Early results of a study on the effects of agile development practices are showing improvements in productivity and quality. Michael Mah, managing partner of QSM Associates, Inc., explored the results in “Columbus Discovering Agile” at ProjectsAtWork:
Early results from the Columbus-area participants show that a typical business system comprising 50,000 lines of code is completed 31% faster than the industry average in the QSM industry database of completed projects (4.4 months vs. 6.4 industry average). Even more remarkable is the defect rate, which is 75% lower than the industry norm.
The results come from analyzing agile practices of one programming community in Columbus, Ohio by the Columbus Agile Productivity Benchmark Project. This project is conducted by QSM Associates in tandem with the Central Ohio Agile Association (COHAA) and the Columbus Executive Agile SIG. It provides factual information to their participants, helping them to answer questions about addressing development projects schedules and budgets:
Survey participants are able to see their own results contrasted with the industry at large; and, the Columbus community also compared the regional results in the aggregate with worldwide data.
It is important to point out that not all participants in studies like this — even if they are committed to Agile development — may achieve such extreme results, because not all participants will have adopted all of the best practices that lead to success.
The study of agile practices provides insight in the results of outsourcing, and emphasizes the importance of measurements in outsourcing:
Chief among the results is the fact that programming teams that are co-located tend to be more effective than those where expertise is geographically divided. This is one of the facts that have lead to the reassessment of outsourcing software development.
(…) Recognizing one of the main reasons that outsourcing can be so risky — the lack of assurance or common expectations on quality and productivity — can help make outsourcing more successful. That is, measurement/benchmarking helps both sides set — and thus agree on — more realistic expectations.
Results of agile projects have also been published by David F. Rico in his paper on “The Business Value of Using Agile Project Management for New Products and Services”.
An early study of agile project management showed 10% to 20% improvements in revenues, quality, and cycle time, and 54% reductions in costs. Another early study showed 50% to 60% reductions in time to market and costs, along with 10 times higher development flexibility.
The paper from David includes data from several studies on the results of agile project management:
Agile project management benefits come from many factors that are too numerous to mention here. The primary drivers are increased productivity and quality. Productivity comes from its streamlined nature and quality from its uncompromising discipline. However, its real power comes from its adaptability to change, collaborative nature, and focus on bottom line business results for the marketplace.
In the book “The Economics of Software Quality”, Capers Jones and Olivier Bonsignour investigated the results of agile practices on software quality from:
- Agile Embedded Users: Having user representatives in teams
- Scrum Sessions: Sprints, stand-ups and Test Driven Development
- Agile Testing: Sprints with black box test cases
The goal of their book is:
(…) To quantify the factors that influence software quality and provide readers with enough information for them to predict and measure quality levels of their projects and applications.
The article “Agile Practices with the Highest Return on Investment” on InfoQ gives several examples to calculate the ROI from agile, and discusses the benefits of agile practices.
Studies like “Columbus Discovering Agile” help to objectively benchmark performance, and to decide on goals and directions:
The study […] is providing the Columbus Agile community with valuable information on factual patterns on productivity and quality, instead of just anecdotal claims. Moreover, the data helps answer questions about addressing development projects schedules and budgets.
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