| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to investigate and analyze challenges associated with contracting, subcontracting, estimation process, risk management and success measurement. Qualitative method was applied in this study. Questionnaire was designed and 40 agile professionals were contacted for interview but received responses from fourteen agile professionals only. In today’scompetitive market, software development projects are facing difficulty to get funded, therefore demands for shorter investment periods, faster time-to-market, and increased agility require new, radical software development approaches towards contracting and estimation. These competitive market pressures has posed may challenges and requires new insights into contracting and estimation processes. Risk management in agile projects must be done so that agile project management is suitable for projects with volatile requirements. The result of the study was that Time and Material is most widely used contract. Another finding was that subcontracting is being widely used in the agile companies. This study also found out that planning poker was most widely used estimation technique, other estimation techniques that are used commonly includes parametric estimate, expert judgment (Delphi), analogy / comparison estimating, threepoint estimation, work breakdown structure +weighted effort estimation in hours. It is also found that everyone in team were involved in estimation process while customer is not involved in this process in most of the companies. We found out that risk management in agile companies is done same like waterfall approaches. It is also found out that as opposed to some literature, agile methods are highly suitable for large projects. Perception of success varies from stakeholder to stakeholder but common measurement is based on the attributes of quality, cost, scope andtimeliness. At the end of study, list of recommendations are given to combat the challenges agile professionals are facing. It is recommended that project should be delivered in iterations and customer should be given shutdown option in case he don’t want to continue the project. It is also recommended that careful considerations should be given to subcontracting issues identified in research before going for it. It is found agile is ideal for large scale project. It is recommended to use mix of agile and waterfall where suitable. These finding implicates the need to study the application of list of recommendations presented at end of study. | nb_NO |
