A Preliminary Study of the Adoption of Agile Software Development Methods in Jamaica: Students’ Perspectives

Studies of more than eight thousand information systems (IS) projects revealed that most project failures involve people problems. Five of the top six reasons for project failure are rooted in communication problems between the development teams and the customer. Agile software development methods seek to address this challenge by relying on people and their creativity rather than on processes. Research has demonstrated that adopting agile methods in software development can improve the management of the development process and customer relationships. As a result, this approach to software development is becoming very popular. However, there is an appeal in the literature for more empirical studies of agile software development, especially in regards to its adoption. In addition, there is relatively little research in this domain in Jamaica. Hence, this study explored the adoption and benefits of agile methods in Jamaican software development firms. Preliminary indications of the study revealed that 52% of the firms surveyed are using agile methods, with Scrum being the main method. The main benefit being derived from these agile methods is improved customer satisfaction. These findings provide the basis to support the claim for future research to explore the underlying causes for the average uptake of agile methods in Jamaican firms.