Identifying Bottlenecks in Agile Software Development using Theory of Constraints Principles

Abstract

Theory of Constraints is an analytical tool. A theoretical model for identifying bottlenecks in agile software development methods namely Lean software development, Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, and Feature Driven Development (FDD) is identified and comparitative analysis is done. Identifying bottlenecks narrows down possible issues in agile software development implementations. These practices are used as surgical tools for various development models to be deployed for software development system. This paper summarizes Targeting with TOC, Eliminating the Constraint and Elevating the Constraint with Agile Principles and Practices. Theory of Constraint is concluded as the best parameter for improvement of development model.Keywords: Agile Software Development, Bottleneck, Extreme Programming (XP), Feature Driven Development (FDD), Lean Software Development, Scrum, Theory of Constraints (TOC)