Investigating Crucial Factors of Agile Software Development through Composite Approach AbdulHafeez Muhammad 1 , Ansar Siddique 2,* , Quadri Noorulhasan Naveed 3 , Usman Saleem 1 , Mohd Abul Hasan 4 and Basit Shahzad 5 1 Department of Computer Science, Bahria Uuniversity Lahore Campus, Punjab, 54600, Pakistan 2 Department of Software Engineering, University of Gujrat, Punjab, 50700, Pakistan 3 College of Computer Science, King Khalid University, Abha, 62529, Saudi Arabia 4 Department of Civil Engineering, King Khalid University, Abha, 62529, Saudi Arabia 5 Department of Software Engineering, National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan  Corresponding Author: Ansar Siddique. Email: dr.ansarsiddique@uog.edu.pk Received: 20 September 2020; Accepted: 12 October 2020 Abstract: The major emphasis of Software Engineering (SE) discipline is to pro- duce successful software systems. The success of software projects is estimated through quadruple measures including budget, cost, scope, and quality. To meet this aim of SE, several software development processes are presented in the literature. Such processes are categorized into two different methodologies which are known as traditional and agile software development methodologies. The issue with tradi- tional software development methodologies is that they had not shown any remark- able progress towards the fundamental goal of SE. Consequently, software development organizations have started to adopt agile methodologies in the pursuit of successful software development. However, agile adoption does not come without challenges that vary from one context to another. Therefore, it is necessary to figure out the key factors of agile software development for successful project outcomes. In the wake of such need, this study investigated the Critical Success Factors (CSFs), categorized and prioritized them through a mixed-method approach. Such an approach was based on the detailed literature review and Delphi method accompanied with Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) technique. Twelve CSFs were revealed and categorized into people, organization and technical dimensions. Among these factors, ‘team capability’ was found the most significant factor where ‘culture’ was revealed as the least significant factor. The findings of the study would be pro- mising for agile software development that is carried on in the local software industry. Keywords: Critical success factors; agile methodology; software development; analytical hierarchical process 1 Introduction Software development is carried on using two kinds of methodologies namely traditional vs. agile software development methodologies [1]. Former methodologies encompass heavyweight characteristics This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing DOI:10.32604/iasc.2021.014427 Article ech T Press Science