A study has shown that software projects that use agile methods are 268 percent more likely to fail than those that do not.
“Agile practices are 268% more likely to fail”… WHAT A LOT…
While the research commissioned by consultancy Engprax can be seen as nothing more than a thinly veiled plug for the Impact Engineering approach, it raises the suspicion that the Agile Manifesto may not be all it's cracked up to be.
The study's fieldwork was conducted between May 3 and May 7 with 600 software engineers (250 in the UK and 350 in the US) participating. A prominent statistic was that projects with clear requirements documented before development started were 97 percent more likely to succeed. By comparison, one of the four pillars of the Agile Manifesto is "Working software over extensive documentation."
According to the study, having a specification in place before development begins can result in a 50 percent increase in success, and ensuring that requirements match the real problem can lead to a 57 percent increase.
