Success Factors of Agile Software Development

Agile software development methodologies have recently gained widespread popularity. The Agile Manifesto states valuing “individuals, and interactions over processes, and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan” (Fowler, 2002). However, little is known about how effective and efficient agile practices are over the traditional methodologies, and what their success factors are. There have been several disparate anecdotal evidences about the success of software development projects using agile methodologies. In this paper we provide a consolidated picture of the different predictors of agile software development success. This is intended to be a review paper. We have also presented a conceptual framework illustrating the relationships between the different predictor variables and agile software development success.