The success rate of software developmentprojects can be increased by using a methodology that is adequate for thespecific characteristics of those projects. Over time a wide range of software developmentmethodologies has been elaborated, therefore choosing one of them is not aneasy task. Our research reviews the main categories of developmentmethodologies and then focuses, for a detailed study, on three of them: RationalUnified Process (RUP), Rapid Application Development (RAD) and ExtremeProgramming (XP). For each methodology it is presented the structure ofsoftware life cycle, there are identified the situations in which themethodology can be used successfully and the situations in which it tends tofail. Based on the literature review of software development methodologies andon a series of surveys, published by different researchers, exploring the stateof practices in this field, we have identified a number of factors thatinfluence the decision of choosing the most adequate development methodologyfor a specific project. The methodologies that are subject of this study areevaluated in relation to these factors to find out which developmentmethodology is the most adequate depending on the level of the factors for aspecific project. The results of our research are useful for the developers byhelping them to identify what software development methodology can be used withsuccess for a specific project.