U.S. DoD contractor 24 years of experience B.S. Computer Science M.S. Software Engineering

2. U.S. DoD contractor • 24 years of experience • B.S. Computer Science • M.S. Software Engineering • D.M. Information Tech. (2007) • Four books and numerous articles • Worked in Japan, U.S., and Europe • Some experiences with agile methods

3. The purpose of this study is to determine if the use of agile methods improves the quality of ecommerce websites • The goal of this study is to develop an instrument to measure the use of agile methods and ecommerce website quality • The objective of this study is to examine the links between the factors of agile methods and ecommerce website quality

4. A software method is an approach to the analysis, design, construction, and implementation of an information system • An agile method is a process of injecting customer feedback into a stream of working software versions to converge on a solution • A website’s quality is the extent to which it facilitates efficient and effective shopping, purchasing, and delivery of its products

5. The Internet is a powerful communication medium for free market-style business transactions • The Internet shifted the balance of power away from industrial age organizations in favor of Internet firms • The Internet presents formidable challenges for the development of Internet products and services • Some use principles of flexible manufacturing, lean development, and adaptation to turbulent markets • Other firms continue to use methods based on principles pioneered at the turn of the 20th century • Our challenge is to help determine if the use of agile methods is more effective than traditional ones

6. IT is 2nd major contributor to U.S. economy • There are 5 million IT workers in the U.S. • Today, there are over 100 million websites • Top 500 U.S. firms spend $186B on IT • U.S. ecommerce revenues are about $2T • $1.82T is B2B • $130B is B2C • There are about 250,000 U.S. IT projects • 180,000 U.S. IT projects are failing each year • 165,000 use agile methods to help reduce failures

7. • 1982 - Prototyping (Naumann) • 1986 - Joint application design (IBM) • 1987 - Rapid systems design (Gane) • 1986 - Spiral (Boehm) • 1991 - Cooperative design (Greenbaum) • 1995 - Sense and response (Randall) • 1996 - Ecosystems (Moore) • 1997 - Probes (Brown) • 1998 - Experimentation (Thomke) • 1998 - Internet time (Cusumano) • 1928 - Organismic Biology (Bertalanffy) • 1949 - Cybernetics (Wiener) • 1966 - Learning by doing (Levhari) • 1969 - Involvement (Fitch) • 1971 - Participatory design (Milne) • 1975 - Iterative (Basili) • 1976 - Evolutionary (Bauer) • 1977 - Double-loop learning (Argyris) • 1978 - Incremental (Cave) • 1982 - Adaptive organization (Anderson)

8. Cheap personal computers • Standard operating systems • Easy-to-use Internet browsers • Powerful programming languages • Explosion of computer programmers • Real-time software development cycles • Internet shopping (electronic commerce)

12. Early studies based on primitive models • Agile methods matured after early studies • Later studies were either • Too narrow (e.g., pair programming) • Too specific (e.g., extreme programming) • Too broad (e.g., every conceivable practice) • Gaps in literature and need for new study • Theory covering essential factors • General-purpose measurement model • Original measurement data on agile methods

18. Consulted with numerous experts • Analyzed 100s of papers/books (3 yrs) • Used a lot of suggestions and changes • Presented research at major conference • Solicited expert feedback on final models • Conducted cognitive interviews w/experts • Numerous refinements to survey instrument • Prototype surveys • Multiple pilot surveys • Multiple-phased surveys

19. Type of service • Online service (e.g., freeonlinesurveys.com) • Free trial-period, inexpensive, and easy-to-use • Source of data • Clients of big consulting firm (e.g., QAI) • Patrons of popular journal (e.g., Dr. Dobbs) • Assisted by Scott Ambler and Jon Erickson (editor) • Method of administration • 1st round from email survey (50 respondents) • 2nd round from editor’s blog (100 respondents) • 3rd round from editor’s newsletter (100 respondents) • Type of survey and data collection • Respondents mostly self-selected • Respondents were provided incentives

26. Agile survey questions exhibit reliability • Customer feedback data indicate issues • Flexibility variables need some refinement • “All” 20 agile/benefit variables correlated • Aggregate agile/quality factors correlated • Individual agile/quality factors not correlated • Population building websites is too small • Should have used generalized quality model • Simpler research design could improve results

27. Choose large/slow industry to study • Use cognitive interviews/pilot surveys • Use online survey ‘sites to collect data • Use web blogs instead of email surveys • Develop small/simple theory and survey • Utilize very simple single-phase surveys • Present minor incentives to respondents • Ask for a lot of help from industry leaders

28. Published three items • Conference paper • Journal article • Textbook chapter • Designed a unique general-purpose • Conceptual theory of agile methods • Measurement instrument for agile methods • Collected original data and measurements • Collected original data using main instrument • Identified/used best-of-breed web quality model • Established a good foundation for future research