Intentions to continue using agile methods

What is it about?

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence team members of software development projects to continue using agile methodologies after their initial adoption. The research focuses on large-scale projects in the banking sector and uses the expectation-confirmation model (ECM) as a conceptual framework. The research model is tested by employing partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings validate the model and report statistically significant positive associations between all constructs. The results suggest that confirmation of expectations regarding perceived usefulness and satisfaction are key determinants of agile continuance intentions in software development large-scale projects. The study has both theoretical and practical implications and calls for further research in the field of agile post-adoption.

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Photo by Parabol | The Agile Meeting Toolbox on Unsplash

Photo by Parabol | The Agile Meeting Toolbox on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The contribution of this study is threefold. First, this research tries to fill the literature gap regarding the empirical examination of the post-adoption of agile software development methods from the team members’ viewpoint, using a causal-prediction modeling perspective. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on the antecedents of agile methods continuance intentions from the team members’ perspective and sets a baseline on how ECM can be applied in the context of agile methods acceptance after initial use. Second, this study focuses on large-scale agile projects in the banking industry, which needs to quickly develop automated systems in order to reach the competition against fintech companies (Munteanu and Dragos, 2021). Since no previous research has focused on the intentions of banking team members to continue using ASD methods, this study contributes to the literature on banking agile SDPs. Third, our research proposes guidelines to companies and project leaders who decide to move from traditional to agile software development methods, suggesting that the confirmation of the team members’ expectations, along with the perceived usefulness and their satisfaction from using ASD methodologies will influence their post-acceptance level.