Controlling Change on Agile Software Development Projects

The importance of effective change control when developing software is well known throughout the Information Technology (IT) industry. Any software development project will deal with various forms of change throughout its lifetime, and without effective change control processes in place changes can lead to unforeseen, and often negative, consequences for an organization (8). Yet despite this, change will almost always occur, and should therefore be anticipated. The change control processes in place on a software development project vary depending on the software development methodology being utilized (3). Agile software development methodologies have become increasingly popular in recent years, with eighty-eight percent of respondents in a 2013 survey stating that their organization was practicing Agile (1). According to Winter (1), Scrum is the most popular of the various Agile methodologies. A primary motivation for switching to Agile methodologies such as Scrum has been to better manage changes that were always inevitable, yet difficult to manage when utilizing traditional software development methodologies, such as the Waterfall methodology (4). As more and more organizations transition to the Agile Scrum methodology, they must ensure processes are in place to properly control all forms of change. This includes changes that fall within the scope of a single project, as well as changes with a scope that extends across the enterprise. This paper explores various forms of change control and provides strategies and methods for effectively controlling and managing all forms of change on Agile software development projects.