An Approach for Prioritizing Agile Practices for Adaptation

Agile software development approaches offer a strong alternative to the traditional plan-driven methodologies that have not been able to warrant successfulness of the software projects. However, the move toward Agile is often hampered by the wealth of alternative practices that are accompanied by numerous success or failure stories. Clearly, the formal methods for choosing most suitable practices are lacking. In this chapter, we present an overview of this problem and propose an approach for prioritization of available practices in accordance to the particular circumstances. The proposal combines ideas from Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) decision-making technique, cost-value analysis, and Rule-Description-Practice (RDP) technique. Assumption that such approach could facilitate the Agile adaptation process was supported by the case study of the approach illustrating the process of choosing most suitable Agile practices within a real-life project.