Investigating Software Development Methodologies and Practices in Software Industry in Tanzania

The last few years have seen a growing development of software industry in East Africa and Tanzania in particular. The software industry has contributed up to 40% of the economic growth in the past 10 years with the number of registered firms increasing yearly. Despite these developments, few studies have investigated the software development methodologies and practices that have been applied in the software industry and how they affect the success or failure of the software projects. This study investigated software development activities in 18 firms to determine to what extent the software development methods are being adopted and the factors influencing the selection of such methodologies. The study used questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and documentary review involving 54 developers and project managers from 18 software firms in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study found that the majority of software firms have been adopting traditional software development methodologies accounting to 72% of 79 studied software products. Specifically, amongst 51 software products developed using traditional software methodology, nearly half of the software products adopted waterfall model. Moreover, agile methodologies and other iterative methods are rarely adopted in the software industry. The implications of the results are discussed.