Agile software development practices: evolution, principles, and criticisms

Purpose – Agile software development is an emerging approach in software engineering, initially proposed and promoted by a group of 17 software professionals who practice a set of “lightweight” methods, and share a common set of values of software development. They consolidated their thoughts, and defined these methods as “agile”. The approaches are based on experiences and best practices from the past by the above‐mentioned group of 17 software professionals. The purpose of this article is to outline the history and evolution of agile software development practices, their principles, and the criticisms as reported by the software development community. Design/methodology/approach – A comprehensive literature review was undertaken to do this research. Findings – Based on the literature review, this paper provides a comprehensive document that helps the practitioners working in the area of the agile software development. Originality/value – This article will provide comprehensive material for the researchers in the area of agile software development. It will also be very useful for the practitioners practicing software development in the area of agile software development.