  Agile methods provide an organization or a team the flexibility to adopt a
selected subset of principles and practices based on their culture, their
values, and the types of systems that they develop. More specifically, every
organization or team implements a customized agile method, tailored to better
accommodate its needs. However, the extent to which a customized method
supports the organizational objectives, or rather the 'goodness' of that method
is questionable. Existing agile assessment approaches focus on a comparative
analysis, or are limited in scope and application. In this research, we propose
a structured, systematic and comprehensive approach to assess the 'goodness' of
agile methods. We examine an agile method based on (1) its adequacy, (2) the
capability of the organization to support the adopted principles and practices
specified by the method, and (3) the method's effectiveness. We propose the
Objectives, Principles and Practices (OPP) Framework to guide our assessment.
The Framework identifies (1) objectives of the agile philosophy, (2) principles
that support the objectives, (3) practices that are reflective of the
principles, (4) the linkages between the objectives, principles and practices,
and (5) indicators for each practice to assess the effectiveness of the
practice and the extent to which the organization supports its implementation.
In this document, we discuss our solution approach, preliminary results, and
future work.
