Acceptance of an agile methodology in the public sector

Abstract

Software development methodologies have been growing up and suffering a maturation during the past years. The older methods, called traditional methods, are gradually being substitute by the new agile practices. Despite that, in the public sector, that evolution is not as clear as in the private sector. The lack of information regarding the usage of these new methods in the public sector take us to the following question: In what conditions, agile methods, are the best solution to software development in the public sector? These types of organizations have a culture and a modus operandi very different from the private sector, that can make the implementation of these methodologies a challenge. The goal here is to present the process of implementation of a specific agile methodology based in Scrum, in a particular Portuguese public company and test its acceptance.