Succeeding with Agile software development

The focus of Agile software development has been on methods and practices. How to take the methods effectively in use has received less attention. Especially in large organization it is not trivial to take agile methods in use. Based on the experiences, a life cycle model that describes phases in a software process improvement project deploying an agile method to an individual project was developed. The model defines the phases and the key decision points in the improvement project. It also defines some alternative processes for projects in different situations. The main benefit of the model is that it gives the big picture of the agile method deployment project. The model helps to understand which steps are needed for initially deploying an agile method and continuously improving the process.