The use and effectiveness of system development methodologies in mobile application development

Abstract

System development methodologies (SDMs) have been in use since 1970 (Avison & Fitzgerald, 2006). Mobile application development is a new direction in system development. Organizations need high quality mobile applications to provide them with strategic advantages. This study aimed to determine the use and effectiveness of system development methodologies in mobile application development. In order to achieve this aim the following objectives had to be achieved: - The challenges faced by companies that are currently developing mobile applications had to be investigated. - Different system development methodologies that are available for mobile application development, for example Mobile-D, MASAM (Mobile Application Software based on Agile Methodology) and GMA (Generic Mobile Application) had to be identified. - The research had to investigate if system development methodologies are being used for mobile application development in the IT industry. - The success of mobile application development had to be determined. - The suitability of current system development methodologies for mobile application development had to be evaluated. This research was performed within the positivistic research paradigm by means of a survey. Data collection was done via questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, Reliability and Correlation coefficients were used as data analysis methods. The most important challenges identified are usability, user interface design, a need for system development methodology, security, involvement of different teams and version control of a project. The least important challenges were unrealistic expectations, data intensive applications, separate testing for different platforms, automated testing support, utility, different language code bases, the entertainment factor, fragmentation between devices, platforms, testing and back-end issues. 60% of the respondents are using a system development methodology. It is surprising that 54/180 respondents use traditional system development methodologies. It is interesting that system development methodologies developed for mobile application development are also used and some mobile application development methodologies are not used at all. They are not following the SDM strictly. The successes of mobile application and "delivered on time" indicated a medium relationship with "strictness" of use of SDM. If we use a system development methodology strictly we can improve the success of mobile application and we can deliver the project on time.