Context: There has been a substantial growth of organizations adoptingAgile software development methodologies for various reasons. The requirementof improving the software processes with respect to traditional softwaredevelopment was clear and evident for different reasons. But the need forSoftware Process Improvements (SPI) in Agile context is unclear and thechallenges faced during the implementation of SPI in Agile software developmentare quite ambiguous. These two issues lie as a motivation for theobjectives of our study. Agile being a flexible way of software development,having a non-flexible framework is almost incompatible for implementingSPI in Agile software development. This acts as an inducement for buildingup our final objective.

Objectives: The objectives of this research is to identify the need of Agile-SPI in software industry, challenges faced in implementing Agile-SPI atorganizational level and at team level and finally propose an approach forimplementing Agile-SPI based on improving practices.

Methods: In order to achieve the objectives of our research, we initiallycarried out a survey, later cross verified and validated the data obtained inthe surveys through interviews. Literature review was performed to gainknowledge over the background and related work.

Results: A total of 34 responses were obtained through survey. Theseresponses obtained through survey are further cross verified and validatedthrough 9 interviews. The data obtained through survey has been analyzedthrough descriptive statistics and the data obtained through interviews wasanalyzed using thematic coding.

Conclusions: The need of Agile-SPI and the challenges faced by the organizationsand teams while implementing SPI in Agile software developmentwere identified. A total of 16 needs of Agile-SPI, 30 challenges faced byorganization and 37 challenges faced by team were drawn from survey andinterviews conducted. Finally, a conceptual framework has been proposedto implement SPI in Agile environment based on improving practices.