Measuring and evaluating the effects of agile transformation in software organizations: An empirical study

Many organizations have started to change their working process from plan-driven to agile in order to leverage the benefits of agile transformation, so it is frequently discussed how adopting agile methodologies affect software organizations. Measuring effects of agile transformation is important in terms of evaluating and understanding to what extent agile methods contribute to software organizations. In this study a set of information needs and metrics, which are designed to measure the effects of agile transformation in a medium-sized software organization that has been going through agile transformation, are described and applied in the organization and the measurement results are shared. While defining the base of measurement, firstly related studies in literature are examined, and metrics derived from these studies are grouped by the measured entities of business, process, product, and resource. The information needs for measuring effects of agile transformation are determined by the guidance of ISO 15939 standard for Software Measurement Process, and then are aligned with the metrics compiled from the literature. Information indicators and associated measurement constructs (derived and base metrics, measurement functions etc.) that enable measuring impacts of agile transformation are described from business, process, product and resource perspectives. As a result, the effects of agile transformation in the software organization using these information needs are measured and the results of measurement are evaluated. The evaluation results show that the agile transformation affected the software organization positively in general.