A4 Article in conference proceedings
Empirical Evidence on Benefits of Agile Methods : How Much We Really Know? (2025)

Rytkönen, J., Mikkonen, T., & Mäkitalo, N. (2025). Empirical Evidence on Benefits of Agile Methods : How Much We Really Know?. In D. Pfahl, J. G. Huerta, J. Klünder, & H. Anwar (Eds.), Product-Focused Software Process Improvement : 25th International Conference, PROFES 2024, Tartu, Estonia, December 2–4, 2024, Proceedings (pp. 317-324). Springer Nature Switzerland. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78386-9_21

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Rytkönen, Jussi; Mikkonen, Tommi; Mäkitalo, Niko

Parent publication: Product-Focused Software Process Improvement : 25th International Conference, PROFES 2024, Tartu, Estonia, December 2–4, 2024, Proceedings

Parent publication editors: Pfahl, Dietmar; Huerta, Javier Gonzalez; Klünder, Jil; Anwar, Hina

Place and date of conference: Tartu, Estonia, 2.-4.12.2024

ISBN: 978-3-031-78385-2

eISBN: 978-3-031-78386-9

Journal or series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science

ISSN: 0302-9743

eISSN: 1611-3349

Publication year: 2025

Publication date: 27/11/2024

Pages range: 317-324

Number of pages in the book: 416

Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland

Place of Publication: Cham

Publication country: Switzerland

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-78386-9_21

Publication open access: Not open

Publication channel open access: 

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/99071

Abstract

Agile methods are widely adopted by the industry. Their promise is that the development primarily targets at delivering value to end users in each increment, in contrast to following a pre-made plan. At the same time, the expectation is that as the developers get feedback from the end users early on, also quality of the resulting systems meets the expectation. In this paper, we study the amount of empirical evidence on the benefits of agile methods that has been scientifically confirmed. The goal is to understand perceived benefits and downsides of agile development, as well as the a time line of these studies. As the research method, we have performed a systematic literature review, following the established practices. The results indicate that we have far less empirical results than one would expect, based on the popularity of agile software development.

Keywords: agile methods; software design; software development

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

VIRTA submission year: 2025

Preliminary JUFO rating: 1