The Organizational Changes Required and the Challenges Involved in Adopting Agile Methodologies in Traditional Software Development Organizations

Agile software development methodologies have recently gained widespread popularity. The Agile Manifesto states valuing "individuals, and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following apian" by M. Fowler (2005). Different organizations are transforming their traditional software development practices into agile ones. There have been several disparate anecdotal evidences in support of the changes required and the challenges involved. In this paper, we provide a consolidated picture of the important changes required and the challenges involved in such transformation projects. We also provide a conceptual framework that would help managers for focusing on the important changes required and the challenges involved in agile software development projects.