Use of methodologies: an empirical analysis of their impact on the economics of the development process

Despite the increase in the number of commercially available development methodologies, there are still many projects where none is used. This problem can be attributed to the fact that many practitioners ignore the beneficial role of using such methodologies to both the quality of the end product and the economics of the development process. This paper, which is the second of a series, reports on a survey of information systems development practice carried out to provide evidence about the effect of using development methodologies on the economics of the development process. Data concerning 72 projects, obtained through a mail survey within the UK are analysed. The focus of the analysis is to provide evidence of how the use of methodologies affect economic parameters, such as time, cost, effort, number of people involved and outputs (in terms of requirements captured). The results show that the use of any methodology is generally proved to be a better option than using no methodology. However, the use of methodologies is not a panacea but specific methodologies can help towards achieving better results in specific areas.