Barriers to using agile software development practices within the medical device industry

Non-safety critical software developers have been reaping the benefits of adopting agile practices for a number of years. However, developers of safety critical software often have concerns about adopting Agile practices. Through a literature review this research identified the perceived barriers to following agile practices when developing medical device software. A questionnaire based survey was also conducted with medical device software developers in Ireland to determine what the actual barriers are to adopting agile practices. In addition a comparison is performed between the perceived and actual barriers and the results are reported.