developed and administered to senior staff members of 152 companies over five years (2018–2023). Results: The results of the research highlight that even if some important differences exist, all the companies approach project management in similar ways: many approaches that are considered Agile are used in Plan-Based companies as well. Comparison with previous studies: There is a stronger alignment in the usage of the approaches making the two groups nearly indistinguishable. Moreover, compared to the study of the 2005, Agile is now mainstream and widely adopted and understood in many application domains.