Comments on "Factors that impact implementing a system development methodology" [with reply]

In this correspondence, we point out some of the major shortcomings that we have discovered in the article titled "Factors that Impact Implementing a System Development Methodology" by Roberts et al. (1998). The article was published in the August 1998 issue of IEEE Transactions of Software Engineering. The article contains multiple problems that, if not pointed out, have the potential to lead to a state of confusion among researchers and practitioners alike. In particular, the article has the following problems: (1) The authors claim that the lack of theoretical basis for their factors is due to the fact that SDM implementation has never been studied in the literature. In fact, there is a multitude of studies very similar to that of Roberts at al. (2) The study does not meet commonly accepted standards for factor analysis procedures such as a minimum sample size ratio of 5:1, a ratio mandated even by the authors' own citations. This and other factor analysis problems lead to results that are questionable. In order to make the published article more useful to researchers and practitioners, this paper corrects some of the inaccuracies in the Roberts et al.'s article by: providing a brief literature review of some articles that are similar to the Roberts et al., study; and noting some of the technical inaccuracies in the data analysis procedures used by the authors so that the results can be interpreted in the proper context.