[Investigating Effectiveness of Agile Practices in Outsourcing Software Projects]



COPY RIGHT

“The copyright of this dissertation belongs to the author under the terms of the UK Copyright acts as amended by University of West London regulations. Due acknowledgement must always be made of the use of any materials contained in, or derived from this thesis”.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am heartily thankful to my supervisor Dr. Bruce Laurie, whose encouragement, supervision and support from the preliminary to the concluding level enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject how provided friendly atmosphere which made to approach him easily. I would also thank my module leader 'Jose Abdelnour Nocera' for his support throughout my time at University of West London. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my grandparents and parents. Their support, encouragement, quiet patience and unwavering love were undeniably of my life having been built. I thank my friends, who encouraged and supported during my studies.

DECLARATION

This research is my own unaided work and I take an oath that the content of this research has not been submitted earlier for any educational work. Furthermore I take an oath that this research represents my own ideas and not that of university.

ABSTRACT

In this study we try to explore the concept of Investigating Effectiveness of Agile Practices in Outsourcing Software Projects in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on Agile Practices and its relation with outsourcing. The aim of this study is to get an idea about how it related companies apply agile practices in out sourcing process. Small and mediums sized projects both are included in this study. This study will help in suggesting the best option for agile practice implementation. The researcher used mixed methodology and did extensive research to reach to a meaningful conclusion.

Table of Contents

COPY RIGHT2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS3

DECLARATION4

ABSTRACT5

Chapter 1: Introduction7

Background of the Study8

Outsourcing9

Rationale9

Aim10

Objectives10

Chapter 2: Literature Review11

History and Evolution of Agile Software Development11

Agile Manifesto11

Principles of Agile Software Development11

Criticisms of Agile Software Development13

Agile Management Methods15

Leanness, Flexibility and Agility15

Flexibility16

Leanness16

Agile Systems Development17

Information Technology Outsourcing18

Outsourcing Literature18

Chapter 3: Research Model23

Process Model23

Qualitative Research Method24

The Research Approach26

Data Gathering29

Interviews29

Typical Interview Questions30

Questionnaires30

Agile Development Case Study31

Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Discussion33

Agile Process Benefits33

Outsourcing Benefits33

Incremental Benefits of either Agile or Offshore Team34

Traditional vs. Agile Project Time Line35

Agile management and client expectation35

Agile management and vendor expectation36

Agile Practices and Trust37

Experience Report38

Agile Software Development Project Success40

Case Study Analysis44

Prototype Analysis53

Prototype Setup54

Prototyping-based, Agile Requirement Analysis54

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations56

Future Work58

References61

Chapter 1: Introduction

The delegation of a task to an entity which is outside the mother organization scope is called outsourcing. On the other hand, the off shoring process is basically assigning a job to a destination which is outside the geographic limited of the organization country and it's basically aims to reduce cost. Both the manufacturing sector as well as the service sector practices off shoring. Off shoring is practiced by many countries but china and India are the players of off shoring. China practices off shoring on the manufacturing side and India practices it in the service sector. It is assumed that china will compete ...