Applying governance principles to improve agile project success

Project governance forms part of the organisational governance structure. Within this governance structure, corporate governance is the highest level. This ensures that the board and management exercise due diligence in their roles and enforce the set of policies and procedures that was established as part of the business strategy. They also need to ensure that the business strategy and direction is implemented by managers and all stakeholders. Organisations that are compliant in corporate governance had better success in implementing Information Technology (IT) governance as well as project governance. IT governance ensures the alignment of IT's strategy with the organisations' strategy and vision. There is a positive relation between IT governance and IT projects that implement the IT strategy and the management thereof. One type of IT project is an Agile project which focuses on software development. Agile software development projects are gaining popularity due to various benefits. But the adherence to governance principles within these type of projects is a concern for IT project managers and organisations at large. Six identified principles could be used to implement agile governance but it excludes project governance. These six principles should be part of Agile governance per se but should also be incorporated into project governance and comply with project management standards, phases and processes. This paper provides evidence that agile software development projects are more successful when governance principles are applied and adhered to. A questionnaire consisting of 26 questions was circulated among a purposive sample of potential respondents. The population consisted of agile software development projects which were completed within a financial services organisation. Project managers of agile software development projects were requested to provide information on the projects they had been involved in. Data regarding 320 software development projects of various durations, budgets, and levels of complexity was received and analyzed. The purpose of the questionnaire was to determine whether a positive correlation exists between successful agile software development projects and compliance to project governance principles. The results indicated that even novice project managers with less than six months' agile experience, already achieved better results than those using the traditional waterfall methodology. Agile software development projects are still more successful when such projects were initiated using a business case and not just an inception deck. Therefore, an inception deck should be used in conjunction with a business case to enhance the visibility of project deliverables and ensure the agile team is aligned to the projects goals and objectives. The results demonstrated that when project managers apply all the agile principles and "ceremonies" prescribed by the Agile Methodology, software development projects were between 39% - 47% more successful. We concluded that the success rate of Agile software development projects are not dependent on project governance but that the success is dependent on the governance of the Agile framework. Agile projects mainly fail because of the lack of management support, lack of training and experience, little support for culture transformation and adoption throughout the organisation. These aspects are directly related to agile governance principles that are not complied with. The survey results clearly showed that the success rate of Agile projects were not determined by applying traditional project governance, but rather the governing of Agile processes and principles. It could also be established that the success rate of agile projects is dependent on the experience of the team, the support from their stakeholders and the level of agile knowledge the team members acquired.